Strategy Avenue

booth fair idea

it seems like lately most of my energy has been directed in Laura Novak photography, which seems to happen based on the season. when the conventions and speaking commitments are happening in the wintertime, I'm thinking more about Strategy Avenue and during the spring and fall I'm thinking more about the photography business. which explains the recent absence on this blog but know that it means I'm just busy creating more cool ideas to eventually share with you :)

for example, last week our entire staff packed up the office and set up a booth at a local mother's day market in a very nice neighborhood in our area. normally I'm not a proponent of these things but based on the demographic attending the show and our target market I felt as though it would be excellent visibility. fortunately I was right and the attendance booked us several very qualified customers each day.

because a percentage of the fair's proceeds go to charity, we ordered several lower-priced retail items such as frames and albums as well as having photography packages available as gift certificates. postcards were placed inside of the frames and albums so that when the items were given as gifts the recipient saw our marketing materials.

in addition to small tables of retail items, i strung fishing wire between the tent poles and hung 16x20 prints back to back to show off our photography. finally, volunteer clients staffed our booth along with our employees in order to have walking testimonials in the event an inquiry came about.

overall, it was a great turnout over the three days despite one day of rainy weather. We went well above expectations with both retail product sales as well as bookings!

simple simply sells better

One of my resolutions in turning 30 this year is to spend more time living a fun life, enjoying my friends and family and meeting new people. This past weekend John and I traveled to NYC to do just that, spending time with old friends while meeting new ones as well.

While walking through Greenich Village, we came across Pinkberry - which I have heard of from many different people on buzz blogs, magazine articles and TV shows. I really didn't know what it was but decided that with all the press on it I needed to find out.

Come to find out - Pinkberry is a much simpler concept than I thought it was going to be. It's basically plain frozen yogurt with toppings. That's it. They are really yummy, fresh toppings and the yogurt is quite good. But its plain frozen yogurt. With toppings.

While I ate my frozen plain yogurt with coconut and fresh pineapple I began to think 'does simple really sell better?' One might be tempted to think that the store would only do well with 20 different flavors, but with one simple concept Pinkberry was able to really brand itself by being unique.

It seems to me that the simpler you can make your product or service, the easier it is for people to understand what you are selling and purchase it. This applies to:

- overly complicated price lists
- elaborate logos
- wordy marketing pieces
- cluttered looking advertisements
- websites that don't communicate the photographer's strengths right away

What are you doing in your photography business that could be simpler, cleaner, and as a result - easier for customers to buy?

Marketing The Story

The other day I received an email message from a former ad agency (Paragraph) that I used to do some work with....I thought it was worth sharing....

"Marketing isn't about the media. Marketing is about the message. If marketing were just about media, all brands would thrive equally.

The key to thriving in this day and age comes from knowing who you are, doing what you do best, and crafting a compelling story that defines your difference. Your story is your foundation. It's what makes you authentic, and what allows others to believe in and identify with your brand. And when the story is good enough, unique enough, and the experience lives up to it, the story gets passed on. You see; good stories are what resonate. They spread themselves sustainably, with little facilitation or force. And when channeled appropriately, they move within their target audiences, motivating action, and taking your brand further, faster.

With all the tactics to choose from, it's easy to be tempted. Resist. Be deliberate in your every action and interaction. Say no when it doesn't make sense for your brand. It's the most important thing you have.

So, as we say time and time again, focus on your brand, its story, its offering, and its audiences. Then, develop an effective communications strategy that supports your foundation, and select only the tactics and channels that build your brand and strengthen its bond, favorably, not fashionably. And when you do that, you'll find that your story spreads, your momentum builds, and your brand succeeds.

Are you working on developing your story?

ShootQ wants to give you $10,000

I'm very excited to be part of the judging panel for the ShootQ Grant. This year the awesome people at ShootQ be awarding a $10,000 grant to a photographer to fund a project that raises public awareness about an important social, environmental or economic issue.

Click here to learn more information on how to apply!

reality marketing

So yes, I will admit publicly that every now and then when I need to kill some brain cells I pay a little visit to Perez Hilton. There, I said it.

So now that we have that out of the way - I was reading Perez Hilton's website the other day when I saw, for the tenth time, a banner ad that says "I hate Sarah Marshall." So I take the bait, click on the ad and at first it seems to lead me to a spiteful blog written by a very bitter, heartbroken man wealthy enough to buy banner ads on Perez Hilton. As I'm reading this very convincing, blogger designed blog complete with ameture youtube videos and bad photography, I'm thinking things like:

- well no wonder she dumped him, he seems like a total jerk
- I hope he learns to manage his finances better in the future than buying expensive ads out of bitterness
- how humiliating for Sarah Marshall
- this guy needs some serious mental help
- and probably some grammar and spelling help as well

Fast forward a few weeks and this morning I was watching TV with an advertisement for a movie called "Forgetting Sarah Marshall."

So. Brilliant.

As we enter into a time where Reality TV ratings soar higher than most other television options, I wonder if this movie advertisement will begin an idea of reality marketing. Some characteristics of 'reality marketing' would be:

- it's cheap: no reason for a copyrighter or expensive website
- it's engaging: there is a reason why people love reality TV - it's very interesting!
- word of mouth: doing something different gives people something to talk about
- it's targeted to a group of people who already love reality TV

So a big kudos to the advertising agency behind "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" for creativity and thinking outside the box into reality marketing.

Image X Workshop

Attention all photographers! This fall I am going to be teaching at a very cool workshop called Image X: a one of a kind photo workshop experience with a group of the world’s leading wedding and portrait photographers set in the historic city of New Orleans. The workshop is a great new concept where a group of photographers get together over a period of two days to offer one-day classes.

So you can choose from myself and anyone from the following list:

Boutwell Studio
Jessica Claire
John Michael Cooper
Gene Higa
Joe Photo
Victor Sizemore
Cherie Steinberg
Jeff & Julia Woods
Lena Hyde
Tamara Lackey
Audrey Woulard

to learn from over a period of two days. There will be very cool events going on in between the classes so you can meet different people and instructors.

The dates are Oct 6th – 8th 2008 and for more details and to sign up, visit the Image X workshop site!

 

Museums studying the customer experience

A big part of business is studying the customer experience. From navigating a website to how a phone prompt sounds, businesses spend countless hours trying to make their shopping experience "wow-ful". By focusing on the experience, many businesses are able to raise their conversion or response rates by several percentage points-the bottom line is by ensuring a great experience, business will be strong and the cash register full.

I visit a blog and receive a newsletter each week from an organization called Good Experience. Their mission is to study the customer experience, user experience, and the human experience.

They have an interesting post this week about the NY Times article on (not Governor Spitzer) Museum.

Some interesting parts of the article were:
"While museum market research has been around for two decades, gathering data about visitors has never been as important, or as sophisticated, as it is now. As museums expand, they need more paying customers to cover ever-increasing costs. And they’re competing for those customers with local shopping malls, movie theaters, even grocery stores."

"Now, besides the reliable techniques — focus groups, exit surveys and mail-in questionnaires — museums are exploring new ways to learn what visitors want. In Detroit, which is spending $158 million on a renovation and gallery reinstallation project to be finished this fall, researchers visited local mothers in their homes to determine how to attract more families to the museum."

Think creatively about how you can research and get feedback on your own customer experience in your business. When you ask for the feedback (i.e. surveys), just make sure you listen.

thank you minneapolis

It's no lie that the midwest has some of the friendliest people in the country. I had such a great time yesterday speaking to a great group at the Twin Cities PPA. Sunday night after I landed, I went to the Mall of America with Amy Zellmer and Michele Nelson from my fantastic, awesome lab WHCC. So fun!

We had a great group on Monday, very enthusiastic and eager to think carefully about their own marketing and business plans.

Thank you to everyone who came out, it was great to meet you and a fantastic first visit to the Twin Cities.

getting by with a little help...

from my friends!

Over the years I have found that of the most challenging aspects to having your own business is that you need to continuously figure out how to be better. In the beginning that is easy, because there is so much to learn and new ideas to implement. But over time as things become more consistent and areas of improvement become less obvious, it's so important to continuously grow as an artist, as a person and as a business. When you don't do this, it's easy for the industry to pass you by leaving you wondering where all your clients went.

One way in which I have done this is by scheduling time to get together with other photographer friends for what I call FSO (figure stuff out) meetings brainstorm new ideas, observe trends and come up with new and exciting ways to make our clients even more thrilled with what we do for them.

Last week I spent a few days with Lena Hyde and Tamara Lackey to do just this and am so excited about all the new ideas we came up with for our customers. Tamara, Lena, Audrey Woulard and I are also in the process of planning something very exciting just for portrait photographers later on this year, so be sure to check back soon for news on that.

We were also smart enough to plan our meetings around a much-needed shopping break at Anthropologie, shot provided by Tamara's arm-extended-point-and-shoot:

If you don't already have an FSO group, I highly recommend getting one!

Make Richard Dawson Proud

Would you like to know what you clients are thinking about your business? Have you ever considering asking them their opinions in a follow up survey? Have you ever dared to survey? Have you ever thought of repeating Family Feud host Richard Dawson's famous words "Survey says" when thinking about your client base? Surveys are an important method when attempting to learn more about your clients or even for the clients that got away.

In developing a survey there are couple steps that you should consider before picking up the phone or sending out an email blast. If you going to survey, take a step back and plan. Think about if you would like to send out a survey to a target population all at once or perhaps make it a regular practice. For example, 10 days after every sale send out an email survey to your clients to measure their satisfaction.

Surveys can be overly complicated. Marketers can be obsessed with sample sizes and wanting to make their survey statistically valid. There are plenty of tools to help you with the statistics and the how to come up with the appropriate sample size so no worries there-the one thing to take away from this post is that conducting a survey can be key in learning what's on people's minds.

Things to consider:

1).-Start with the end in mind-what do you hope to accomplish by a survey and what do you want to know

2). Who will get the questions-who is on your "marketing list" for the survey?

3). What questions will you ask?

4). How will you ask them? Multiple choice, true/false or open ended questions?

5). Ask the questions- Will you interview a client over the phone, email, or send a postcard? Will method will get the most responses?

6). Study the responses and take action

Some useful tools to help you in developing your survey are Constant Contact, Survey Monkey, and Zoomerang.

So, to get you in the mood to go out and survey...he's a little Richard Dawson...