Focus on Marketing with The Photographers' Mentor

Photographers YOUR TIME is your STOCK!!

Time is Money. Like a shop selling its stock we as photographers trade our time for money.

Unfortunately a proportion of our time is spent on tasks that don’t generate us any additional income, business admin for one, but the most common of these is editing our images.

The more time you spend editing your images, the less profitable a given job becomes. Remember your TIME is your stock, it’s what you trade.

The less time you spend editing your images, the more profitable a job becomes!!

👉 BUT just as important is the free time you have remaining to shoot further sessions and market your business effectively.

More and more of my photography mentoring clients are using do the heavy retouching work for their headshots, branding sessions, family portraits, weddings and bo***ir.

Evoto cleverly uses AI to do the time-taking jobs you hate, leaving more time to stay active on social media, market your photography and book more clients.

One of my mentees Alex Thurston - Headshot and Branding Photographer a self-confessed Evoto convert, recently used the software to batch retouch 46 people’s headshots from a large networking event. This allowed Alex to complete the task in a 10th of the time it would have normally taken him and deliver the final images in well under 24hours.

Evoto does the time-taking retouching jobs you hate, while allowing you full control of your own images without the need to outsource to an editing company.

Evoto gets a big thumbs up in my books because for years I’ve been telling photographers to cut back on their editing time, outsource their retouching and pay more attention to social media and marketing, but many photographers don’t like outsourcing, now you don’t have to with Evoto.

You can do the retouching yourself on autopilot in a faction of the time.

😎 Give Evoto AI a free trial if you haven’t already, use the link below to claim your 30 FREE image credits.
https://www.evoto.ai/c/JeffBrownp

Remember your time is money, spend it wisely like it’s your own CASH.

HAVE YOU CREATED YOUR LINKEDIN COMPANY PAGE?

A company page on LinkedIn is like a mini website inside the platform - and having a company page allows you to create content that can be a little bit more salesy by showcasing some of your offers, products and services.

On your main profile, however, it’s a good idea NOT to be salesy - use this profile for building relationships and then people can follow your company page.

Once you’ve set up your company page, you can invite your connections to follow it, and LinkedIn allows you to invite 250 connections per month. This is a great way to grow your following and a great way to get additional visibility in the newsfeed.

Take note that people can’t CONNECT with your company page, they can only FOLLOW it - but this means that they’ll see the updates for inspiration, behind-the-scenes content, special offers, industry updates, etc.

Another way to think of your company page is like a mini blog - a way of promoting your company/business and letting people know what you’ve been up to, how you’ve been helping other businesses and what’s been happening in your industry.

CAN I HAVE MORE THAN ONE COMPANY PAGE?

You can.

So if you’re a photographer who has a couple of different niches eg branding and portraits - set up separate company pages for each - that way, you won’t be diluting your main profile.

Once you’ve set up your separate pages, connect them to your experience section on your profile.

Take a look at mine to see how I’ve done that.

I have multiple company pages - one for The Photographers’ Mentor, one for my website business The Photographers’ Suite, and another one that encompasses all 3 of my books called Jeff Brown Photography Business Author.

Have you thought about your company page?

➡️ If you want to get your profile to the top 1% of LinkedIn users - generating more opportunity, more enquiries and more income - then check out my LinkedIn book on Amazon - just search for THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S MISSING LINK - all my top tips for LinkedIn are in there.

➡️Click on and follow my LinkedIn hashtag for regular photography business tips and advice

SHOULD YOU POST PERSONAL POSTS ON LINKEDIN?

The simple answer is yes.

People like to know the person behind the camera - they like to know that can relate to you before they book you - and if you’re only talking about business-related events, then this is going to make it hard for them to connect with you.

I’ll sometimes talk about my walks with Charlie - and the feedback I receive are things like - we know you love hiking, we know you live in Northumberland and we know you’ve got a crazy springer spaniel called Charlie.
Those little things nurture the relationships.

So start sharing some of the things you like doing - and share some really personal stories too.

One of my most engaging posts was when I shared about the time I had depression and tried to take my own life when I lost everything in 2012.

It stirred up something in people and I got a lot of messages saying how it gave hope and inspiration to a lot of people going through a similar situation.

LinkedIn and Facebook is a great space to build relationships so that people can get to know the person behind the camera - and it all comes down to people buying from people who they KNOW LIKE and TRUST.

And if all you post about is photographs from jobs or talk in a salesy tone, then that doesn’t set you apart from all the other photographers on this platform.

➡️ If you want to get your profile to the top 1% of LinkedIn users - generating more opportunity, more enquiries and more income - then check out my LinkedIn book on Amazon - just search for THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S MISSING LINK - all my top tips for LinkedIn are in there.

➡️Click on and follow my LinkedIn hashtag for regular photography business tips and advice

ARE YOUR LINKEDIN CONTACT DETAILS UP TO DATE?

This may sound like one of those simple posts, but you’d be surprised at how many people don’t go back and check that their contact details are up to date - and if they’re incorrect, then that’s potentially lost business.

Have you changed your mobile number?

Have you got a different email address?

And did you know that you can set up a customised LinkedIn URL? So instead of a long chain of numbers and letters created by LinkedIn, you can create your own so that it matches your URL on your other social media platforms.

And another good feature is being able to add your website address to your header section. You can add a direct link here, below your professional headline, that links directly to your website AND you can customise the text.

FOR EXAMPLE

Instead of having your website address, you can say something like GET A FREE CONSULTATION - and when people click on it, it takes them directly to your website.

➡️ If you want to get your profile to the top 1% of LinkedIn users - generating more opportunity, more enquiries and more income - then check out my LinkedIn book on Amazon - just search for THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S MISSING LINK - all my top tips for LinkedIn are in there.

➡️ Click on and follow my LinkedIn hashtag for regular photography business tips and advice

photographybusiness

DO YOU SET YOURSELF FINANCIAL AND SOCIAL GOALS?

If not, this is how you do it ⬇️

Let’s say you have a financial goal of making £50,000 in a year - you’ve got to work on HOW you’re going to make that. £50,000.

BREAK IT DOWN

1️⃣ Break it down into months - how much do you need to do per month to hit that £50,000 target? And how many jobs, at your average job price, do you need to do per month?

⬇️
If your average shoot for a wedding is £2000, then you know that you need to do at least 1 wedding a month to hit your financial goal.

HOW WILL YOU GET THOSE SHOOTS?

2️⃣ Grow your network and joint ventures

⬇️
This is where you need a social media goal.

You need to be constantly GROWING your Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and/or Instagram following - it’s no good delivering the SAME message to the SAME people all the time.

Make a habit of consistently growing your audience, especially on LinkedIn, because it’s very much a numbers platform.

However, there’s no point growing your following if you don’t have anything to say - so you need to be also ENGAGING with your followers and creating content on a regular basis.

GROW YOUR NUMBERS - ENGAGE - CREATE CONTENT

Are you engaging and creating content on a regular basis?

➡️ If you want to get your profile to the top 1% of LinkedIn users - generating more opportunity, more enquiries and more income - then check out my LinkedIn book on Amazon - just search for THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S MISSING LINK - all my top tips for LinkedIn are in there.

➡️Click on and follow my LinkedIn hashtag for regular photography business tips and advice

AN AVERAGE 90% OF PEOPLE LEAVE AND ENTER A WEBSITE THROUGH THE HOMEPAGE WITHOUT INTERACTING WITH ANY OTHER PAGES.

Did you know that?

Which means they won’t get to read your testimonials.

But your testimonials are like gold - they are your customers’ statement of approval.

Those testimonials do the unique job of selling the benefits and solutions of your services in your customers’ own words. They showcase how your photography has solved their problems, made them happier and ultimately, given them the satisfaction they expected.

SO DON’T HIDE YOUR TESTIMONIALS AWAY ON A TESTIMONIAL PAGE

If the remainder of your website pages are getting less than 10% of traffic, then people aren’t going to see these testimonials. They need to be there on your Homepage working hard for you selling the benefits of your services - selling your first class commitment to your customers.

So remove them from your testimonials page and put them on your Homepage or your high traffic page for all to see.

Space them out throughout the page - top, middle and bottom. Put them next to your prices to reinforce the value people put in the price they pay for your services.

Delete your testimonial page TODAY and start letting them work for you and your business by selling your services.

➡️Check out HELP!! MY PHOTOGRAPHY WEBSITE NEEDS MORE CUSTOMERS on Amazon - just search for the book and you’ll see it

➡️Click on and follow my LinkedIn hashtag for regular photography business tips and advice

Your banner area on your LinkedIn profile is probably the best piece of real estate on the platform to help you get noticed when someone comes to look at your profile.

Don’t make the mistake of under-utilising this area - it’s crucial that you have an attention grabbing banner that is completely relevant to your niche of photography.

TOP TIPS FOR THAT ATTENTION GRABBING LINKEDIN BANNER

1️⃣ Images

Keep these to a maximum of 3. If you’re a headshot photographer, don’t have loads of headshots on your banner - same if you’re a wedding photographer.

WHY?

Remember, when anyone views this on a mobile or tablet device, those images are going to be VERY SMALL - so keep them to a maximum of 3.

2️⃣ Call to action

And this could be anything from follow my hashtag, book a discovery call etc

3️⃣ Tell people what you do

If you’re a food photographer, for example, you could say something along the lines of mouth watering photography that grows your social media following and puts money back into the business.

Or if you’re a headshot photographer, you could say something like stand out from the crowd with an attention grabbing headshot that gets you noticed.

DO YOU NEED TO PUT YOUR WEBSITE ON THE BANNER?

No. There are already 2 places for this on your profile.

The first is in the featured section where you can upload a direct link - and the second is in the header section below your name and professional headline.

So in this second section, you could create a call to action like check out my headshots at [website] and then people can easily click on it.

Take a look at my mine and you’ll see that I’ve put a call to action which is FREE Marketing Advice Call - and then you can see an outbound link which takes people to my website.

If you want to get your profile to the top 1% of LinkedIn users, then check out my LinkedIn book on Amazon - just search for THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S MISSING LINK - all my top tips for LinkedIn are in there.

➡️ If you want to get your profile to the top 1% of LinkedIn users - generating more opportunity, more enquiries and more income - then check out my LinkedIn book on Amazon - just search for THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S MISSING LINK - all my top tips for LinkedIn are in there.

➡️Click on and follow my LinkedIn hashtag for regular photography business tips and advice

NO PRICES ON YOUR WEBSITE?

How would you feel if you went to a website, found some really useful information on the products and services BUT there were no prices?

Sometimes, when prices aren’t displayed, this can make people think that you’re hiding something - or it will make people not bother to make the effort to send an email of fill out a form to receive a price or jump on a call.

The best thing you can do is either:

➡️ Have your prices displayed in full - open and transparent OR

➡️ Have a ‘from’ price

Either way, both options qualifies people so that they know how much the investment is to work with you.

Remember, it isn’t your price that will stop someone working with you - it will be your brand.

If your brand doesn’t look and feel premium, then you’re going to struggle to charge a higher price. And alongside that - if your messaging also isn’t clear, people won’t work with you. It’s not the higher pricing that puts people off.

If people bought on price alone, then there would be no premium brands in the world. No Mercedes. No Tiffany’s. No BMW, Hilton or Ralph Lauren. All premium brands would vanish.

People buy premium because premium is associated with first class service and high quality. So if your website and branding looks and feels premium, don’t worry about putting your pricing on show.

Your pricing is one of the first things your clients want to see - but they also want to see a premium brand if you’re charging a premium price.

➡️Check out HELP!! MY PHOTOGRAPHY WEBSITE NEEDS MORE CUSTOMERS on Amazon - just search for the book and you’ll see it

➡️Click on and follow my LinkedIn hashtag for regular photography business tips and advice

GOOGLE LOVES AN INTERACTIVE WEBSITE.

And video is a great way to do this.

Video helps communicate the benefits of your services to a client in a quick and easy to understand format - and not only that, video helps build relationships, tell your story and show the benefits of what you do in a way that your client can consume easily and understand in a fraction of a second.

Video is also great because it can be consumed on the move - it can say a lot in a very short space of time, and be easily consumed by your website visitors.

Google announced in its Helpful Content Update and White Paper that it was looking for websites with video.

This is one of the many interactive and additional services that you can put on your website to help better connect with your clients and also help you rank better in the search engine results.

➡️Check out HELP!! MY PHOTOGRAPHY WEBSITE NEEDS MORE CUSTOMERS on Amazon - just search for the book and you’ll see it

➡️Click on and follow my LinkedIn hashtag for regular photography business tips and advice

HOW DO YOU STAND OUT FROM THE COMPETITION?

Photographers are everywhere, and if you researched your local area, I think you’d be surprised at just how many there are within a 10 mile radius from you.
This means you need to stand out from the competition.

You need to be different.

But how do you do this?

A lot of photographers will look around to see what others are charging - and then undercut.

And then wonder why they’re not making a profit and don’t have a sustainable business.

Here are my 3 top tips to make sure you stand out from your competition:

🟢 NICHE - position yourself as the expert in your field - stop trying to please everybody

🟢 PREMIUM - look at your branding and your website - what ‘feel’ does it have - premium or cheap? If you want to raise your prices, then offer clients that premium end experience

🟢 CONSISTENCY - where are your ideal clients hanging out online? Then that’s where you hang out too with consistent marketing so that you’re ALWAYS on their timeline

Start somewhere.
Take that small step to becoming the go-to photographer in your niche and stand out from the crowd.

What step will you be taking today?

➡️ Check out my AMBITIOUS PHOTOGRAPHERS’ JOURNAL on Amazon - just search for the book and you’ll see it

➡️ Click on and follow my LinkedIn hashtag for regular photography business tips and advice

What’s the difference between CONNECT and FOLLOW on LinkedIn - and which action should you take?

FOLLOW - grow you network quicker, less commitment.

If you want to grow your network, then have ‘follow’ by default - people are more likely to follow you than connect because this is a more passive way of connecting with you.

It means that they’re following your content and are adding to your following count, but you won’t be able to message back and forth with that follower - people feel at a safe distance with a follow.

CONNECT - slower network growth, but great opportunity to develop relationships.

If growing your network AND doing business with people is your aim, then connection is your better option.

Having that connection allows you to start building relationships and being a lot more personal - and you can utilise the power of voice messages to do this.

➡️ If you want to get your profile to the top 1% of LinkedIn users - generating more opportunity, more enquiries and more income - then check out my LinkedIn book on Amazon - just search for THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S MISSING LINK - all my top tips for LinkedIn are in there.

➡️Click on and follow my LinkedIn hashtag for regular photography business tips and advice

Did you know that when you give value, help, inspire and motivate others FREELY, then MORE definitely comes your way?

People feel better connected to people who they know, like, trust and value.

When they receive FREELY - get free advice and free help - when they get motivated and inspired, it helps them build a better connection and feel motivated themselves to try and give back to the person who’s given to them.

In my own business, I’ve found that by helping, advising, giving free webinars and podcasts, working with associations, writing for magazines, and generally helping people within the photography industry, more and more paying customers come my way.

But not only that, other societies, corporations and magazines have also been keen to direct business my way because I have given freely.

RECIPROCITY

Reciprocity is when you give freely to others, and they, in return, try and return that favour by directing opportunity and visibility your way.

So one of the best ways to build a network is to become trusted.

And one of the best ways to get more customers and more visibility is to give FREELY and give people something of value.

➡️ Check out my AMBITIOUS PHOTOGRAPHERS’ JOURNAL on Amazon - just search for the book and you’ll see it

➡️ Click on and follow my LinkedIn hashtag for regular photography business tips and advice

It goes without saying that a glowing testimonial from a past client is priceless.

I’ve had many LinkedIn enquiry turn into paying clients because they’ve read other photographers’ recommendations on my profile - you just can’t get enough recommendations on your profile.

So use that section on your profile to FILL IT with recommendations - words from a happy client are far more powerful than yours - and will have a greater impact.

Once that job is complete, be sure to send out requests via your profile - LinkedIn will generate an auto-message for this - but make sure you personalise it before sending.

And before sending that testimonial request, it doesn’t hurt to include about 3 or 4 bullet points on what you’d like them to mention eg communication, was the brief met, organisation etc. That will avoid the standard ‘great photos - I love them all!’ - and while there’s nothing wrong with that - it’ll be the detail that will sway your potential client reading that testimonial.

And finally, now that you’ve received that glowing testimonial, turn it into a post!
Remember, a happy client’s words are far more powerful than yours. Create a post on the testimonial to illustrate to your audience JUST HOW good you are - the value you add, your ability to meet a client brief etc.

Testimonials are priceless to grow your business.

➡️ If you want to get your profile to the top 1% of LinkedIn users - generating more opportunity, more enquiries and more income - then check out my LinkedIn book on Amazon - just search for THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S MISSING LINK - all my top tips for LinkedIn are in there.

➡️Click on and follow my LinkedIn hashtag for regular photography business tips and advice

To understand how to show up more on LinkedIn, you need to understand how people search on LinkedIn.

On LinkedIn, if someone is looking for a photographer, they won’t type in the search bar ‘photographer’ they’ll put in the TYPE OF PHOTOGRAPHER they require - like family photographer, wedding photographer, headshot photographer, food photographer etc.

And then once they've got those search results, it will narrow that down to a geographical location.

For example, wedding photographer New York, portrait photographer London.

If, in your job title, you have ‘owner, self-employed or director’ (which many people do), then that is not going to help match what people are searching for in your job title.

So make sure, in your experience section (which is one of the key areas LinkedIn looks at for search results), you have what your clients are looking for.

Another fault that photographers sometimes make is to put a fancy name for their job title.

Instead of saying ‘family photographer or portrait photographer’, they might put something like ‘fine art contemporary photographer’ and yes, this might sound nice but it’s not what people are searching for.

SO THINK ABOUT IT.

What are your clients searching for?

Match your job title with the search results.

Another great tip is to apply this to your company page as well.

So if your company is called Stuart Smith Images, then you can rename your company page on LinkedIn to Stuart Smith Images - Family Portrait Photography - because again, that is getting in the essential keywords that people are searching for.

So this is just one area that LinkedIn looks at when looking for search terms and search results.

So make sure that you're optimising your job description and your company name with keywords in your experience section.

➡️ If you want to get your profile to the top 1% of LinkedIn users - generating more opportunity, more enquiries and more income - then check out my LinkedIn book on Amazon - just search for THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S MISSING LINK - all my top tips for LinkedIn are in there.

➡️Click on and follow my LinkedIn hashtag for regular photography business tips and advice

If you help people get what they want, you will always get what you want in return.

And that could never be more true.

If you help your clients achieve their goals and get what they want - not only will they come back to you, they will always recommend you to their friends, their colleagues and their family.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR CLIENTS WANT?

✔️ Give your clients first class service.
✔️ Always over deliver.
✔️ If you say you're going to deliver your images in five days, deliver them in two days.
✔️ Impress them - give them more than anticipated and they will always recommend you.

When you understand what a client really wants and you fulfil that and over deliver, you can guarantee that ultimately you will continue to receive what you want - which is more customers, more authority, more recognition, more likes and shares.

Remember, their clients don’t just want ,for example, images from a personal branding shoot…..

What they want is more interaction, recognition, looking more confident and professional, looking more appealing, and able to tell their own story.

When you understand that this is what they want, then you’re able to give images that communicate that and help them get their message out there, get more engagement, more followers, or connections and ultimately more business.

And so it's a done deal that they then come back to you and use you again and again and again.

And when anybody asks them if they can recommend a photographer, they will ultimately recommend you to their friends.

So always remember - fulfil your client's needs, your clients wants and they will definitely come back to you.

➡️ Check out my AMBITIOUS PHOTOGRAPHERS’ JOURNAL on Amazon - just search for the book and you’ll see it

➡️ Click on and follow my LinkedIn hashtag for regular photography business tips and advice

How you word your website FAQs can ultimately determine how easily your website is found in the search engines.

Google has now started using FAQs from websites to answer people's questions.

Try it yourself.
Put a question into Google.

Quite often Google searches will show snippets of website FAQs that answer that particular question.

HERE’S AN EXAMPLE

If I was searching for how much is a personal branding photography session, then Google would not direct me to your website FAQs if your FAQ just said ‘how much is a shoot? Or how much are sessions?’

This because it doesn't explain what type of shoot or what type of session it is.

Write your FAQs for the search engine NOT for people who are actually on your homepage.

So in this case, your FAQ would say ‘how much is a personal branding photography shoot?’

There, Google can then see that information and direct people straight to it - which matches the question they're putting in their search engine.

Instead of saying ‘how long is your coverage for a wedding photography session?’ - you could word your FAQ as ‘how long does the average wedding photography coverage last?’

This is what people are typing into Google.

Come up with your idea and type it into Google.

Google will show you similar suggestions and similar things that people are searching for then word your FAQ to match.

And this will help your website show up more on Google.

➡️ If you want to get your profile to the top 1% of LinkedIn users - generating more opportunity, more enquiries and more income - then check out my LinkedIn book on Amazon - just search for THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S MISSING LINK - all my top tips for LinkedIn are in there.

➡️Click on and follow my LinkedIn hashtag for regular photography business tips and advice

My Photography Website BOOK is FREE on Kindle this Weekend!! 💻 Grab it NOW and start improving your photography website sales and ranking...

I've set my book up for a 5-Day FREE download on Amazon Kindle, it ends on Tuesday 25th so grab it now, and more importantly start putting things in action to give your website a real boost. 🚀

This information packed guide is filled with valuable top tips and advice to help you transform your website from a static photography portfolio into a lead generating machine.

This is really two books in one!!⭐

The first part of my book deep-dives into building a premium photography brand, covering everything from colour, fonts and styling, to developing a brand message that perfectly fits your ideal client. 📸

We also cover blogging in-depth, you'll learn how to write blogs that drive traffic to your website, build relationships with your readers, and convert visitors into enquiries.

All my photography business books are also available in paperback and hardback editions, if like me you prefer the real thing. Simply head over to Amazon and type in "Help!! My Photography Website Needs More Customers"

If you enjoy my book and you get a lot from it then please do leave me a review, it really does make a difference to us self-published authors.

Thank you and have a great weekend. 😎

It’s so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day running of your business - editing photos, responding to emails, admin, accounts, expenses etc - but here’s what happens when that happens.

By not taking time out AT LEAST twice a week to GROW YOUR BUSINESS, your business is never going to expand - which means:

⛔️ You won’t see growth in your visibility via social media

⛔️ You won’t see growth in your authority

⛔️ And you won’t see growth in your brand opportunity

You need to be spending time, preferably every day for at least an hour, doing the stuff that will GROW your business. And then, take half a day to do tasks that will take your business in a different direction.

DAILY TASKS like

🟢 Posting to social media (marketing)

🟢 Emailing your subscribers on your email list

🟢Writing 500 words for that blog that you’ll send out this month

THE BIGGER TASK could be

🟢 Connecting with potential joint venture partners for collaborations

So if you’re a wedding photographer, take half a day out to visit and chat to bridal shops. Look at creating a commission-based joint venture partnership where they refer you in exchange for a commission.

These things are what counts as working ON your business to grow it instead of IN your business to keep it running.

We’re also in a good position where a lot of things can be outsourced - like your editing, your blog writing, and your social media posts. The more you outsource, the more time it leaves you for shooting photographs - because remember, every time you shoot, that’s bringing in more income.

And to get those shoots booked requires marketing - so the more time you spend on marketing, the more enquiries you’ll get and more opportunities to grow.

➡️ Check out my AMBITIOUS PHOTOGRAPHERS’ JOURNAL on Amazon - just search for the book and you’ll see it

➡️ Click on and follow my LinkedIn hashtag for regular photography business tips and advice