Photo Marketing Mentor

THIS TELESEMINAR HAS CONCLUDED, BUT YOU CAN STILL GET THE REPLAY AND A SPECIAL BONUS, REGISTER BELOW FOR DETAILS

Success Traits Of A Working Photographer: What You MUST Know Now In Order To Succeed In The New Economy

In today’s market place finding a job, any job has  become a full time job in and of itself.  But what if the struggle you are experiencing wasn’t so much about WHAT you’re doing, but HOW you’re doing it?

Selina Maitreya author of How To Succeed in Commercial Photography and the best selling audio program The View From Here will discuss how real world photographers are defying the odds and not only only finding work, but regaining a new sense of confidence in themselves and how they’re presenting to the market place.

In her experience working with commercial photographers there are certain qualities that all successful photographers possess that keeps their calendar full where others are scratching their heads wondering where the jobs have gone and where the next one is going to come from.

This teleseminar has concluded but you can still get the replay and special bonuses

Registration Details Below

On this very special call Selina discussed:

• What it takes in order to succeed in this down economy
• What successful photographers do that most AREN’T
• The habits of a successful photographer
• Why mindset is so critical at this time
• What separates a photographer whose constantly booked from one whose struggling
• Simple shifts that you can implement TODAY to change your results
• Selina’s going to share several examples from Real Photographers achieving Real Results!

On the call Selina is shared a great deal of meaty content that will literally shift the way you’re thinking, feeling and ultimately acting.  Action (or the lack thereof) is the key ingredient for any successful entrepreneur.

By the end of this call you’ll leave with a new found focus and renewed interest in how you approach your work.

Be sure to listen to the very end because Selina is going to reveal a solution so powerful that once you possess it you’ll wonder how you got along without it.

This teleseminar has concluded but you can still get the replay and special bonuses, just enter your first name and email address to receive the info

Submit your first name and email address below to receive details and call in info:

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I recently came across a photographer who used a video testimonial on his blog to attract new business and inspired to write today’s post.

It’s been said that the best source of new business is from your last customer. Referral marketing has taken on all whole new personality, now a days new prospects want proof that you’re good at what you do, social proof to be exact and nothing illustrates social proof better than video.

Today collecting on the spot reviews & testimonials of your work, your personality and your work ethic is as simple as whipping out a pocket size camera.  The best part is that you don’t need to hire a film crew, shooting high quality video using off the shelf consumer level pocket cameras like the Mino Flip and the new Kodak Zi8 for example makes it a snap. Even the new generation of digital still cameras have some form of video capture capability.

How to create the video and what makes a good testimonial is the focus of this post for example, all you need to do is ask your current client how they felt about their experience working with you and then record their reply. After you collect a sufficient amount of clips you can lace them together using another off the shelf product like iMovie for example if you’re on a Mac or Video Studio Pro X3 if you’re using a PC.

When you sit down to edit the video just add your contact information on the last frame and you’re done. The following 5 tips will help you create and distribute your new testimonial video for maximum impact.

1.) Ask Relevant Questions Of Your Interviewee’s: For example: What was it like to work with me? What stood out for you from the experience? (Ask them to name specifics) Would you recommend my services to others?

2. Keep Your Clips Short: If your interviewee rambles on just cut down to the gist of the conversation from about 1 minute to 45 seconds if you’re doing a montage of clips from different people. If the person speaking is key and the majority of their testimonial is relevant then consider giving them their own clip, preferably about 3 minutes and under.

3. Keep Your Video Camera With You At All Times: This is especially true when attending events, as you never know whom you might run into. Of course the person you approach must be someone who you have either a current or previous working relationship with; one word of caution (no fake or made up testimonials) this is will ruin your reputation not to mention get into serious hot water with the FCC if you’re ever exposed.

4. Select Audio With Caution: If you insist on adding music on your clips keep the sound level low and the style of music relevant to your audience. Obviously people are watching your clip to listen to the testimonials, not rock out to Pink Floyd (no offense to PF fans). In my opinion music is totally unnecessary but if you insist on it, add it to the opening -or- at the end of your video. Again choose your selection with caution and sensitivity to your audience.

5. Distribute Your Video Virally: First post your video on your blog (if you have one) second on your website. Third spread the video by posting on YouTube, Vimeo and Viddler are three video sharing sites I recommend. Next Tweet about it, tell your Facebook friends or fans if you a fan page (and you should).

Fourth, if you have an in-house email-mailing list (and you should) sends out announcement to your list. Finally ask the participants featured in your video to send out announcements to their network for you. This is a great way to get maximum mileage out of your testimonial.

Lastly I highly recommend using Animoto to distribute your video. Animoto offers a data collection feature called a “call to action button” that appears at the end your video allowing viewers to enter their name and email address. After the viewer enters their info they’re immediately directed to your blog or website.

Animoto charges a fee for this value added service, you can test it for $39 for a month, if works for you, you can upgrade to a year for $249 and release new videos every month. This is an excellent way establish and maintain communication with your growing fan base.

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Twitter second to Facebook [in my opinion] is arguably one of the most popular social media platforms for creative talent on the web.

I recommend that every serious photographer consider adding Twitter to their marketing toolbox.

Besides the opportunity to directly promote your photography services, Twitter offers a wealth of timely tips, resources and up-to-the minute news on what’s current in the industry.

Below are my personal recommendations of professional thought leaders and innovators that I’ve either had the honor to  work with -or- who I recommend you become acquainted.

1. Trey Ratcliff - @TreyRatcliff
Trey is the creator of the popular travel blog Stuck In Customs & best selling book “A World In HDR”

2. Seshu – @PicSeshu
Seshu is a documentary wedding & portrait photographer and creator of the blog: Tiffinbox.org

3. Selina Maitreya – @SelinaMaitreya
Selina is a portfolio consultant, author, speaker and creator of the best selling program The View From Here

4. Jack Hollingsworth – @Photojack
Jack is a travel and lifestyle photographer and social media coach with a huge twitter following

5. Cris Mitchell – @ProPhotoRsrc
Cris is the creator of the popular blog ProPhotoResouce.com a blog dedicated to the art and advancement of pro photographers

6. Rosh Sillars – @newmediaphoto
Rosh Sillars is a pro-photog’er, blogger, podcaster, speaker & author

7. Rick Sammon – @ricksammon
Rick is a Photoshop expert, teacher, author of countless books

8. Tim Olsen – @aphotoassistant
TIm is a photographer, pro photo assistant and publisher of the popular blog APhotoAssistant -

9. Chase Jarvis - @chasejarvis
Chase is a superstar photographer, director and innovator

10. Scott Bourne – @scottbourne
Scott is the publisher of Photofocus.com, photographer, author, teacher, speaker, new media pioneer -

11. John Caponigro – @jpcaponigro
John is a fine art digital printing expert, instructor and visual artist -

12. Lee Steffen – @leesteffen
Lee is a photographer extraordinaire, creative director and founder at Penguin Creative -

13. Gary Fong – @garyfong_REAL
Gary is a pioneer in portable lighting accessories for pro-photographers. He’s the creator of the Lightsphere -

14. Amit Gupta – @superamit
Amit is an internet entrepreneur and founder of Photojojo a consumer level online photo accessories boutique -

15. Jeremy Cowart – @help_portrait
Jeremy is a celebrity photographer, humanitarian and creator behind the global organization Help-Portrait. Jeremy mobilized thousands of photographers around the world to give of the talents for a worthy cause.

List created by Rodney Washington a.k.a [the Photo Marketing Mentor] he is the author of the soon-to-be published book “Eye On Marketing”, 41 Days From Struggle & Confusion to Clarity & Profits, you can find him on Twitter @rodwashington

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Attention The View From Here Fans! – My friend and colleague Selina Maitreya creator of The View From Here (Best Selling) MP3 Training Program just sent me a notice announcing the launch of her new community fan page hosted on Facebook.

Current owners of  TVFH reported that they wanted more community and more involvement with Selina so in response she created a community fan page. You can join the community if you’re a current Facebook member, if not (and why aren’t you?) you need to get with the program because you are missing tons.

Anyway, here is the link to join TVFH community – http://tinyurl.com/3x3etvx

If you haven’t picked up one of the most revolutionary programs for professional photographers on the market to date you really should consider adding it to your library. The View From Here is a 9-part audio program in MP3 format, meaning you can download it instantly, load onto your iPod and you’re good to go. In addition Selina has provided a handy table of contents in PDF format and a FREE 30-minute tutorial.

Many photographers have reported that they are listening to Selina on their iPods as they work, play or hang out at Starbucks.  In addition Selina has offered my subscribers a generous 50% discount! To learn more, listen to a fantastic interview I did with her and view a complete outline of the program click here – http://tinyurl.com/2ecssza

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There are some people out there who believe that email marketing is dead. I’ll tell you from personal experience that is far from the case.

I do agree email open rates are on the decline. Let’s look at your inbox for an example, how many emails do you receive in a typically day? Now think about how many of those emails you actually opened. Of those emails you opened who were they from? Typically but not always the first emails you open are from the people you already know, right?

So assuming that you’ve done a decent job of communicating with your list the chances of crafting emails that are continually opened and read dramatically increase. Even if you haven’t achieved this up to this point, with the information in this article you are now armed with resources to turn that around.

In this article I want to share with you 3 tips that will practically guarantee that your emails are opened, read, received and responded too.

1. Craft an attention grabbing subject line. Think about it, the first thing your subscriber reads is the subject heading. It has to say more than “You who? It’s me sending you another email!” When you sit down to write your next email think about what action you want your reader to take via a step-by-step sequence.

Let’s say for example that you are emailing your list because you wish to announce a new gallery show and you want to invite subscribers to RSVP their attendance. That’s your desired outcome.
A headline that would arouse attention could be, “I can’t believe it finally happened!” Or “I was surprised by what they selected”. Now think about these two headlines for a moment. If I was on your list and I received an email from you that used either of these headlines, your chances of my opening that email has drastically increased. Why? Because you’ve peeked my curiosity, either one of these headlines would make me click because I want to know the answer. “What finally happened?” “What did they select?” Can you see how this works?

These headlines are a lot more interesting than New Gallery Show Coming, Please RSVP.

2. Know the next step. Okay now that your email has been opened what you say next will determine how much further your reader will go. Knowing the next step you want the reader to take will make writing your copy much easier. In the case of our artist he/she desires for readers to attend their show and secure a list of RSVP’s.

So the first sentence of your email should complete the statement you started in your subject header. For example for our subject header, “I can’t believe it finally happened! The opening sentence could read – XYZ gallery has just selected images from my new series on ____?” Do you see how I did that?

I wrote my first sentence to complete the statement I posed in subject header of my email. I told the reader the what and the who. Easy right? Now in the copy that follows I could speak more about the series, the images that the gallery picked etc. Finally I want to direct my reader to the final step.

3. Provide a call to action. You always want your email to result in an action taken by the reader. So if your goal were to secure RSVPS’ for your gallery show then you would place a clickable and track able link to a page where (in this case) the reader can submit their rsvp. Notice that I said clickable and track able. In order for email marketing to work to your benefit you need to know the affects your messages have on the reader. Most email management services like Constant Contact or 1ShoppingCart for example will provide you with stats on your click through rate.

The best way to do this is to test your emails by evaluating the results and make adjustments based on the results you receive. What do I mean by test? First, construct the email, send it, and evaluate your results i.e. check your stats. What are you looking for?

• How many times was the email opened?
• How many readers clicked on the link embedded in the email?
• Did you receive the results you sought?

Once you get a formula down for creating responsive emails your golden. A winning formula consists of skill, patience, testing, adjusting and re-launching.

© Rodney Washington, 2010-2011

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Breaking Into Photo Assisting 101: 10 Steps From Searching To Working w/Tim Olsen of APhotoAssistant.com

For many aspiring photographers getting a job assisting an established pro photographer is the first step towards making that dream a reality. For some, assisting has become their main source of income.  And many photographers choose to continue assisting for the duration of their careers while continuing to shoot their own personal projects on the side.

Regardless as to whether you want to use assisting as a stepping stone to your own studio or you just a want earn some extra money while building your book there are definite pitfalls and shortcuts that you’ll need to be aware of.  If this sounds like you and you’re ready to learn how to break into the world of professional photo assisting from a pro whose been there then you’ll certainly want to join me and my guest Tim Olsen.

Tim publishes one of the few blogs exclusively devoted to the subject at: http://aphotoassistant.com/

You should be able to access the broadcast on the day of the show using the player below.  But just in case it doesn’t work go to this link - http://su.pr/1QZ1Te and it will take you to the show page directly.  Remember May 20th @ 1 p.m. PST. (Due to a scheduling conflict the date for this show has been changed to Thursday May 20th)

If you have questions you’d like me to direct to Tim please leave them in the comments field below.

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I was scanning through the news feeds coming through on my Facebook page recently and I noticed several things that got me thinking about what I feel are some very ineffective (and in my opinion) unprofessional ways people are using this powerful platform.

Again I completely understand that every individual has their own reasons why they use social media but for the purpose of this article I’ve chosen to speak about practices that could potentially tarnish your image in regards to business connection and client attraction.

First of all I want to point out, that these are just my opinions, so if you do any of these things please don’t take offense.  But please be aware that these actions could be actually be hurting – more than helping you grow your business.

1.  Frequently posting non-sense. For example, providing up to the minute blow-by-blow accounting of every step you take through out the day.  Nobody really cares what you ate for breakfast, lunch or dinner or that you’re at the bank, post office etc. You may occasionally share a tid-bit  about something of that nature, but don’t overboard. Think of this way, if you wouldn’t dial up and apprise your closet friend of your every move then don’t plaster it all of your facebook page.

2.  Sharing way too much information about your personal life. Remember potential clients (I hope) are reading your news feed.  So keeping that in mind I highly suggest exercising discretion when sharing intimate details about your health status, finances or personal relationships.  Facebook friends, are not necessarily personal “friends”.  Believe or not I constantly hear stories about solo entrepreneurs losing opportunities as a direct result of posting personal intimate information on their news feed.

3.  Venting about other people on Facebook or within your industry. Remember your news feed shows up every where.  If you’re using your profile for business networking then keep in mind that the “world” is reading your posts and unfortunately making judgements about you.  So just like you wouldn’t bad mouth your boss while he or she is in the next room at the office, don’t do it online.  Remember everybodies watching & reading.

4.  Re-posting ‘off color’ videos or jokes. Again what you find humorous doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone will share your humor.  So again, if you’re using this platform for self-promotion exercise good judgement on what you post as well as re-post.

5.  In appropriate photo tagging! I find this to be one of the biggest pet peeves among Facebook users. Essentially the photo tagging feature built into Facebook allows users to select a person in an image and then hot link it to their FB profile.  Nothing wrong with it inherently but why would you tag a person who isn’t even in the photo? This one is a big no-no.

The bottom line: Social media is wonderful tool to get your message out to the widest possible audience.  Social media for marketing purposes can help you reach and connect with your target market very inexpensively, but often I see it done ineffectively. The key is put your best face forward on Facebook and throughout all of your social media platforms.

Finally, as always, exercise good judgement, leverage the possibilities and reap the rewards.

As always please feel free to leave your comments below.

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Well it’s been a long time coming but I’m finally ready to announce my soon to be published book Eye On Marketing: 41 Days From Struggle and Confusion To Clarity & Profits - “Discover how to market your creative services business from the inside out”

I so excited to be publishing this book in particular because it’s subject that is near and dear to my heart. As an artist myself I completely understand the struggle surrounding marketing ones work. You know I equate the trepidation that many artists experience about marketing as similar to a new parent presenting their baby and asking strangers if they think their kid is cute. It’s kinda scary!

Well I believe this mentality is why so many artists struggle with marketing. You see I believe that you can be aware of and/or use all of the external marketing tools in the world and receive so-so results. But, if your ‘inner marketing’ is out of focus then no amount of posting on Facebook or Twitter, sending out press releases, writing ads, handing off business cards, networking or any other other marketing tacit is going to matter.

The key to experiencing success in your outer marketing starts and quite honestly stops with the marketing you’re doing on the ‘inside’ and that’s why I wrote this book.

I’d like to invite you to visit a special page I’ve set up where you can get a 5 – Day sampler of the new book and to be placed on my early notification list. Over the coming days and weeks leading up to the release of the book I will be unveiling several bonuses that will accompany the book and you don’t want to miss it.

In addition, I will be publishing a new blog devoted to the book where you can leave comments and also get up to the minute news and updates. So be on the lookout for the that coming shortly.

In the meantime please head over to the early bird page and enter your name and email address to receive my special report I’ve created which is basically a 5 -day sampler excerpted from the book.

After you receive it please come back to this page and tweet about it and/or share it with your Facebook friends.

Much success, Rodney

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Join me and guest Karen Sperling author of Painter for Photographers on BlogTalkRadio May 6th @ 1 p.m. PST.

If you’re a photographer who is curious at all about Corel Painter or learning how adding this skill to your tool box can greatly increase your income then you don’t want to miss this ’1 time only’ interview.

You should be able to access the broadcast on the day of the show using the player below.  But just in case it doesn’t work go to this link http://su.pr/2ZxmVZ and it will take you to the show page directly.  Remember May 6th @ 1 p.m. PST.

If you have questions you’d like me to direct to Karen please leave them in the comments field below.

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