PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER | JULY 2019 29
Look at all your marketing to ensure everything is
consistent. Is your audience getting a cohesive
message across all your materials, including your
website, social media, email, and print collateral?
the hero’s journey.” To do this, Thomas sug-
gests asking yourself:- Who is my hero? What is the personality
profile of your ideal customer? Write out de-
scriptions, demographics, psychographics.
You might have multiple heroes for differ-
ent aspects of your business. For example,
your high school portrait clients may be
leagues apart from your wedding couples.
Describe each hero in no more than one
page. Once you’ve completed these descrip-
tions, don’t let them get dusty. Refer to them
and update as needed. - Where do I find my hero? Where in the
physical world as well as the virtual realm
does your hero hang out and interact with
others? Figure out how to reach your hero
in these places. - What resonates with my hero? What
does this person care about? What are their
struggles and how can you help solve them? - What is my hero’s buy-in journey?
What purchase decision cycle will your hero
go through? - What can I do to get noticed? How
do you get your hero to take notice of you
among everything else in their busy life? - What transformation do I promise? What
are you saying to the hero? What are you do-
ing to get the hero to move to the next stage?
What are your goals? Are you trying to
schedule a consultation, for example? If so,
then how can you encourage this next step? - How do I call the hero to action again?
What can you do to encourage your hero to
come back and offer repeat business? - How will my hero help me recruit oth-
ers? How will you use past customers to
recruit referrals? What can your hero do to
help promote you?
WRITE YOUR BRAND STORY
You’ve identified your hero. Now you need
to communicate with that ideal customer.
Thomas suggests writing out a communi-
cations brief to help organize your work.
She likes to start this process by putting her
photographic work into different categories
then creating communications that revolve
around those segments. For example, Thom-
as specializes in headshots, so she has a cat-
egory of marketing communications that’s
formulated specifically for people who wantto advance their careers in corporate envi-
ronments. That gives her a direction, a start-
ing point for brainstorming, and some in-
spiration for social posts, case studies, blog
posts, tip lists, and other materials.
Once this brief is established, look at all
your marketing to ensure everything is con-
sistent. Is your audience getting a cohesive
message across all your materials, including
your website, social media, email, and print
collateral?
When an idea for a new post or marketing
piece pops up, Thomas records it in a mar-
keting calendar, which serves as a repository
for ideas she can loosely schedule months in
advance. “When you write to the categories,
to your specialties, and plan things out in ad-
vance, you’ll come up with more ideas than
you ever thought possible,” she says.ADD LAYERS
Most small businesses take a shotgun ap-
proach to marketing: scattered efforts across
multiple areas to see what works. However,
if you’re going to be in business for a while,
you’ll need a strategic plan where one mar-
keting activity builds on another.
That’s where the concept of layering
comes in. Rather than scattering your ef-
forts into the wind to see what blows back to
you, start small with just one to three things.
Get those activities dialed in, and then lay-
er on. Start with a priority list and establish
ideas of how to build on those first priorities
with additional layers. Remember, good
marketing is an iterative process, so step one
sets up step two, which sets up step three,
and so on.
Think of this layering process as similar
to the way you learned photography. You
probably started by taking snapshots, thenexperimented with setting adjustments, then
learned some advanced techniques. It’s the
same with marketing. Learn it step by step,
upping your game as you proceed.NOT FOR EVERYONE
Instead of marketing based on products,
market based on why someone would
choose you. “It’s not a matter of always being
the best choice because you’re not going to
be the best choice for everyone,” says Thom-
as. “It’s more about being the best choice for
the specific group you’re targeting.”
How do you show you’re the best choice
for this group? Play to your strengths, says
Thomas. Find out what clients enjoy about
their experience working with you and pro-
mote it. For example, if you see that your
clients get a lot of joy from the photo ses-
sion itself, then show prospects what that
experience is like. Display behind-the-scenes
images of people having fun, publish testi-
monials, seek out referrals from your hap-
piest clients.TRUST THE PROCESS
Becoming a good marketer is a process. A
lot of people believe that if they do one thing
right, the sales will follow. “There are too
many articles that make it seem like there’s
a magic marketing solution that will make
everything work,” says Thomas.
“Good marketing is not an overnight suc-
cess story. It is a process. You form your
plan. You prioritize and organize. You take
your next step, and then your next. You al-
ways have to have that next step. Then, after
a while moving in the right direction, good
things happen.” •glynnsthomas.com