Yesterday, I was privileged to speak at THE BUSINESS OF VISUAL JOURNALISM WORKSHOP, held at the Grady School of Journalism on the campus of the University of Georgia.
The first speaker was Allen Murabayashi, CEO and co-founder of PhotoShelter, who covered fundamental web marketing tactics, essential website design requirements, and critical features (plus some advanced concepts) that help photographers better utilize their websites as business and marketing tools and grow their online presence to generate new business.
Some of the points that Murabayashi covered were very similar to my topics, but from a slightly different perspective. Hopefully, by the end of it all, people will realize that if a few people mention similar things, they should pay attention.
One of the things we were trying to do in our talks was to help those who are starting or struggling with how we spend our time.
It doesn’t take long before you start to see some common themes when you try to apply marketing to any industry. First, you must realize that not everyone is a candidate for your services. When you run the numbers, the number is more likely in the 10% range of those who are interested in hiring you.
You need a large fishing net to be successful when fishing for clients. In that earlier blog post, I discussed the marketing funnel process.
Allen Murabayashi also used the marketing funnel. He also told everyone that the first step is to raise awareness of your services. You must define your niche, because otherwise your awareness group has to be even larger than if you were more narrowly defined.
Freshman vs Senior Social Networking Skills
Since most of the audience were college students, I felt the best way to illustrate it would be to help them remember what it was like to be first-year students. When they went to parties, they had to go around, introduce themselves, and meet folks. They were proactive and needed to find some friends.
I contrasted how they went to parties as freshmen with how they went to parties as seniors. As seniors, you usually meet with your friends and enjoy each other’s company. You are not looking for more friends; you have them.
I challenged the class to act like first-year students again and never lose this perspective — looking for friends.
What happens in your senior year is graduation. After you leave, you discover that many of those you had moved on with have lost touch. You are forced to be a freshman again—you are new at your first job and have to make friends again.
Old School Social Networking
I highly recommend getting off your computer and away from Facebook and Twitter, and trying the old style of social networking. Go to meetings, parties, and social mixers in your community.
Join an organization and get involved. As you serve, you will meet more people. If you have done a good job defining your nicheniché, it will be easy to identify organizations where your potential clients are already.
Get involved and serve. One of the best ways to meet everyone is to volunteer at the registration desk.
How do you grow your business?
The first step in that marketing funnel is defining your nichéniché and creating awareness of your services among those who need them. How do you grow your business? By increasing the number of people you come into contact with.