Are you a freelancer or creative sitting staring at your screen right now, completely and utterly overwhelmed by the endless list of things you need to do to market and advertise your business?
Yes? I thought you may be.
So here's a few quick ideas to help you create a focused and efficient marketing strategy:
1. Get focused
There are ENDLESS platforms out there on which to advertise, but if you can choose 2-3 that you know your ideal clients are hanging out on, then you are golden.
Are you a copywriter looking for clients who love snappy and well-thought out words? Then you should be on Twitter.
Are you creating content for a teen market? Then you should be on Snapchat.
Is your product incredibly visual? Then grab a bunch of gorgeous photos of it and pop them up on Instagram.
Spend some time chatting to your favourite clients and ask them where they are spending most of their time when on social media, so that you can create a custom marketing strategy around that.
2. Create that custom marketing strategy
My slowest time of year is the month of January - but rather than just sitting around cursing the fact that we don't have heaps of bookings coming in, I genuinely look forward to this month to plan out my entire year of marketing!
As a family photographer, I work out my marketing strategy for the year around holidays and events that I know will appeal to my target market - Mother's Day, Father's Day, religious holidays, fun dates such as Halloween.
I plan out how I can best optimise on each of these dates - by planning Instagram and Facebook posts celebrating these wonderful times, highlighting some of my favourite past work (for example photos showing off wonderful moments with moms around Mother's Day), and dream up specials and promos that I can run around those holidays.
By planning all of this out at the beginning of the year I can set calendar reminders for when I need to launch these marketing strategies (typically 4-6 weeks before the actual event), compile folders of "stock images" (favourite pics that I have taken that I know will work well for that particular date) and rather than letting these memorable dates sneak up on me, I know that I am on top of ALL my marketing for a whole year.
And that's my favourite kind of efficiency!
3. Focus on quality over quantity
Yes, sure you can post on your social media platforms multiple times a day, but if it's not interesting, engaging content you're far more likely to have people unfollowing and unsubscribing from your pages if you're inundating them with posts.
Rather aim to post once per day on your feeds - and make sure to be posting different content on each platform - because repeated content on all your platforms is just boring and will also make people unfollow you.
Think about what is going to serve your clients best in terms of what you're posting as well - if every single one of your posts is pleading with them to "BUY BUY BUY", they're going to tune out.
Rather aim to mix up your content, talk about the passion and the reasons you do what you do, introduce your viewers to yourself and your team, show them the behind-the-scenes. We are all looking for more human connection - and even as a business owner or a brand, your potential clients need to feel like they can connect with you, and know why they should choose you over all the other businesses just like yours.
So there we go - three quick tips for this Monday!
I have a degree in Corporate Communication, which is what started my education in marketing and advertising. Since then I have consumed endless online resources from brandologists, leading photographers and movers-and-shakers in the advertising world.
This is what has led me to where I am now - running a photography company with nine team members, including six associate photographers, an office manager and a couple of editors.
Email us to find out information about our upcoming workshops - BUSINESS SKILLS FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS - coming in November 2018 (spots are booking up fast!) in Johannesburg. This full day workshop will dive all in to tips such as the ones outlined in this blog post, and SO MUCH MORE.
Our email is hello@robyndavie.com
