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Getting the Word Out

So let's talk about advertising. We get right into talking about what it is, how I do it. Some other things I do, because that is essentially how you get people to come to you. So, according to Wikipedia, advertising is a form of communication for marketing and used to encourage, persuade or manipulate an audience of viewers readers our listeners to continue or take some new action, most commonly the desired result of the to drive customers behaviour with respect to commercial offerings or purchases. So that's what it iss all right, and I don't think you had to know that. But understand that if you if you fully grasp exactly what advertising is, it's easier to break it down. And that's what I want to do. There's the communication part. There's the encourage, persuade manipulate part. And then there's the purchase part. And if the all three of those things come together, you have successful advertising. Okay, So to sort of help you understand and get advertising, we're going to do it th...

is way. I want you to close your eyes, OK? I'm watching the Internet world. I see you peeking. I see you peeking. So close your eyes. And while your eyes are closed on which you just listen to what I have to say with your eyes closed, I want you to imagine a red circle. Now that I'm not gonna give you any more details just in your mind's eye, I want you to see a red circle and to the Internet world in a minute. I'm Anita Lewin. Put back from you as to what you saw. So imagine that red circle. Imagine as much detail as you can about it. And I don't want to tell you what to see, because as soon as I say something, you're going to see it. So I'm not gonna venue that detail. But imagine that detail. Now open your eyes and I want to know, Is this what you saw? Okay, So get ready to Internet, where I'll start firing off into the chat rooms by show of hands to my studio audience. Show of hands, of course. But Internet World, how many solved that? It's just playing circle. I got nobody who saw that. Anybody out there saying anything, You just holler it out. One marine. Good. How about this? Let's let's see a little bit more detail. What if harmony saw maybe a little bit of a beveled edge? Okay, Paolo. Good deal. You could just shout out if anybody out there saw some beveled edge when I saw when I said red circle. Okay, good. I got 11 out of five. That's wonderful. How about this? Let's add, maybe a little bit of highlight and shadow Liberte. Highlight Right down the middle. Beveled edge. Highlight down the middle. Anybody saw that? I got one. Good. Good. Okay, here's the one that's the most popular. I don't know if it's gonna happen here, but probably an Internet world. How Maney saw this, which is more of, Ah, ball like, you know, like a basketball except read. See how it's completely round. Top to bottom of guy got to. So you see in the majority. Same thing over there. You all saying they throw in some raw hamburger? How does a red circle someone? They must be near lunchtime, and somebody wants to go shopping because quite a few people saw Target logo A target. Okay, CEO, that's perfect. That's gonna really make my point here in a few seconds. Okay, So how about this one. How many saw this? More of a dot Small Got Anybody know Russia? The only one in Raise your hand. What do you see? A cherry. A cherry. Okay. A red circle. Not a perfectly round circle, but a cherry with some bumps, which is a highlight. Shadow roundness, obviously. Okay, the point of this is all I said was red circle. So that was up. We're advertising, and I'm advertising to you. And I told you it was communication. Came out the mouth into your ears. Red circle. It was then my job to persuade you into a direction. Did you catch the persuasion? That's what most people I said usually see. Did you catch that? Two people raise their hand that time. All right. Do you see how powerful that ISS, you know, fell right into it and we just selling red circles right now? Interestingly, if you Google Red Circle, this is what comes up. Anybody on the Internet world? Did you all see that? Which is on the screen right now? Interestingly, there's a place in in Vegas called, I think The Red Circle Lounge. I'm wondering if anybody saw that one on is there's all kind. There's just a red circle of justice. There's a circle with a line in. It doesn't outside several. There's a screw Billy Circle. There's that bus signal. I mean, look at all the different things. If you Google Red Circle that comes up with. So it's a vast array of different areas we can go to when it comes to Red Circle. But we're talking advertising here, right? Okay. So to be successful with your advertising, the red circle that is in your customer's mind has to match the red circle that is in your mind. Now. If those to red circles match what you have is a properly persuaded product. You communicated well, you got them persuaded and they purchase now. What happens if I was literally selling red circles? I got one out of five who didn't even behind my product. Never even I never even got it. I got these two guys buying the first product, but the majority bought the one I wanted, all with a little simple. And this is what most people see your catch to see. How powerful that ISS. When it comes to what we have, the ability to do as professional photographers. We We are typically in the communication process while we're photographing, and they are not expecting that were selling at that point. We're just taking pictures. We have the unbelievable opportunity to start dropping what I call seeds on the ground and no seeds get planted in their minds and those seeds grow and fester And what those seeds become or huge massive oak trees filled with $ bills. Okay, that is what we're trying to produce. Trying to produce profit When we started out by saying that from the very beginning. So drop seeds what I mean by seeds, things like, Oh, you're gonna love this one. This is the best one I've ever taken. Oh, Mom, Mom, come here. Look at this. Let me show you. Where's my look at the back? Look at the back of the camera. Look at that. Oh, I mean, can you not see that on your wall? The all of those things are seeds that we can feed the customer to hold. Now, you know, if you can get you could get stupid about it And where they go Oh, in a man had your Stalin dummy so. But it has to be nice and subtle. It has to be sincere. Don't be lying because they pick up on that. So that's what I mean when it comes to selling. Now, what happens? Let's let's translate that lets literally get into high school. Senior pictures. Someone said something about the posing in the age appropriate posing. What if our entire way of photographing is really edgy? I mean, it's really sexy seniors, which is a style. But all of the seniors in your area, all of them, they're very conservative. Do this. Do you see how the red circles don't match here? I mean, you could be a fantastic photographer, but if the circles don't match, is the advertising going to be successful? No, it's not. So the Red Circle has to match. It has to match whatever that is. So that takes a little effort on your part. That means you got no, no. Your world. You live in a community, that is, I don't know, a lower income community. Lower income communities gonna buy stuff way different than a higher income community. Now I know right off the bat my personal experience with that is that the higher income community buys art. They don't buy pictures. So as a result, you gotta make art as opposed to selling a neighbor 10 in the Brazilian while it's, ah, lower income community is gonna buy a pretends five of seven while it's out the wazoo. So it again and that's just takes a little bit of time, little bit of knowledge, little effort on your part, one of the best ways to get to that stage. That communication stage, where you in the customer's circles match is to ask, what kind of circle do you want? Oh, I want a circle that supposed like this. There's very conservative like blue backgrounds. Oh, I could do that. You know? I want my stuff to be edgy. Oh, I could do that. So you see what I'm getting at. Sometimes to get the circles to match the red circle, you have to just simply ask the question. What do you want so back to advertisers? So what is advertising? We've already discussed that. Who are the advertisers? Of course. That's me and you were the photographers. That's who the key players in this thing are. Who is the audience Well, that's the high school seniors. That's the parents. That's the families of parents and all that's that's who, where we are in effect, selling to who are we communicating? I mean, what are we communication? How or should I say that we are going to communicate? Well, their social media, radio, TV, billboard, newspapers, postcards, senior products, text messaging, email websites blogged the most powerful of them all, in my humble opinion is where the mouth. And that's the one I mostly want to talk about. I'll talk about some of these other ones, but that is what the communication is. That's how we get the word out. I don't think that was one of things you asked about is this is how do we get the word out about our stuff again? That's why I was so perplexed about that. I don't know. I'm not really marketing the lake drawls, you know? But if I waas dude, I'd be walking around, You know, I'm I'm walking around. I'm thinking I'm asking. I'm constantly looking. I'm asking. I'm talking the high school seniors. I'm saying, you know, where do you guys hang out? You know what do you what are you looking for? Did you? Who need? You're seeing your pictures. I can't tell you how many times I have walked through a mall, see a cute little senior girl and say, Hey, let me ask you something. Make sure you with your wife or something so that you're not, you know, one of those guys. Hey, I just who's doing your senior pictures? You know, the most common response I get? I'm only 30. Okay, Well, if he was a high school senior who's doing your senior pictures? Uh, and and you listen to what they say a few years ago myself. Personally, I'm photographing a senior and they got a little friend with him, and I'll say, Who's doing your senior pictures? And every one of them. Every one of them was saying a photographer two hours from me, and I thought, Now I'm doing her friend. I'm photographing her friend right now. She's coming with her friend, But yet she's going to a photographer whose two hours now in Seattle probably going to a photographer two hours away. No big of a big deal, because it's such a big area. But in home, that's a big deal. So I started observing what this particular photographer does. What is it about his style that is appealing to these seniors? And I adjusted. I absolutely adjusted. Why should I make? Didn't go two hours away when they're right here and I can do it and it worked. So that's what I mean when I say communication, the encouraging persuade and manipulate to me, that's images. That's sales, you know, five minutes sale. Okay. Deadlines asking creativelive did it to you all. Did it out the very first thing this morning. If you purchase this show now, $99. OK, I'm just saying that it's what it was. A sale. It was an encouragement of persuasion, a manipulation. That's what it is. That's what advertising is. And then, of course, the purchases, the spending of the money. So that is what it iss in the understanding of it, so that we can do it. So all right, with all of that said, what has worked for me, that's all Fine and dandy card. We want to start doing it great. Let's do it. So there's normal marketing, in my opinion. And then there is aggressive marketing now, when I did normal advertising slash marketing. I've got normal results. Now. Again, All of this is wonderful. And what was normal for me? Maybe exceptional for some, But I didn't. It wasn't good enough. I wanted it to be even better. And I constantly tried to push that envelope. So what is normal marketing? Well, normal marketing to me is things like postcards. All right, So you could have I mean, there's only a 1,000, companies out there that you could take your images, create a postcard. Various labs do it. You could do a Google search for postcards, printed cards, whatever. I mean, you all across the world of coming up with places you know of in your mind, you've seen advertising that tell you about cart. Okay, Print. You put your image is on the cards, mail the cards off to a list that you purchase tons of companies out there that sell list of high school seniors and put him out there and say, I'm doing senior pictures. This is what I do. And boom, I want to do your senior pictures. Is it advertising? Yes. Is it marketing? Yes. Hasn't been done for Brazilian years. Yes, does it work? Yes. Is it expensive? Yes, But does it work? Yes. So there's the juggle. There's the constant juggle with all of this is how much? If I could guarantee you somehow, if I could say give me $ and in three months I'm gonna give you $2000. Who's in? Awesome. If I was to say, Give me $1000 in two months, I'll give you $1100. Who's in? Okay? I mean, most people who said, Why not just about every form of advertising that I have ever done works? I say just about because not everyone, not every one of them, has worked. But just about every one of them has worked. So the trick is to then ask yourself how much of my money and my willing to juggle out there to make more money with. And I can't answer that question for you. Only you can answer that question. So once you determine that question, then you can know how far you willing to go. Are you willing to buy postcards? Maybe you want to try it on a limited basis. The secret to postcards working is having an awesome list. That's the secret. So how can you get an awesome list? It could be you. Your some places the school will literally provide you a list of seniors in some places that's illegal. So I don't know about this area and I don't know about across the Internet world, but that is part of the how hungry are you? How much are you gonna get out there and hustle this up? Are you gonna go knocking on schools doors? You gonna put on your suit and tie and make an appointment with the principal and sit down in his office and say, Here's what I would like to do. Are you willing to do that? If you're willing to do that, you're gonna be successful because you're hungry. So that's what I mean when I say normal versus aggressive What? What did I did? Postcards. And I got normal results. Was that bad results? No, but it was normal results. I also did aggressive advertising, which was by a Harley. Now you may think Well, wait. What? What do you mean by a Harley Kirk? Well, let me explain myself. Do a postcard Advertising like you're supposed to. It's gonna cost a considerable amount of money because you should not send it off just one time. You should send it off no less than three times because the way the human brain works, we have to be hit. If you start noticing and pay attention to certain things, say some, pick some company out there that's having a sale. Some major company notice you'll see it on the Super Bowl ad. Then you'll see it for three weeks after the Super Bowl. You'll hear it on the radio. You'll get some kind of pamphlet in the mail. You'll then. Here, you know, maybe read about it in the newspaper. You'll see it on an Internet advertisement or something, and it goes on and on and on. Well, that is because they have figured out that if they pop you about six or seven times, you then will move. But they've got huge budgets to be able to do this. We don't so postcards at the time. Whenever I was doing this, ah, lot was running about $30,000 a year for me to do postcard advertising, and one year I just said you know what? I'm to get radical and I took the $30,000 I bought a Harley, and I parked the Harley out front, and I put a big banner over the top of it that said, seeing your portrait on a Harley Cassini porches on Honda just didn't sound too cool to me, you know? I don't know. So put Seaport just on a Harley. Now here's the crazy thing. It was unbelievable to believable to me how well that made the phone ring. The phone actually started ringing. People would go. Can I really take pictures on it on that? Hardly. Yes. I'd like to make a senior portrait appointment. I'm like, This is unbelievable. It worked. Absolutely. Justus, Good as the postcard isn't the type of thing that would work every year. In my opinion, No, because it's like, you know, people get old with that kind of thing. I mean, you notice Budweiser hasn't done the Clydesdales in a while or you only see it once a year. But that's why because we get born with all that you see in the frogs about Budweiser frogs. Seen those lately. Now you ain't seen him. Why because we get bored with that stuff. And so you constantly got to come up with something new. So that's what I mean about when I say aggressive versus regular Okay, So higher Ambassadors. A lot of people say that that's a fantastic way to advertise your stuff. Get out ambassadors. But you know what? I don't know. A single high school senior out there who goes well one day I become an ambassador. No, it's not their terminology, but yet for some reason we want to use the terminology. That's what it is. Is an ambassador for my studio. Don't use that terminology. Used senior model. It's the same thing because every high school senior on the planet to me says, I want to be a model, so that's the terminology I use. But it's the same thing. It's someone who comes into your studio that you photograph and then you send them off so that other seniors get to see the stuff. That's the point of a senior model. So how much time and effort would you be willing to spend? If you photographed one senior? How many seniors do you think that one senior could literally get you. Do you think one more? How many think? One more. Two more. Three more. I don't know. It all depends on your area. It depends on how good you are. Depends on how good that person is. Prints on picking the right person. But you see all of that. If you could just get the right one senior, one senior could make a year for you. Because if that one senior brings you to just to watch, what happens one senior brings you to All right, then you do these two and let's say each one of those bring you to now you got four. Let's say each one of those bring you to now you've got a Now let's say those bring you to now you got 16. Do you see what I'm getting that now? Whose responsibility is it? Their responsibility of your responsibility. It's yours? Absolutely. We're talking at Were communicating were advertising. We're persuading sugar. Let me ask you something. Could you could you show this stuff too? That would that would love love what I did. You have fun. Oh, I had fun. Who? Any of your friends would love to do this? Yeah, I think so. What if I can have a little discount? You What if you gave him a little disco? Oh, yeah, I think. Would you think it would come in? Maybe we'll take what? Here and that's we're gonna talk about in a minute. Here, give him this. And then And then what if he was to follow up? Now there's the slight, creepy photographer guy port did. You gotta be careful with or you're gonna email these people and say I want to. You seen your pictures? I think 1/3 party is the best way to do it. Like you. What if you had a UN employees say hi. I worked for her vocal in photography. And we did your friend. We photographed your friends who is a Q. And she said that you might want to have your senior pictures taken by us. And I believe, Did she give you a little a discount card? She did. Oh, that's fantastic. I tell you what. We've got a couple of openings next week, I'll double the card if you make an appointment. Now, what do you think would happen? We're persuading. We're persuading. That's what it is. That's what advertising is. Persuading, encouraging. See, that's That's up to us again. How hungry are you now if you're not real hungry because you know how you do 200 seniors every year when you sit back and let him roll in. But if you're hungry, that's the kind of stuff that I'm talking about. You're gonna get aggressive. Okay? You know, I just going to sit back and let it be normal. That's what I mean when I say aggressive marketing. So think about those some kinds of things. There's normal marketing, such as newspaper, radio, TV. Well, for me, to me, that's too broad. That's too broad of a type of advertising because again, there's pros and cons advertised in the newspaper. I made a bride may see it. Someone who's potentially Ah, baby, we need babies. Photography might see. But I'm really wanting to target high school seniors, So I'm gonna target the school newspaper, not the city newspaper. I'm gonna target Mawr social Media where seniors hang out. Okay, I'm gonna target maybe a block or something like that and direct them to the to it. So I'm trying to be more focused. Be a little more aggressive on example. In my area, I have multiple types of competition. We all have competition in my area. There's what I call quality competition in quantity competition. The quality competition is people who do really, really good photography. In my humble opinion, that's the hardest ones to compete with, because that to me, is my hook. I can make your stuff look better than anybody else, but the quantity guys they have, what they have at their disposal is price. They run a man, run him out. They got someone who you know that they can hire to take the pictures and you know it. It's a fast. I think it's it's sort of to answer your question. It's sort of, Ah, competing with the big studios versus the little studios, you know? So let's talk about that for half a second. Some of the things that could happen is what is it? What are some of the We all have negatives. We all have negative. I like to play golf on Friday. A lot of people like to be photographed on Friday. I'm not willing to give it up. It's a negative. You see what I'm getting at. We all have negatives. So when it comes to the big studios, what's what do you think? What could be one of their negatives? There you go. That's a negative. Exploit the negative. Okay, exploit that. Because in your advertising, you need to say it's one of the advantages that coming to me is that every image looks different. No to seniors ever look like See, that's That's an advantage. Another to me ago, off the top of my head disadvantage to the big studio versus the little studio or to the chain is that not only do they all look alike, but a chain mentality is the corporate mentality. In other words, it's all about the dollar is all about the bottom line is all about time versus money. So you are gonna b'more treated. In my opinion, I could be wrong, but you probably go to B'more treated like cattle. Moved in, moved out. Moved in, moved down. Go down, go down following. But seeing the tape take picture and move on your next move on next. And that's how come it all looks to say is because it's like we moved a man. We moved him out. What if What if it was more of a personal thing? What if in your situation it became or of a look? We only do one senior at a time. We are. Our focus is all about you. We block off three hours of time whether it takes us 1/2 on hour or three hours. We like to take our time and make sure that every image is perfect and different and unique. And unlike anything you've ever seen, What we really like to sit down with a senior ahead of time and really focus on what do you want? You see how that could be ways of of getting beyond the big corporate chain type environment is also the ways that I compete with the the volume studios, if you will. Another thing, some of that newspaper advertising that I'll do. I mean, I just do it because I mean, I can't. My ad will be like it'll have little stick drawings of what looks like people standing in line. You're like ahead with a body and then in another head with a body and slowly the head with a body gets down on all fours. And then, you know, it starts growing like a little horns, and then its head has dropped off. And it's like I put on the need that are you being treated like cattle? Led to the slaughter at other studios. Come to carve Oakland photography. What? We only do one senior at a time. You know, it is just like I do. I do say it because you know what I want. I want I want the factor. What I call the when they read an eagle. Oh, who? I know who he is talking about. I know, I know. I want that. I want them to go to their buddy and say, Did you say that? Did you see that? That No, he's got caught off. You gotta go see. Oh, my God, who I would that because it gets him talking and talking is advertising another one that I've done in the past. Where I'll have the ad will be a stick drawing of what looks like a house and a little sign on the front of it that says hardware hardware. Okay. And then a little flashing arrow sign that says senior rings on sale. Okay. And So then I underneath the thing, I'll say, Did you get your senior ring from a hardware store? No. Why would you goto a film processing studio or something? That if it Why do you go to some place that processes film for you? See your pictures come to car buckling we specialize and only seeing your portrait. It's so you know, just and you can you can tweet that. What? I mean, you get right up on the edge off. Oh, no. Todo And so to meet Does that sort of help? You do that? Sort of Answer your question. Don't get dispatch. Okay? Our first match off, ladies. All right. Wait. Where is it? OK, and the crowd goes wild. Did he really just that off like that? I can't. Okay. So business cards to me is another form of normal normal advertising. Do I think it's important? Yes, I think it's important. I think you should have them, But you can expect normal results with business courts