Marketing new website?

[DavidGiant]

Hi,

I am starting a business which provides websites for photographers. I am not sure how to market my website in a cost effective manner.

Does anyone have any tips?

My thoughts at the moment.

SEO.
My site is really new so I won't be getting organic search visitors for a while.

Social Media.
Both new accounts. Very few followers. Not going to generate traffic soon.

Blog
I want to blog announcements. The blog will also cover customers. Do not have any yet. Can't push content to this yet.



What are my options? I can invest some money in getting rolling. How much should be looking to invest to get a couple of hundred visitors a week.

Can anyone recommend fairly cheap ways to build traffic or perhaps a useful article. Most articles I have read start with.. create awesome blog, create social media profiles. They don't seem to cover building links and generating traffic.

 

[JonathanSEO]

Sounds like you need to do some more research on who you are targeting.

Most photographers I've seen either just use a typical web design agency or buy a photography specific Wordpress theme and do their own website.

What benefits do you bring compared to those two options?

To come up with this business you must have seen there is a demand for it? So go back to that point where you found out people wanted this service and think how you can target them.

I can't see SEO or social media being fruitful though, think you have to go direct either going along to photography specific networking things and trade shows or personally contacting ones you find online that have garbage websites that you can improve on.

 

[Alan]

I am starting a business which provides ....... I am not sure how to market my .......in a cost effective manner..

You can't be starting a business that you don't know how to market, surely?

I assume your are really researching is a business is viable?

 

[DavidGiant]

Sounds like you need to do some more research on who you are targeting.

I know who I am targeting. Photographers or creatives in general which require a portfolio, new website or an upgrade to an existing website.

Most photographers I've seen either just use a typical web design agency or buy a photography specific Wordpress theme and do their own website.

What benefits do you bring compared to those two options?

The service we provide is far cheaper than hiring a professional web designer. It is much easier than having to manage your own hosting, installing Wordpress and worrying about keeping it up to date.

Everything is managed through a simple admin panel so the photographer can focus on attracting new customers and running their business rather than worrying about their website.

I can't see SEO or social media being fruitful though, think you have to go direct either going along to photography specific networking things and trade shows or personally contacting ones you find online that have garbage websites that you can improve on.

We are about to start our beta. I built this as a side project. I am a developer so it really only cost me time. As the beta is free I don't want to sink much money into marketing at this point.

I am trying to find ways which are free or require little money to get users to trickle in during the beta period. I can then do a big push when the beta ends with some money behind it to ramp up subscriber numbers.

You can't be starting a business that you don't know how to market, surely?

I can and I have. I have many skills. Unfortunately. Marketing isn't one. Perhaps there is a for dummies book.

I assume your are really researching is a business is viable?

Its is viable. I know because I have worked with companies doing similar things who are turning over 6 figures with 3-4 staff.

 

[threenine]

In my opinion a big failing so far in your plan, is too think of your blog as a channel of making announcements. Do you really think people are interested in searching and reading content like that?

To me you have boundless opportunity to reach new customers with a blog, by writing about topics relevant to your industry.

For instance, what about writing about what makes for a successful photo shoot, how to prepare for a wedding shoot, how do you get children to sit still for the camera.

This content will probably generate more interest than "Bill is doing cheap shots come get some"

 

[Alan]

I can and I have. I have many skills. Unfortunately. Marketing isn't one. Perhaps there is a for dummies book.

lol yes there is, from my bookshelf 'Marketing for Dummies' by Craig Smith & Alexanda Hiam ISBN 0-7645-7056-0

Also on my bookshelf
'Starting & Running a Business for Dummies, UK Edition' edited by Dan Matthews ISBN 978-0-470-51648-5

I am a developer so it really only cost me time.

Seriously, you have to create a value for your time, and value your investment otherwise you have no concept of the scale of investment and the return on investment.

Its is viable. I know because I have worked with companies doing similar things who are turning over 6 figures with 3-4 staff.

Glad you think it is viable, as in many ways it is very similar to what we do, except we don't limit ourselves to photographers, what I am saying is 'are you researching the viablility of the photographer niche, and factoring that into your business plan?'. If there are several companies that already target the photographer niche sucessfully, you need to ask how are you going to stand out from them. You need to find out what thesee companies do to market themselves too.

Web Design (especially cheap) is a very competive segment, for instance the average cost per click on Adwords for 'Cheap Web Design' is £8.18, so if you have a reasonable 1% converstion ration, if you relyed on just that keyword the cost of Aquistion per client would be £818.

If you went more qualified 'website for photographer' the average cost per click is £2.73, so the average cost per aquistion at 1% would be £273

Now you may say, I'm not going to use Adwords. But this tells you what level people are prepared to compete at in general (because if you use general economc theories, then people would not bid as much on Adwords, if they could get business cheaper elsewhere => the CPA through other means would be similar).

So using this very quick research, you could feed a number (e.g. £250 / client ) into your business plan. Lets say you paln is to grow by 100 clients per year, then at least you have a starting point of £25,000 budget for marketing.

Hope that makes some sort of sense for you.

 

[fisicx]

I do a lot of work with photographers. They all use exisitng portfolio themes on wordpress or other platforms. They all have their own hositng and are quite happy to do their own site management. You don't seem to be offering anything they actually want.

Maybe you will find a niche and get lots of business but to get those leads you will need to advertise. And that will cost you money.

Forget the SM and blogging - that's not going to get you any new business. You need to be promoting your service in the places photographers go. I'm not a phtographer so can't advise on that - perhaps you could pay for some market research to find out.

 

[Alan]

How much should be looking to invest to get a couple of hundred visitors a week.

Vistors is the wrong question, it should be about sales (conversions), but
using the above Adwords research, to get a couple of hundred - targetted (i.e. not random visits that would never convert) visits a week then that = £2.73 * 200 = £546 / week = £28,392.
Ok, you don't plan to use Adwords - but that is the market value of those vistors. Lets say you are a fantastic online marketter and outperform the market through you SEO/ Blogs/Social by 100% - then maybe you could budget £15k of 'effort'. Of course this effort may be free, if you don't count your personal time and opportunity costs. But if you convert this back into a reasonable 'admin' rate this equates to approx 20 hours per week, or half your time should be focussed on developing traffic.

 

[Websitehandyman]

Well as pointed point I think the are already plenty of off the shelve options but if you think you can sell these sites then good luck.

First things first get your Seo right, then push it to the search engines.

Supliment launch with using a voucher for Google & Bing ads perhaps.

Place some banner ads on photo forums, post on Flickr and other places where yur target hangs out.

Most important point is make sure you have a clear message to your visitors saying why they should use you.

 

[stuartmcminigal]

Without a budget to purchase some ads - SEO and Social Media are the way to go, it just takes that little extra work. Starting SEO and Social media as soon as the site launches are great, if you could have began beforehand and created a little buzz etc that would be even better.

I'd suggest starting in forums -photograph forums to be specific and market your product. While the clients aren't coming to you, you need to go to them.

 

[threenine]

Be very careful when going down this route though. Don't go to every forum in your chose business area, and make posts like "Hey come buy from Bobs shop, because we're really cheap". You'll quickly find that you'll pretty much get banned and blocked real quick smart!

You have to try and engage with your audience. Post answers to questions even if these don't necessarily relate to your product catalogue. Offer advice.

and don't blast gumpf on all social media channels doing the same!
And Please, Please, Please don't create yet another Bland competition to win some kind of bland product just by answering some lame question on a website!

All the while you are doing stuff on forums you have to remember you are building your brand, you're building trust, you're trying to overcome obstacles and barriers people put up to not buy from you. You're building a reputation.

The bonus point to this is that you will be able to profile your customers, and better understand what it is exactly they're looking for, and how you can bend and shape your business to suit their needs.

Unfortunately, when you're starting out, with no money and no reputation and no brand, so to speak of, You can't outsource this to some cheap mud hut operation in the third world todo. You'll gain big advantages of doing yourself in the early stages

Don't be afraid to be confrontational, but never be obnoxious, rude and NEVER EVER attack other users.

Be warned though if you don't really have a passion for your product choice or service you'll very quickly be found out and worse lose interest!
If you've just entered into setting up an online shop with a product choice that you thought would be a quick sell and big bucks, but don't really have an interest in it, you're in for a long boring, unfulfilling ride.

In my honest opinion this is what many "internet startup" shops should be doing before they even start working on there website! You need to be doing this 3-6 months before your site is launched!

 

[amac]

I usually recommend eight marketing areas to focus on regardless of the type business or industry you're in:

1. Advertising
2. Branding/Identity
3. Ecommerce
4. PR/Communication
5. Print
6. Events
7. Social Media
8. Web

I've been working in marketing for a year and studied it previously so if you need more explanation or help, please ask. I also recommend three websites in particular; WarriorForum, Mozand Econsultancy. All three are subscription based but are well worth it IMO.

 

[helen0722]

I do a lot of work with photographers. They all use exisitng portfolio themes on wordpress or other platforms. They all have their own hositng and are quite happy to do their own site management. You don't seem to be offering anything they actually want.

Maybe you will find a niche and get lots of business but to get those leads you will need to advertise. And that will cost you money.

Forget the SM and blogging - that's not going to get you any new business. You need to be promoting your service in the places photographers go. I'm not a phtographer so can't advise on that - perhaps you could pay for some market research to find out.

Photographers go in camera forums I know of a very large one i've been with for a number of years, join up with cannon forum,sony forum etc trust me that's were you'll find them also you will know for sure if your business would take off or not by chatting to the photographers!

 

[InPrintImaging]

You are already entering a very saturated market, doing exactly the same as a lot of other companies eg clickpic, zenfolio, Amazing internet, the list is a long one.

The target market would generally people starting out or those who don't want to invest time in learning anything complicated. As others have said, many people eventually loose their temper with the service providers and move over to something based on wordpress as it offers better customization.

It would be a large market potentially, but I havn't seen anything you have mentioned that differentiates you.

As for advertising, most of these providers advertise across multiple photography magazines, usually trying to get editorial coverage through system reviews and comparisons. Some of them also attend trade and camera type fairs.

 

[londontami]

i am a photographer and i hang out in forums and facebook (well, all my forums are on facebook now).

whenever i want to purchase anything for my business, i ask another photographer. i get recommendations from others and then check them out.

i have been with Blu Domain for about 8 years now and even though they have a bad rep with a lot of photographers, there are still the up and comers who are just waiting to get one of their sites. their sites are cool and user friendly.

Blu is very popular because they interact with their clients a lot. they used to have an active blog and do give aways and other social things - even $10 starbucks cards were a huge success for them.

if you would like to pick my brain any further, i am more than happy to help!

 

[londontami]

oh and getting some photographers to use your templates so they can brag about them is one of the best ways!

 

[Harvest]

Hiya,

It's definitely worth getting on twitter - you can easily search for and follow photographers, (many will follow you back straight away) and there's lots of networking hours by your area (eg #southeasthour, #hampshirehour etc) where you can get more contacts. Many will follow back straight away but make sure you engage with them, chat etc, don't start by just trying to sell - remember it's 'social' media

Hope it helps - good luck

 

[SimonAntonySEO]

Hi David,

Can I challenge the first point? There is a way to kickstart a young domain - I agree with you that it can be slow initially, but one way to speed this process up would be to post a press release / news or blog on well established site (with a google Google PageRank above 5 will be quite beneficial and ideally on domain that is a few years old!). This gives you the chance to also inform people - talk a bit about what you do and the services you offer and include a few links back to your new site (2 or 3 is a good number for a single post of around 300-500 words). This will likely work best if the site you do this with in some way complements your field of work and visitors might be interested and more likely to follow the link (this is a bonus - we really are after getting reputation quickly in Google!)

Photography is a competitive area on the web, so marketing it while keeping costs down will be tricky. You might start by looking for free photography specific directories and adding yourself (I'm aware of a good 20 or 30 I've used in the past) - although time consuming, this is free and will benefit your site a lot.

 

[fisicx]

i have been with Blu Domain for about 8 years now and even though they have a bad rep with a lot of photographers....

Oh dear.

Fully Editable Flash Websites For The Creative Professional

You do realise that flash doesn't work on any apple product don't you...

 

[londontami]

Oh dear.

You do realise that flash doesn't work on any apple product don't you...

none of my sites are flash. they are all html. blu are now creating templates that are nonflash and i was one of the first to get them.

all of my sites also have separate ipad and mobile phone sites.

 

[londontami]

Hiya,

It's definitely worth getting on twitter - you can easily search for and follow photographers, (many will follow you back straight away) and there's lots of networking hours by your area (eg #southeasthour, #hampshirehour etc) where you can get more contacts. Many will follow back straight away but make sure you engage with them, chat etc, don't start by just trying to sell - remember it's 'social' media

Hope it helps - good luck

how do you find relevant hashtags for your type of business or location?

 

[fisicx]

none of my sites are flash. they are all html. blu are now creating templates that are nonflash and i was one of the first to get them.

all of my sites also have separate ipad and mobile phone sites.

Fair enough but the site coding is appaling. I don't think I've ever seen so much bloat and it's almost totally non-indexable as there is no content. Do a search for your business and you won't see any siteliinks - a good sign that Google has given up. Even the facxt that you have seperate sites for phones and tablets is worrying - you should have a single responsive site.

PS: your photography is excellent BTW, it's just the site that lets you down.

 

[londontami]

Fair enough but the site coding is appaling. I don't think I've ever seen so much bloat and it's almost totally non-indexable as there is no content. Do a search for your business and you won't see any siteliinks - a good sign that Google has given up. Even the facxt that you have seperate sites for phones and tablets is worrying - you should have a single responsive site.

PS: your photography is excellent BTW, it's just the site that lets you down.

lord, something new i need to worry about? coding means nothing to me, i have no idea about websites or anything technical like that. my wedding website is from blu as well and i have had no problems.

i have looked at other people's websites and i just find them super busy and a bit tacky looking with text everywhere, for instance, wait, i dont think i can post a link because i am new to the forum, but look at this site, w w w dot fyeoboudoirphotography dot com

you'll see that website is full of text and very confusing. i dont like that kind of site - but i suppose your going to tell me that is the type of site i should have?

and thank you for the kind words about my work!

 

[Harvest]

how do you find relevant hashtags for your type of business or location?

I found the ones I use just by following people with the same interests, plus when you join one and follow people you'll see them tweeting new ones for you to add to your list.

Aslo if you google 'networking hours on twitter' you should be able to find a list - just check the hashtag on twitter to make sure it's still being used, new ones appear all the time.

 

[fisicx]

you'll see that website is full of text and very confusing. i dont like that kind of site - but i suppose your going to tell me that is the type of site i should have?

Do you want a site that you think look nice or do you want a site that generates lots of business?

You are a photographers so for you I suspect image is everything. But you prospective clients want the reassurance that lots of content brings. This means words. And calls to action, testimonials, references, addresses, phone numbers and all the other 'tacky' bits you as a photographer would rather leave off the site.

So if it means adding a photo of some celeb with an endorsment or a logo from closer magazine with a quote you may have to bite the bullet and add it ot the site - because that's what the punters need to see.

You really won't know until you do some user testing.

 

[OlegLola]

Hi!
Here are some general rules that helps to promote website. I think they can work for your site as well;
- make sure that your site is ready for promotion, work with content, improve the design and usability
- work with Search Engine Optimization techniques
- use e-mail marketing
- write and publish press-releases
- create your blog and write related articles
- interact with your audience
- use social bookmarking
- work with SMM

 

[OlegLola]

Hi!
Here are some general rules that helps to promote website. I think they can work for your site as well:
- make sure that your site is ready for promotion, work with content, improve the design and usability
- work with Search Engine Optimization techniques
- use e-mail marketing
- write and publish press-releases
- create your blog and write related articles
- interact with your audience
- use social bookmarking
- work with SMM

 

[Lucie@MightyOak]

It would make more sense if people actually gave you some positive advice instead of criticising everything you have or haven't done so far.

Anyone starting a new business needs a great big pat on the back!

Blogs are a great idea to generate traffic to your website, social media, especially linked in is great for businesses and connecting to businesses that may need your services.

Initially I would suggest a press release to let everyone know that you are out there - this should be sent to photographic and creative magazines and websites also local and national papers business sections.

I am fully qualified in marketing and PR and would be able to help.

Good luck with your new venture

Lucie x