4.2.2. Promoting Your Business & Assignment

Count down to Break!

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Mins

Hrs

Days

07:01:46:18

06:00

Welcome

• 12/18: unit 4 review
• 12/20: unit 4 test
• A catch-up plan is posted in the announcements. Let me know if you need help!

Reminders

Recap 4.2.1.

• The importance of developing a business mindset in pursuing photography as a business.
• The importance of customer service in a business.
• How a contract is drafted and what terms and conditions it includes.

4.2.2.

Promoting Your Business

blog, brochure, cold-calling, marketing, marketing plan, networking, people, place, price, processes, product, promotion, word of mouth

Vocab

• Identify ways of promoting a business
• Explain the most important factor to consider when developing a marketing plan
• Formulate and pitch ideas to promote a photography business

Learners can:

Marketing is the promotion of products or services through market research and advertising. To build a sustainable business in any industry, you need to spread the word about the quality of your products and services. You must showcase your products and services in a way that makes clients reach out to you before reaching out to competitors who provide similar services. The whole idea of marketing is to make yourself discoverable in the industry based on market demands. Good marketing includes letting potential clients know about your expertise in a field.

Promotion

A marketing plan is a document that outlines an advertising strategy that a business can implement to generate leads and reach potential customers. Marketing plans help businesses meet their goals within a certain amount of time and suggest ways of growing the business further.

Marketing Plan

The major factors to consider when strategizing a marketing plan include the six P's:ProductPricePromotionPlacePeopleProcesses

6 P's

Product refers to the item or service offered by the business. For example, you might be involved in the framing business or in photo-editing services.

Product

Price is the amount of money expected, required, or given in payment for products or services.

Price

After setting a fixed price for your product, you need to promote it. Promotion is the communication of the benefits of a product in order to increase sales or awareness.

Promotion

Place refers to the physical location where the product will be made available to potential customers.

Place

People refer to the potential customers of the business.

People

Processes are the client services provided by your business in pursuit of reaching your goals. You must provide highly professional client services to retain existing clients and acquire new ones through word of mouth.

Processes

• Online
• Offline

Promotion is an important task of marketing. Promotion creates brand awareness, attracts customers, and helps create an emotional connection with clients before business deals are finalized. Without proper promotion, even exceptional products or services may fail to prove their worth while competing against similar businesses that have been promoted well. 🔥There are multiple ways in which businesses can promote their products and services. These can be classified broadly into two categories:

🔥Ways to Promote a Business

Business & Freelance Work Forums

Blog

Website

Email

Online promotion methods use Internet services to reach a potential customer base. Some popular online promotion methods include websites, blogs, email, and business or freelance work forums.

🔥Online Business Promotion Methods

🔥Offline Business Promotion Methods

Unlike online promotional methods, offline methods are more traditional. These methods involve building business relationships with customers in person by putting in dedicated efforts. Offline promotional methods include:

• Networking events
• Brochures
• Newspaper advertising
• Phone calls
• Word of mouth

🔥Offline Business Promotion Methods

🔥Networking Events: Networking is a socioeconomic business activity where businesspeople and entrepreneurs meet to form business relationships. During these events, businesses exchange ideas, promote products and services, and seek potential clients to engage with. Trade fairs, photography exhibitions, and photography business conferences are some examples of networking events related to the field of photography. At such events, businesses operating in the photography industry come together to network, research, and promote their products and services in the larger market.

Brochures & Newspaper Advertising

Brochures and newspaper advertisements are promotional methods that utilize print media. Brochures are attractively designed, colorful, and informative advertisements printed on folded papers. Brochures feature information about the products or services offered by the business in an easy-to-read format. Newspaper advertising is another traditional method of business promotion. During wedding season, a wedding photography business can publish a newspaper advertisement offering a discount on its services.

🔥Phone Calls

Cold-calling is an offline marketing method whereby an unsolicited phone call is made to a potential client in an attempt to sell them goods or services.

🔥How Cold-Calling Works

• Businesses make a list of phone numbers of potential customers from the databases that are available to them.
• They reach each person individually and explain their product or service.
• They offer exclusive discounts if the customer shows interest in the product.

Through cold-calling, businesses try to maximize their reach in the market and gain new customers. The main disadvantage of cold-calling is that businesses might end up reaching people who have already been served by different businesses or who are not interested in the service. The process can also be time-consuming and exhausting. However, the advantage of this method is that it can help the business build strong relationships with customers and understand current market preferences.

🔥Word of Mouth

Word of mouth is passing information from one person to another through oral communication. Successful businesses are often established by word of mouth, as people who like a particular product or service are likely to talk about it with their family, friends, and contacts.To build positive word-of-mouth communication for your business:

• Provide exceptional customer service to existing customers.
• Get customer feedback, and offer even better service the next time.
• Word-of-mouth promotion requires no additional effort from the business. It is based only on customer satisfaction.

01

Extra credit

Marking Plan: Day 4

You may email me your results for extra credit.

Let's switch to Edio now.

Summary 4.2.2. Part 1

In today's lesson, you learned about:

• Ways of promoting a business
• Formulating and pitching ideas to promote a photography business

In the next part of today's lesson, you will learn about stock photography

When you use websites and blogs to promote your business, you are waiting for your clients to reach you. Email allows for a more active approach. You can research your potential customers and send them email about the products and services you offer.For example, if you were a travel photographer, you might send an email message to a travel magazine along with a link to your portfolio on your business website. The magazine might check out your work and reach out to you.

Email

A business website is the most important method of online promotion in today's world, especially in the photography business. A photography business needs an online portfolio that clients can refer to in order to gauge the skills and talent of the photographer. Your portfolio serves as the online branding of your business. Along with the portfolio, you can add the following sections to encourage clients to choose your services: Products: provides a list of the products and services you offer, along with pricing

• About: details your business, previous clients, customer testimonials, and your expertise as a photographer
• Contact: contains information on how to reach you

Website

A blog is a write-up on a business website that details the products, services, sales, and expertise of the photographer in a conversational style.When users search for keywords on search engines, such as Google, your blog will be returned if it includes those keywords, which helps improve the visibility of your business. Blog pages help build an emotional connection with readers, which might in turn draw them in as new customers. For example, suppose you have published a blog on your website, providing information about a photography class held at your studio. If someone searches using the same keywords, your blog might pop up. After reading your blog, the reader may become interested in your services and decide to use them.

Blog

Today, many businesses and freelance photographers know each other only through the Internet.There are multiple business forums on the Internet on which business owners can create a profile and share information about their products and services.Clients can register on these forums to find potential service providers. These forums can act as mediators between clients and businesses and help them reach each other based on their requirements. Fiverr, Upwork, and LinkedIn are some of the online business forums that photographers can use to promote their work and connect with clients.

Business & Freelance Work Forums