There are several ways to get setup to take credit cards through a merchant account. Most people assume you need an expensive card swiper and deal with lots of red tape to accept credit cards. That’s not true. If you would like the convenience of a swiper machine, contact your local bank and ask if they offer a Merchant Services membership. Some banks will give you the swiper free when opening a Business account. There are also several companies who offer “virtual terminals” where you can access a secured website and manually enter the credit card information. They give you immediate confirmation or declined status. Usually there is a monthly fee to use this service, but no extra equipment is needed.

With each transaction you process you can expect to pay a per transaction fee ranging anywhere from $.10 to $.50 depending on the company you are using. There is also something called a discount fee, which is the percentage of the sale you pay to process that charge. You can expect to pay 2-4% of your transactions plus a per transaction fee to any company.

Another option is to a service like Paypal to take credit cards. This is by far the easiest method to get approved for and doesn’t require any equipment at all.

The Mom Factor is the response a mom might have when she views one of our postcards. It is the design elements, wording and the session example images that tug at her heart making her feel that she absolutely must have her child’s portrait created by my studio. As a mother myself with both boys and a girl, I know what tugs at my own heart and I transfer that feeling to my own postcards to send out to other moms. If the post card doesn’t make the mom feel this way, it doesn’t have the right amount of Mom Factor ingredients. If you aren’t sure if it’s enough, just ask a mother with the age appropriate child and see how she reacts to the postcard.

I have 2 marketing strategies as of this writing that I use. First is my web site and second is a 4×6 postcard.

If you don’t have a web site, I can’t stress to you enough how important it is to have one. Not only to attract new clients from search engines, email or advertising but also so that when they receive one of your postcards or business cards they can review your work in their own home before calling.
We also use our web site to keep parents up to date on when our next Limited Edition session will be occurring. We have an entire year of Limited Edition sessions with dates listed on our web site and believe me, parents print this list off and refer back to it. I was recently in a client’s home, and on her fridge was my LE session calendar! They and new clients can also refer to this calendar of LE sessions and view a sample image from each theme.

Work on your marketing calendar for the next 12 months and post it on your website. You must give people advance warning on these so they know they need to call you!

My second and most effective marketing piece for Limited Editions is the 4×6 postcard. Each theme of course changes but the basic layout and information contained on the card are generally the same. This makes it so much easier to keep up with and quickly design your postcards for the whole year.

Here are my top tips to make sure to include in your postcard mailings for Limited Editions.

Headline – Something to grab the reader’s attention as it is usually the first thing they may read. A headline can be as simple as the name of your session or a catchy and emotion invoking phrase such as “Don’t let time slip by”. The goal of a headline is to get your reader to quickly see what this is all about and make them want to know more.

The Offer and Call to Action – Sounds simple doesn’t it? I was at the local mall a few weeks ago and a photographer had a display there with cards for people to take with them. Amazingly there was no offer; nothing to make people want to call. No special pricing or event was made aware to the reader. It was just an oversized business card.

Every postcard or sales letter that you send out needs to have some sort of offer or reason to make the person reading it want to call you. An offer could be as simple as “Call by 6/15 and receive a framed and matted 5×7 for just $99”. That’s an offer and I’ve given them a deadline.

Contact Information – Please, whatever you do make sure your contact information is somewhere on your postcard. I know you’re thinking “well duh Misty!” Believe it or not I’ve seen designs and I have seen it actually get mailed out to a mailing list with no contact! Your studio name (or logo), phone number, website and if you have enough room, your address needs to appear on every piece you send out.

Sample Image with Testimonial – Nothing speaks the truth more than a real testimonial from a client who has loved your work. Once you have the program going and have past customers from a theme contact them and just ask them how they felt when they saw their portraits. Tell mom you would like to feature her child in your promotion for the next LE session and they will most likely be thrilled to give you a testimonial.

Add a “share with a friend” option on any articles you publish, blog posts or anywhere else you leave your message. If you aren’t sure how to do this, there are many plug-in widgets available online that will enable this feature for you easily depending on what application you are using. For example, if you are using Word Press you can check the plug-in section and add a plug-in to support this requirement.

Add a sign up form on your home page and include it in any side menu’s that are consistently shown on every page within your website. If you are offering something of value such as a weekly emailed tip, news and announcements or something informational, people will want to sign up and this is an easy way to let them opt to sign up themselves. As an added bonus you may want to offer an initial sign up incentive when they register their email address such as a special discount or e-product giveaway.

Start your own informational newsletter. People who are interested in the service you are providing are often happy to receive information they can use to research and find out what’s going on with your business and your products. Newsletters can be managed with a subscription based service such as Constant Contact or through your own email sign up database that you create to collect the email addresses on your home page, mentioned in the previous tip.

If you are attending a trade show, place a box in your booth to collect names, emails and addresses as a process to register for something you are giving away during the trade show. For example, if you are attending a pet show, you might offer a pet pampering service as a giveaway and collect names of potential pet owners by allowing them to register for this item.

If you are a business that receives customer or prospective customer phone calls, always ask them “Can I add you to our mailing list?” before ending each phone call. This way even if you didn’t land the sale on that call you will continue to be on their mind and have an additional chance to sell them later on through email.

Join in on the social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace to take advantage of unlimited contacts. These social networking websites will allow you to develop closer relationships to your customers by “talking” on your social website through such tools as your Facebook wall page. Social networking websites also make it easier to gain new friends, which means adding more and more people to your email list.

Promote a contest on your home page or blog about a special prize or giveaway when they subscribe to your email list from your website. This is great incentive to get more and more people to sign up directly as well as get them to refer their friends to your website as well.

Resources:

• Lucrative List Building: How Everyday People Are Building Huge, Highly Profitable Opt-In Email Lists from Scratch to Make Millions Online
• Opt In Email List Building: How to Build and Run a Successful Opt In List

Define who you are – To build a brand to gain your client’s and prospective clients’ loyalty and trust you must start by identifying everything about your business that your client’s will see on a regular basis and then use that information consistently. Start a branding notebook to keep track of everything to ensure that you maintain consistent information. Using your notebook will help you to keep track of where you are in the branding process but there are other areas to consider as well. In your notebook answer questions such as:

-What is your business’s slogan or tag line?
-What do you specialize in?
-Who is your target market?
-What words do people use to describe your business?
-What is your unique selling position?
-Have you had a logo professionally designed?
-What need do you fill that others don’t?

Develop your physical identity – Your brands packaging or what I call a physical identity is also another integral part of the branding process. As a small business this is especially important because we don’t have the customer base of the large retail chains to back us up. Your packaging will be the foundation for your product delivery and may be a determining factor in your brands perceived value. But packaging is more than just tissue paper and boxes with your logo on it. You must also consider your business cards, letterhead and even your website. Every part of your packaging has an impact on your brand. You must use your company choices such as logo, colors, slogan, etc. on a regular and consistent basis in all marketing efforts and packaging. Determine the most professional way to do something and do it. Find out if your choice will strengthen or weaken your brand identity. And most importantly, how will your customers feel about your decisions. In the end, they are who matters most.

Solve a problem – Focus on a particular niche in your industry that is unfulfilled by your competitors and fill it! Become the absolute best and ONLY solution to a problem that your customers are facing and your identity and income will soar! Over time as more and more customers find out about you and the solutions you are providing, you will be seen as the expert in your field and the one everyone calls to when they need their own problem solved. Effective marketing and communication with your customers about what you can do for them will help to simplify their decision making and realize that you are the only real choice for them.

Get up close and personal online – Blogging is the new revolution in the marketing and branding world. It allows you to get in your customers homes for practically nothing. They come looking for you! You can use your own blog to build your brand identity and maintain customer loyalty at the same time. Through your own blog you can utilize various marketing tactics to continue building your brand identity. You can hold “give aways” on your blog for merchandise featuring your logo, offer free advice to build credibility and use it as an online presence to distribute information about your company. Many blog readers become faithful readers for as long as you are providing them with good information (and not just a sales pitch) that they want to hear!

Resources:

• The Brand Called You: The Ultimate Personal Branding Handbook to Transform Anyone into an Indispensable Brand
• Designing Brand Identity: An Essential Guide for the Whole Branding Team

Would you like to learn about photography online? You can learn about the technical and creative aspects of photography as well as business information practically all online. There is so much information available in the public domain that learning about photography online is now easier than ever.

For the very beginner photographer, checking out some of the distance education programs available in the photography industry is a great start. As a past New York Institute of Photography student, I highly recommend their programs for someone starting out. It is a “learn at your own pace” program and allows you to soak up the information as much as you want before moving on to the next topic. You can also check out the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and your own local colleges.

Watch for workshops either local to you or within a day’s drive that you can attend. These photography workshops are usually led by actual photographers with real world experience and can point you in the right direction to learn more about photography.

Join some of the photography communities available online. These communities have online forums filled with professional photographers that are helpful and willing to guide you. You can also find technical and create articles about photography as well as resources you can download. Some of these communities are free while the more advanced ones sometimes charge an annual access fee. Check the resources below for some popular photography communities.

Check out some of the educational videos for photography available on YouTube.com. Simple go to the YouTube.com website and use the search field on the home page to find “photography tutorials”. Look at not only the videos in the search, but also the related videos that will display down the right side to find even more useful videos.

Browse through the work of other photographers whose work you admire. There are some very talented photographers and most all of them have websites online. You can start with Google.com and just search for “portrait photographers” or any other type of photographer that you wish to learn more about. Looking at other photographers work will allow you to study their technique, their posing and their lighting.

If you haven’t done so already, take a look through Amazon.com at some of their photography books. While many do have to be ordered and received at your home to read, some are now available through Kindle. Either way, order what works for you and research everything you can through books.

Resources

• HomePhotographyBusiness.net
• Tutorial DVD, Learn Photography, Film & Digital
• Learning to See Creatively: Design, Color & Composition in Photography (Updated Edition)
• Portrait Photography Secrets (DVD)
• The Basic Book of Photography, Fifth Edition
• Pro4um
• Photo.net
• School of Photography
• New York Institute of Photography

This isn’t the case only for cereal. If you are delivering your finished portraits in a plastic or paper bag with no protection from being bent or scratched and absolutely no elegance about it, you are generic cereal!

Your portraits are a highly customized and highly valued work of art. Not only should your packaging include the same high standard as your portraits, but it should remain consistent with the image of your studio.

When my clients receive their finished portraits, they are given a very nice looking package that makes it seem like Christmas. Each of our orders is packed in a chocolate brown box that is tied up with leopard print ribbon and displays our gold foil logo on the lid. Inside, their portraits are safely packaged and protected in our signature leopard print tissue paper. Of course, doing all this extra packaging is an added expense, but it is one that my clients’ appreciation for a high-end product far exceeds. And for my business, it is part of our branding. Leopard print and chocolate brown colors are our thing and you will see it throughout on everything we do.

Suppliers for packaging are available all over the Internet but I am especially favorable to Bags N Bows. They have a large selection to match any branding need and are priced reasonably.

Remember that it is not only the larger chain stores that must brand their company. Small business owners like photographers can take advantage of branding to create loyalty and remembrance among clients and prospects. The important thing to remember is to be consistent in all of your marketing efforts. Everything should work cohesively; letterhead, business cards, web site, packaging, and yes even the décor of your studio.

The first thing probably comes to mind is that you should be researching your competition to find out what they charge. The fact is, most likely your competition is under pricing themselves as well. Not only that, they probably have no clue about what the market is really willing to pay for fine photography products and services. Sure it might be a good idea to know what your competition is charging but don’t base your prices on it. Base your prices on you!

Now, I am not about to tell you that you should be charging $xx for an 8×10 or $xx for a 5×7. Because we are all in different markets, all at different levels and our prices should be different. Suzy Photography who is in a retail location might need to charge more than Sally Photographer who is home based and doesn’t have the expenses that Suzy has.

Start a base line. What’s the first thing a client always asks when they call for the first time? How much is an 8×10, right? Well forget about your expenses for a minute. What do YOU think your worth? $20? $40? $100? Ok, now double it! Yes, I said double it! Why double it? Because we always under value ourselves. We are our own worst critics. Of course this really pertains more to those photographers who are new to the business and haven’t established a good client base, who might start a mutiny against you for raising your prices so drastically. For those of you who have been in business and do have a steady client base, you may not want to double your 8×10 cost, but you should definitely take a look at it and see if it is REALLY where you want to be and not just what you chose based on costs or worse…fear. Keep this in mind: If at least 2/3 of your clients aren’t complaining about your prices, then you are too low!

From the baseline price of an 8×10 you can then determine how you want to structure the rest of your print products. A word to the wise: what is the cost difference to you from your lab between a 5×7 and an 8×10? $1? $2? So why on earth would anyone give such a huge discount to their clients for a 5×7? My advice to you is to keep your 5×7 and 8×10 prices relatively close to each other. If your 8×10s are $60, then charge $50 for a 5×7. I can guarantee you will get a lot more sales for 8×10 prints with such a small gap in price.

As you move onto wall portraits, you are in a whole new area of pricing. Wall portraits require more work. They are larger prints and may require heavier retouching, finishing sprays, mounting, and more attention to detail. Therefore, they should be priced significantly higher. Wall portraits are your more elite products and the items that clients have to push themselves to invest in. At a minimum they should start no lower than three times your 8×10 print size. And each size as they go up should again have a significant price difference.

As you are coming up with your prices, think about this. If you were to take two photographers of the same skill level and put them side by side in front of a brand new prospect and both of them sell the same product but one charges $25 for an 8×10 and the other charge $100 for an 8×10, which photographer would this prospect “perceive” is the better photographer? Of course, anyone would think the $100 photographer MUST be better to charge that much more. It’s human psychology to think so! The higher the price something is the more valuable it must be. So by charging low prices, then doesn’t that very act reflect a lower perceived value to our clients?

The last thing to consider is your pricing for the future. You must raise your prices every single year! I recommend taking care of this in December, over the holidays when you are relaxing from a crazy holiday season. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING gets an easy 10-15% increase every year and applies to all sessions as of January 1st. 10-15% is nothing. It’s slightly more than sales tax. It isn’t scary and it’s only once a year.

Remember that your prices will reflect your perceived value and your work deserves to be treated as a very valuable product!

What exactly do you include in a display? Most displays consist of one or more larger wall portraits, either gallery wrap canvas or framed print. Many photographers also may choose to actually decorate the area with flowers, tool or other items, to give it a more upscale look. Local boutique displays are especially prime for this.

What type of images should be used in a display? The images themselves should be your absolute finest work. They should also “fit” the scheme of the location you are displaying in. For example, if you are displaying in a children’s clothing boutique, you wouldn’t display a wedding photography. Instead you would display children, dressed in high fashion clothing, maybe laughing, colorful, etc. Fit the theme of the store! Your logo should also be printed on every image you display either directly on the print through digital magic or other means.

What about handouts? You should have material available to take home for the people who view your display. Some people leave just simple business cards, but I do not recommend it. Business cards are small and get lost in purses. And your display may not show the same type of image that you may have on your business card. Instead, you should leave out what are called “lift cards”. A lift card is a postcard that your clients lift out and take home with them. They are often printed as 4×6 postcards, front and back, and are displayed next to the prints in a brochure holder.

Where should you display your work? This is a great marketing attempt to help anyone get over his or her shyness! To start with make a list of possible location that you would like to have your work displayed in. This would include such places like:

• Children’s Clothing Boutiques
• Dr. Offices and Lobbies
• Hair Salons
• Nail Salons
• Spa’s
• Restaurants
• Hospital Maternity Wards
• Pediatric Units
• Gift Shops
• Antique Shops (the nicer ones)
• Birth Centers
• Corporate Office Collections
• Home Builders
• Bridal Shops
• Banks
• Flower Shops

Ask for the display. I recommend having a small portfolio of images with you, bound in a nice album and showing the type of work that you would like to display in their store. Have your offer, written on paper, almost like a sales letter, telling them exactly how this display will benefit them! You may even offer to photograph the owner and their employees for free. Most importantly, DO NOT talk about how this will benefit you. They don’t care about you. Only talk about them. Tell them how the people who appear in these photographs will bring their friends to this store to show it off and that brings more business. Tell them how their store will now appear more inviting, cheerful and friendly, and that makes people want to spend more money.

Take rejections with class. Don’t let it get you down. So what. You probably will never see them again anyway. Take the no, say thank you so much for meeting with you, leave them a card and be on your way. But don’t get depressed about it. Above all don’t give up!

Make this part of your marketing routine each week. Pick a day to get out in your community and just go shopping. Eat out at restaurants. Look at their walls. Is there space for a display? Chat up with the owner a lot. Make him remember you for next time you come in. Because next time you come in, it will be with your husband or friend and you will casually happen to have your portfolio with you. And you might drop the idea on his head, along with a business card, telling him you will call him tomorrow when he isn’t so busy.

While you may have decided to start your own photography business because you enjoy taking photographs, there are still some business issues and decisions that you must address before getting started. While this doesn’t cover every aspect of starting your business, it is a great starting point to get you going in the right direction.

1. Register your business – No matter how small you think you are you still need to ensure that your photography business is legally registered with your local and/or state. Some cities don’t require business registration at all if you use your own name, while some require DBA announcements in the paper, fees and extensive paperwork. Check with your city and state requirements before you open your doors for business.
2. Sales Tax – If you plan on taking even $.01 from a client, you are legally required to collect sales tax on that sale if you are located in a state that requires sales tax to be collected. Some people believe that they don’t need to collect sales tax when they are portfolio building, charging only their cost or don’t make enough to even claim it on their income tax. Not true! It doesn’t matter how much or how little you make. The second you take even a penny from a client, you should be collecting sales tax. Obtaining a sales tax id is an easy process and in many cases can be done online at your state department of revenue website; many times resulting in an immediate issue of a sales tax id.
3. Bank Account – It’s very important to separate out your personal finances from your business expenses for accounting purposes when you are starting your home based business. Opening a simple business account is for easy by just bringing in your DBA form or business license into the bank. Many banks also have small business bank accounts designed specifically for those just getting started. If you think you will want to accept credit cards for payment, having a business checking is required and your bank is a great place to start shopping for credit card merchant accounts.
4. Business Insurance – Insurance for your business is very important especially when you work out of your home. At a minimum you should obtain liability insurance to cover yourself when clients are in your home and you may wish to get an add-on to cover your equipment if you are shooting on location.
5. Collateral Materials – How you present yourself to your clients is very important. This includes your logo, website, business cards, letterhead, etc. You should find a company who can design some materials that will give the best impression of your photography business. Keep away from self printing jobs on your home computer and send it out to a professional printing such as Vista Print.
6. Determine Your Services – One of the most important decisions you will make will be what line (or lines) of photography you will go into. You may decide to stick to children’s photography, family photography, commercial photography, fine art landscapes, business photography or any other product line you choose. Determine these up front so that you are prepared when a customer calls you to answer questions about the services you provide.
7. Marketing Plan – A solid marketing plan most certainly cannot be explained in a short single paragraph but it is definitely necessary to stress the importance of having a good solid marketing plan.  A marketing plan will help you design your marketing strategies and monthly plans for your promotions and public relations. If you have never written one for yourself, there are dozens of examples on the internet. Just use your favorite search engine and you will find many articles, templates and guidelines to use when starting to write your own marketing plan.
8. Equipment – Obviously, if you don’t have any equipment starting out your investment is going to be quite large. However, when you are just starting out you don’t need to drop your life savings into equipment. Add things to your inventory as you grow your business. Let it pay for itself if you can. Basic needs will include cameras, various lenses, tripod, flash units and digital cards. In addition, depending on the services you offer you may also want to invest in studio lighting, backgrounds, props and other studio related items.

While there are probably about a hundred more things you will do in the startup stages of your business, addressing these issues will give you a great start to getting your home photography business ready to do start taking clients.

PR or public relations is often a misunderstood term that deserves a little clarification. Many people assume it is just another word for marketing. While they are related in some ways there is a big difference between the two.

Marketing

The idea behind marketing is to promote a specific promotion or product for your business. Marketing focuses on your customers needs and expectations and tries to deliver exactly what they want to encourage sales. Marketing defines a target market so that you know who to market to and it outlines a strategy to attract and keep customers.

Public Relations

Public relations is focused more on the business itself. Your public relations campaign will be more concerned with the way the public views your business and it’s reputation rather than the products you make (although these may sometimes go hand in hand). Public relations will increase your visibility to the public and show that you are an expert and an industry leader.

The public includes your fellow business owners, clients, neighbors, community leaders and anyone else that you and your business may come in contact with. As you can imagine, with the overwhelming number of possible “public” to build a relationship with, it could become quite involved. Because of this many small business owners would rather just advertise in traditional methods than to take the time to build a strong public relations campaign. But a strong public relations campaign can strengthen your position in the market place and give you a competitive edge that traditional advertising methods just can’t offer you. And in many cases, public relations doesn’t cost nearly as much as marketing and advertising campaigns will. Take a look at just a few public relations ideas.

• Speak at local groups and organizations. They are always looking for people to speak at their groups and it will give you a chance for face-to-face contact presenting you and your company in a positive light.

• Write articles or how-to tips for your local magazine or newspaper. Not only is it once again putting you in their minds, but it sets you up as the community expert for the topic you are writing about.

• When something happens with your business or yourself, send out press releases to newspapers.

• Volunteer for something in your community that generates a lot of press and shows your business as being involved in the community.

Public relations is something that you will have to consider and work at every day. It should become habit to you to constantly consider how the public views your business.