Small start-up businesses in the area - leafletting?

Hey all,


Have been mooching around a small bit as I'm gonna start trying to promote myself *cough* http://ShaneMaguire.ie/ *cough* and I was wondering if there's anyone else out there in a similar position?

I've rang The Drogheda Leader and Essential, and also rang Anglo Printers about leaflet pricing and there's a bloke on adverts covering the area for leaflet distribution.


So I'm considering going down the leaflet distribution route, and was wondering if anyone wanted to jump on board with the idea, too? If someone else gets involved it'll halve the costs for each of us.

I'd be looking to keep it within Drogheda (so wouldn't really be beneficial for anyone from Dundalk, I suppose, though if you're interested I'm sure we could reach a compromise).

Would surely be handy for anyone looking to get their name out there a little bit. Also gonna stick this thread in the entrepreneur forum, too.


Shane

LH2011

Deleted User wrote: »

Hey all,


Have been mooching around a small bit as I'm gonna start trying to promote myself *cough* http://ShaneMaguire.ie/ *cough* and I was wondering if there's anyone else out there in a similar position?

I've rang The Drogheda Leader and Essential, and also rang Anglo Printers about leaflet pricing and there's a bloke on adverts covering the area for leaflet distribution.


So I'm considering going down the leaflet distribution route, and was wondering if anyone wanted to jump on board with the idea, too? If someone else gets involved it'll halve the costs for each of us.

I'd be looking to keep it within Drogheda (so wouldn't really be beneficial for anyone from Dundalk, I suppose, though if you're interested I'm sure we could reach a compromise).

Would surely be handy for anyone looking to get their name out there a little bit. Also gonna stick this thread in the entrepreneur forum, too.


Shane

i notice that a lot of people going down the photography route lately, there was a shop setup beside st marys church , think its closed now, so there are a lot of people setting up in photography.

a lot of leaflets i get in the door go straight in the bin without even reading them; you would be better to stick a small add in the paper itself, rather than spending money on leaflets.

best of luck,

I don't know, I know people always say they ignore 'junk mail', but I still think, if nothing else, it creates a presence.

I can't stand those 'clothing collection' things, but I still see them and I still know what they're about and such, despite having no interest in them. I'm sure that if I can stick a eye-catching photo on the leaflet, people might give it a second glance?

Do people not tend to skip past small ads in papers? I'd have been under the impression that if you wanted to make your presence known with that kinda stuff, you'd need a full wrap-around type advert (the likes of which Harvey Norman use on the Leader)? I'd have thought an all-or-nothing approach would be most sensible in that case? It's just very expensive I'd imagine, though, so probably couldn't justify it.

Atomic Pineapple

Yeh don't waste your money advertising in a local paper, its a waste, leaflets (distributed) would only be slightly better though so it depends on the cost. You'll need to rely on worth of mouth as a photographer for most of your business I'd imagine.

I done a photography course and I'd say of the 30 or so doing it at least 8 planned on setting it up as a business as photography equipment becomes more affordable. So it's going to be a saturated market and worth of mouth will be very important.

Your main income is going to come from families and family events I'd imagine so try targeting those, leave leaflets in shops that sell wedding dresses, first communion clothes, confirmation clothes, go to hotels and ask them to present you as a photographer to people booking their weddings there, offer a discount if they do, look out for wedding fairs, details of first communions and confirmations and target those, see if the schools will mention you to parents when the events are taking place.

Try getting in contact with an event company that organizes things like debs and strike up a deal with them to work at their events. Also look for a promotions company and see if they require a photographer.

On top of that you need to improve your website, its simply not professional enough, don't send people from your website to your facebook, only have a facebook "like" link or your website nothing else. I'd also remove the blog, keep blogging if you like but separate it from your website that presents yourself as a business.

Also provide people more ways of contacting you, don't just present a form as some people don't trust them, place a land line, mobile and email address in the contact area.

Also your gallery is slightly counter-intuitive, try matching facebooks usability so that when a user clicks the image it goes to the next one and when they click outside it then it exits the viewer mode, also provide a close option.

Hope there's at least some productive help in there.

DYLF

Leaflets = Bin = waste of money

The Jammy dodger

I think the leaflet idea is a good one. Sure some people not interested will throw it in the bin. But they always look at it first before throwing it into the bin and it keeps you in their hearts and minds when they do finally need a photographer I guess?

I know I always look at leaflets and check'em out before throwing them in the bin.

Checked you website out. Some great photos there. My personal fav is the shabby house under ''Landscape''.

Jammy

MugMugs

You'll not do better than word of mouth OP.

Get yourself out there and do a few freebies. If you're any use then word will travel and you can start charging.

Example, go to a fight night and approach the organisers. Generally they have static photographers who are back in the stone age.

You can then watermark the images and if they like them and want them you can start talking money

Speculate to accumulate lad !

kormak

You should try join the 7.30 Business Club.
It's a really good way to Network with other businesses in the town and in turn you can become recommended.
Failing that, I would imagine Photography is all about expensively placed advertising, i.e Essential Drogheda mag.

kormak

Also, do you not do wedding photography?!

Atomic Pineapple

What do you think of this template?

http://www.free-css.com/free-css-templates/page1/photoprowess.php#bookmarks

draffodx

draffodx wrote: »

Yeh don't waste your money advertising in a local paper, its a waste, leaflets (distributed) would only be slightly better though so it depends on the cost. You'll need to rely on worth of mouth as a photographer for most of your business I'd imagine.

Word of mouth is the prime way of getting about in photography, alright. Meeting people in person and such is far and above the best way to get people interested in you, but I've done enough of that to try and get a feel for the town photography wise.

Just looking to get some formal advertising done now, as I'll be officially completely self-employed in February (meaning I'd be able to properly charge people and such, and would hope to make a decent income from photography).

draffodx wrote: »

I done a photography course and I'd say of the 30 or so doing it at least 8 planned on setting it up as a business as photography equipment becomes more affordable. So it's going to be a saturated market and worth of mouth will be very important.

Equipment becoming more affordable is great for everyone, but I think there's a lot of hands-on practical experience required in photography. I know a lot of people that have done photography courses, studied it, etc. but I wouldn't rate them very highly as people photographers (they'd belt out some decent landscapes I'm sure).

Even though photography gear is becoming less expensive, it's still quite the money pit. Generally speaking, when I take a photograph, I'm holding up to €3,000 of camera gear in my hand. A lot of people don't want to commit that heavily, but the cheaper camera equipment shows in images, in my opinion.

draffodx wrote: »

Your main income is going to come from families and family events I'd imagine so try targeting those, leave leaflets in shops that sell wedding dresses, first communion clothes, confirmation clothes, go to hotels and ask them to present you as a photographer to people booking their weddings there, offer a discount if they do, look out for wedding fairs, details of first communions and confirmations and target those, see if the schools will mention you to parents when the events are taking place.

Lots of great ideas there, and something I'll have to get working on, alright. Wouldn't be rushing into wedding fairs just yet (haven't really got a wedding portfolio to show yet) but events and such are what I'd be doing a lot of. I'm planning to make a list of almost every company in the town that may, at some stage, require a photographer, and promote myself to them.

draffodx wrote: »

Try getting in contact with an event company that organizes things like debs and strike up a deal with them to work at their events. Also look for a promotions company and see if they require a photographer.

DebsIreland usually do that kinda thing, but I'm not sure how they work, exactly. Will have to look into that. Gonna try and push for portraiture as my main thing, I think.

draffodx wrote: »

On top of that you need to improve your website, its simply not professional enough, don't send people from your website to your facebook, only have a facebook "like" link or your website nothing else. I'd also remove the blog, keep blogging if you like but separate it from your website that presents yourself as a business.

Definitely, the website is in need of makeover. I'll hopefully have that sorted by February. I like to link people back to facebook, as there are so many people on it, and so many people contact me through it. It's a great tool for me, so I'd not want to cut it off.

draffodx wrote: »

Also provide people more ways of contacting you, don't just present a form as some people don't trust them, place a land line, mobile and email address in the contact area.

Also your gallery is slightly counter-intuitive, try matching facebooks usability so that when a user clicks the image it goes to the next one and when they click outside it then it exits the viewer mode, also provide a close option.

I'm planning to buy a new photography theme for Wordpress that will, I believe, have a better gallery option that works properly. I don't really know that much about websites, so I stick to preset themes and such. Contacting me was intentionally made difficult when I was putting the site together. I've come a long way since then, though.

draffodx wrote: »

Hope there's at least some productive help in there.

Absolutely! Thank you for the thoughtful response

MugMugs wrote: »

You'll not do better than word of mouth OP.

Get yourself out there and do a few freebies. If you're any use then word will travel and you can start charging.

Example, go to a fight night and approach the organisers. Generally they have static photographers who are back in the stone age.

You can then watermark the images and if they like them and want them you can start talking money

Speculate to accumulate lad !

My photographs have been appearing regularly in the Drogheda Leader for about a year now. I've done a few charity events here and there too (fashion shows, etc.). I don't plan to do anymore free stuff (except relating to charities, of course).

Most people would be somewhat familiar with my name by now, I'd imagine, but when you meet people in these situations I think they generally assume that the Drogheda Leader photos (photojournalism) is the only thing you really do.

I've built my portfolio of images based mostly on free work, and by now I think I've probably overdone it. Self-employment means I need to start taking my financial situations much more serious than I have in the past.

kormak wrote: »

You should try join the 7.30 Business Club.
It's a really good way to Network with other businesses in the town and in turn you can become recommended.
Failing that, I would imagine Photography is all about expensively placed advertising, i.e Essential Drogheda mag.

Not familiar with that Business Club. Never heard of it to be honest. Essential's pricing isn't too shabby. I wonder would a full page advert be a head turner, though? Seems that only really wedding photographers bother advertising their services?..

kormak wrote: »

Also, do you not do wedding photography?!

Not yet. I haven't really come across the situation where I've been asked. Though that said, I will have one on, hopefully, in April. Should be a breeze (I know a lot of photographers get really nervous and worked up over them, but I reckon I'll be laughing). After I do that (hopefully with some pretty decent results) I'll have a few wedding images I can use to promote myself with.

Can't really advertise myself as a Wedding photographer until I've a handful of weddings under my belt though. In the mean time I'll hope for word of mouth and if things go well with this wedding then i may get in touch with other wedding businesses (dresses, cakes, car hire, etc.) and try to get something up and running. That's down the line though.

draffodx wrote: »

What do you think of this template?

http://www.free-css.com/free-css-templates/page1/photoprowess.php#bookmarks

I was planning on buying Photocrati;

http://www.photocrati.com/


It costs money (downside) but it apparently is easy to edit (upside) and works straight away with little to no messing around (another upside).

I'll start getting cracking on doing something with the website at the start of next week. Trying to work on pricing and such at the moment.



HUGE Thanks to all to reply so far. Greatly appreciate the insight

Johnny Foreigner

Deleted User wrote: »

Hey all,


Have been mooching around a small bit as I'm gonna start trying to promote myself *cough* http://ShaneMaguire.ie/ *cough* and I was wondering if there's anyone else out there in a similar position?

I've rang The Drogheda Leader and Essential, and also rang Anglo Printers about leaflet pricing and there's a bloke on adverts covering the area for leaflet distribution.


So I'm considering going down the leaflet distribution route, and was wondering if anyone wanted to jump on board with the idea, too? If someone else gets involved it'll halve the costs for each of us.

I'd be looking to keep it within Drogheda (so wouldn't really be beneficial for anyone from Dundalk, I suppose, though if you're interested I'm sure we could reach a compromise).

Would surely be handy for anyone looking to get their name out there a little bit. Also gonna stick this thread in the entrepreneur forum, too.


Shane

The average hit rate (paying customer) per leaflet is 1 in 1000 typically. They are not cost effective. Facebook and a website are better marketing tools. The only other thing you can do is network, as word of mouth referrals will give you more repeat business than any other marketing medium. My advice is to go to wedding fairs and hand out business cards. Once you have done one wedding, the word will spread. It wont be just weddings, you will be doing make over shoots, and model portfolios. Another good cost effective way is to pay a taxi to advertise your business. It will get seen locally by everyone that takes a taxi in your area.

The Jammy dodger

You can also promote it by putting an advertisement on LMFM or Dundalk FM radio stations. Also Dundalk FM have a thing were you pay for your advert AND they offer you to come in and talk about your business on the most popular listened to station in the mornings by the locals for free.

Just another way of doing it. I'm sure you plan to do more advertising alongside just leaflet distribution. But if you were to for talks sake just gonna go ahead and do leaflets alone it wouldnt be cost effective. But I'm sure you already know that.

Jam

Hadn't actually considered radio at all, to be honest.

Facebook was an idea I had alright, but never looked too far into it. Might do that again. Facebook lets you target specific people too, though doesn't it (so when I start at weddings, I can specifically target people who recently changed their facebook status to Engaged?!).

Facebook page has hundreds upon hundreds of photos on it, so Im not sure if that should be cleaned up (to the same folder-type set-up as the website) or if i should leave it as is.

Must get in touch with LMFM to find out how much it'd cost to get on the air with them in an advert (doubt they'd actually speak to me on the show, as all i can realistically say is that "im better than everyone else, so you should hire me" but that's kind of insulting to other people, no matter how you word it).

Will look into it though.


I was also thinking of the taxis. I see the Laptop shop have a decal wrap on a taxi on the town and it's very, very well put together (the colours really take your attention). I'd say it's expensive, though?!

Nesta99

Very good advice there for the OP. Draffodox in particular called it good!

Excellent advice for anyone and everyone in a similar boat to myself. Especially those looking to advertise.

Asked a couple of taxi drivers about getting a car wrap done today and didn't get very far (ranging from those who'd no idea on the pricing to those who'd never do it themselves, so... bit of a brick wall there. Will have to try and stop a taxi that already actually has an advert on it).

Currently freshening up the website. If anyone has any comment to make on it I'd appreciate it. I'm certain it's better than before though (although it's always difficult to say that, as it's got a 'new' novelty to me at the moment, so it's hard to be completely unbiased)

http://ShaneMaguire.ie/

bigneacy

draffodx wrote: »

Yeh don't waste your money advertising in a local paper, its a waste, leaflets (distributed) would only be slightly better though so it depends on the cost.

I can tell you, KKV, as someone who has extensive experience in advertising both locally and nationally that local papers are in no way, shape or form a waste.

They are extremely beneficial - your type of business needs a presence to stay in peoples mind - a 1/2 page once a fortnight if you can afford it, or a quarter page if its more within price range would be beneficial but don't fool yourself with once off ads - not for your type of business.

The paid for papers are a dying breed - the drogheda leader has extremely impressive circulation figures and as such the price reflects that - be smart, negotiate and let them know you are looking for "new customer" prices with a view to advertising on a long term basis and you could get a half page for abour €450- 500 per ad. This might seem expensive but if you get one wedding client every second ad, then you aren't wasting money.

After a while you can rely on reputation and word of mouth, but for now- you need to get your name out. Also- once you advertise you can get them to run an editorial on you once every few months - they like to do this for good advertisers as they make it seem like they are giving you something for free.

Best advice I can give you with the local sheets is - negotiate. Always ask for an early right hand - tell them you are prepared to let this weeks deadline pass to get a favourable position next week. Believe me - I have experimented with the whole left-hand, right-hand thing - right-hands work better. Period.

Also look at the wedding, bridal, etc. magazines - they have pie in the sky prices on their rate card but they don't actually expect to get them - magazines are losing readers on weekly basis and they know it. They are prepared to talk.

Also as a side note the hit rate of people who will read your leaflets is less than 10% - those who are actually looking for a photographer out of that 10% is miniscule - thats why the only people who sucessfully utilise leaflet drops are the large grocery brands, furniture chains, electronics stores etc. who have a catalogue to put out that people will read.

PS: to touch on something someone else mentioned - the local radio stations - very expensive - the community stations give a good bang for the relatively small buck - you can get on Dundalk FM for only €30 per week. Research the community stations.

Cheers Bigneacy.

I don't think a half page a fortnight is anywhere near my budget, unfortunately, but the Leader do offer a small rectangular advertisement at a cost I could probably stretch to afford. They're not the most eye-catching, to be honest, but they're there (in their "Wedding Directory").

Do local media really haggle much on these prices? Obviously I'd like to do as much advertising as possible, but as I also need to sort out public liability, pro camera insurance, upgrades to my gear, new (capable) computer, etc.

I find that the money I'd like to invest in advertising is dwindling with all these other expenses (and what's the point in advertising for weddings, if you don't have the gear that can do the job, so unfortunately this stuff has to come first).


My Dad actually came out with something I hadn't thought of; to advertise on the TV in the Credit Union (people are usually getting loans to cover their weddings, right?). I've heard it's pretty expensive, though I haven't contacted them myself, so... (though I'd still prefer a regular spot in the Leader).

Atomic Pineapple

For someone starting out as a photographer spending €500 to advertise in a local paper is a waste! Thats extortionate money for someone starting out to try and get their name out! And in the photography world especially when it comes to weddings no one will you hire you based on a €500 paper ad, they'll see the ad and ask around, if no one has heard of or used you then they'll discount you.

I'm not saying that at some stage the paper will be a good idea but when starting out in an industry where people are extremely reliant on word of mouth to pick their best option for a photographer it's not a great idea in my opinion. I wouldn't see you getting much return for your money especially at that cost!

When you get some wedding experience and have someone who can vouch for you as a good wedding photographer then start advertising in that manner.

draffodx

draffodx wrote: »

For someone starting out as a photographer spending €500 to advertise in a local paper is a waste! Thats extortionate money for someone starting out to try and get their name out! And in the photography world especially when it comes to weddings no one will you hire you based on a €500 paper ad, they'll see the ad and ask around, if no one has heard of or used you then they'll discount you.

I'm not saying that at some stage the paper will be a good idea but when starting out in an industry where people are extremely reliant on word of mouth to pick their best option for a photographer it's not a great idea in my opinion. I wouldn't see you getting much return for your money especially at that cost!

When you get some wedding experience and have someone who can vouch for you as a good wedding photographer then start advertising in that manner.

Oh, as I said, I know photography is a word of mouth game. I have a wedding coming up and don't plan on moving at all on advertising until after either that wedding, or a second or third wedding (I'll struggle to get a wedding without a wedding portfolio).

That said, I do like portraiture, and have done a fair bit of it. I'd like to try and get that out there (though again, not until after the wedding).

Atomic Pineapple

I think a photographer will have to get a good family picture/family occasion and wedding portfolio going first and use that as the meat of their work and then do portraiture stuff when they can.

With a good portfolio your choices of advertising open up more.

Keep us informed in how your getting along anyway.

draffodx

draffodx wrote: »

I think a photographer will have to get a good family picture/family occasion and wedding portfolio going first and use that as the meat of their work and then do portraiture stuff when they can.

With a good portfolio your choices of advertising open up more.

Keep us informed in how your getting along anyway.

I will indeed.

Thanks for all the advice everyone.