Have you started planning out for the new year? I know that pretty much every photographer is coming off busy season and getting Christmas orders placed before holiday cut off dates… But it’s not too late to start planning what your marketing plan for 2016! To help you do just that, we’ve put together a downloadable Monthly Marketing Calendar that you can print for each month of the year!
What worked before? Look at the promotions you ran this past year. What worked? Which one brought you the most of your target clients? Which created the biggest buzz or word of mouth? Write these down in a list along with which month they corresponded with. If you have a certain contest, discount, etc that has worked in the past (like Holiday mini sessions or Black Friday discount), your clients will begin to look forward to it every year!
Looking Ahead– Go through each month and write down what season/holiday/event happens. Outline a promotion that works alongside that. You’ll want to plan out your promotions a couple months ahead of time so that you know what you’ll be doing, and when you’ll start pushing out info on social media. You’ll feel better being more organized about your promotional material and more successful by starting to promote it earlier. (Not throwing together Valentine’s sessions the week before.)
Be Flexible– It’s great to have a well thought out plan for the year, but remember to be flexible with your marketing plans. Keep an eye on trends and news. Sometimes a fun promotional opportunity will come up from something that’s going viral across the internet and can tie in with what you offer!
Make a Budget– It’s important to set a marketing budget for the year. If you have a show you’re attending, you’ll have to have printed materials ready. Facebook ads, and now Instagram ads, have become the norm with small businesses so having an ideal amount in your mind of where you are going to put your dollars at the start of the year will help keep you from overspending.
Track Success– This is a big one! If you are paying to have advertise anywhere or cross promoting with another business, make sure you’re keeping track of where your referrals are coming from. This could easily be done by including it on the questionnaire you send to your client through Iris after they initially contact you. Hook up Google Analytics to track where referral traffic is coming from and when traffic spikes based on your promotions. This way you’ll know when your promotion has succeeded and where you didn’t get much response.
Ready to get started?
Stay tuned for part two where we’ll share some of our favorite tips for boosting your marketing plan and getting your name out there!
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