JD School Pictures will co-sponsor the School Photography Bootcamp July 8-12 in Nashville, Tennessee.

This popular five day program is in its 8th season. It is the most comprehensive training available for independent photographers and studios who want to enter the lucrative underclass school photo market. A highlight of the week-long program is a simulated classroom photo session using local children as models when attendees get to see a wide range of imaging technologies in action.

You can save $100 if you register by June 6, 2012.The program sells out every year, so early registration is recommended.

JD customers get an additional $50 off by using Discount Code 50bc2012 when registering.

The program is taught by Chris Wunder, Cr. Photog. ASP, one of the School Photo industry’s most popular instructors. Guest instructors will also be featured.

A program synopsis, registration fees and information is available here.

If a potential client is looking at several different web pages in Google search, what can you do to insure they will click on yours?

The 2 levers you can control on Google are your website’s Title and Meta Description. Get these right, and people will click on your website. Get them wrong, and no matter how good a photographer you are, potential clients won’t pay attention to you online.

Fortunately, more than 50% of your competitors either don’t have a Meta Description or have one that is too long. Your first step to winning clients is to get in the game and follow some basic rules:

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New photographers regularly ask us, “how much should I be spending on marketing?” Below are some general guidelines to follow:

Startup Business

Although the Small Business Administration suggests startups spend up to 20% of projected gross revenues on marketing, for new photographers, that number should be closer to 100% the first year.

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My Facebook posts are terrible. Very few of my friends see them, and even fewer comment on them. Then I posted this:

“If you see a free plane tickets post from a “friend of a friend” on FB today, delete or ignore. Virus.”

Suddenly hundreds of people were looking at my post. I felt like I’d single-handedly saved Facebook. In fact, it was the most-read post I’d ever made, and it had nothing to do with photography!

Looking at the post now, it seems obvious why this post went “viral”. It was 1.) useful information, 2.) emotional/scary, and 3.) it made my friends who shared it feel like they were doing a favor for their Facebook friends.

So that got me to thinking, are there any universal rules that all viral social media posts have in common?

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Over at the PPA discussion group on LinkedIn there is currently a lively discussion about “What to Offer at Silent Auction Charity Events.” If you haven’t checked it out, I would encourage you to read it.

As someone who has attended several charity auctions over the years – and purchased a couple of items too – I believe a charity event donation not only supports a worthy cause, but can be a great form of marketing for your studio.

Here are a couple of tips to make an auction donation work for you:

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The Kirk Russell class notes are no longer available. However, one of the things I was reminded of as I watched the presentation again is the challenge of being a pro photographer:

Great photography isn’t enough.

Clients see lots of great images online. The secret is to provide a great product and to be a smart marketer.

That’s why JD provides resources like Kirk Russell, training classes, expert advice, and a weekly newsletter focused on helping you to market your photography business.

At JD we believe your success is our success.

According to the Knot.com, the average age of a typical US bride is 29, while the groom is 31. By that age, couples are merging two households. They don’t need a registry at Macy’s for more pots and pans – they already have two of everything.

That’s why an enterprising company called Ciderr.com was formed. Instead of gift registries, photographers sign up the couples for an online registry to pay for their wedding photography!

This unique concept is the answer to the bride who says, “I love your photography, but I can’t afford you!”

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When Google first started to list businesses on its website, it didn’t take long to discover that a “trick” to getting on the front page was to have a website name with keywords in it, i.e. that matched what people were searching for. A few years ago, a smart wedding photographer in Detroit would have named her website something like detroitweddingphotography.com. or detroitphotography.com. Today, both of these website names are for sale! Google figured out the trick, and no longer ranks websites higher because a keyword is in a website name. Instead, branding your studio name is more important. The word “photography” in your website name doesn’t matter much anymore.

Then some smart national marketers figured out that they could build a website that was a collection of links to lots of other pages, get their website on the first page of Google, and sell space on it. Except for specialty sites like theknot.com or weddingwire.com most “list” websites like Yellowpages.com or Manta.com are only on the front page when Google can’t find enough popular local photographers to fill it.

A year ago, one of the best ways to get on the front page was to get your studio on all the “review” sites like Yelp.com, AngiesList.com, or even Facebook.com These are still VERY important – and your studio should be on all of them – but as consumers begin to trust Google+ reviews over time, Google will push these other review sites off the first page. It’s already happening.

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With up to 80% of consumers reporting that in 2012 they searched for a service online before calling, strengthening your web presence as part of your total marketing plan is more important than ever before. Here is a checklist of 5 items you need to stay competitive in 2013. If you’ve done them, great! If not, they should go to the top of your to-do list.

1. Make your Studio  easy to find. You should already be listed in Google Places, Yahoo, Bing and more. Search for yourself as though you were a potential client. If you aren’t easy to find – or if your online contact info is out of date – this should be the top priority on your list.

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Here’s a little experiment: Go to this website, and look at the square image ads about half way down the page. Chances are that if you’ve searched for any product or service on Google in the last 30 days, an ad for them will show up here. This website hosts Google ads because it makes a small commission each time a user clicks on one of them.

If you’re a wedding photographer, wouldn’t you like this to be your ad? It can be, using 2 features of Google Adwords: Google Display Ads, and Remarketing.

Here’s how it works. Instead of creating a text ad to show up on Google search pages, in the Adwords manager you can create a Display (image) ad. You can create your own, or use the step-by-step tool with templates provided. You can use Display Ads in one of 2 ways:

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