As most of you who know me or have followed this site for awhile know that I get a lot of inspiration from Apple. Not only just the products they make and how much I love the attention to detail and design they put into everything that they do but also how they are really a brilliant marketing machine. I ran across this old clip the other day that I had never seen before. I have seen the “Think Different” ad campaign many times and actually wrote a little article about how we can apply that to our photography here “Think Different about your photography and marketing“. But in this video Steve Jobs explains to the audience how they came to this ad and brings up some really great points that we can app apply to our photography businesses. His point about Nike is spot on I think, Nike is a shoe company but their ads don’t talk about how great their shoes are, or the good value of their shoes. It’s all about inspiration and giving people the push to “Just Do It”. Here are some key points that I think we can all really sit down for a minute and think about:

  • – Take the photography part out of your marketing messages (website, emails, business cards, print/web ad’s, etc..) and what does your message convey?
  • – What do you believe in? What does your business believe in?
  • – Do you have a mission statement for your business? Something that isn’t all about photography?

    • The truth is there are thousands of photographers out there right now all trying to get the same jobs. In my area I bet there are thousands just in my city and thousands more in San Francisco. With everyone trying to get the same brides and portrait business your brand is extremely important. For many years I used to advertise what I did “Artistic Wedding Photography”, “xx years experience with weddings”. If I looked back at all of our marketing messages they were all about what I was as a photographer. I would try to get things out there that I did that were unique and different but my message still spoke about photography. But, lately I have been (somewhat slowly unfortunately) changing our branding to be more about what drives us as photographers and people. I am looking at the message that we send out to people with a larger microscope now and making sure that what I communicate isn’t all about taking photos but the experience that we give people and what our passion is as the driving message.

    I would love to hear your thoughts. What you are doing to market your photography that is building your brand and setting you apart from the crowd? Start a discussion below.