A lot of people have heard of the phrase “Brand,” but don’t know what it means. The dictionary of business and management defines it as “a name, sign or symbol used to identify items or services of the seller(s) and to differentiate them from goods of competitor.”  But it’s even more basic than that. It simply the emotional or reputational feeling one gets when they read or hear your company’s name. The greater the emotional response, the better.

The first thing we had to do was decide what to call her company. In other words, which name did we want to build a reputation behind?  In the commercial photography business, there are two ways to go. You can either use your name, like “Dave Scott Photography”—or pick a clever name like “Studio B Portraits” (which is the name of a friends studio www.studiobportraits.com – another shameless plug).

Using her name sounded more classic, so we decided to go in that direction. Carpinelli didn’t roll off the tongue so we went with her middle name, Brooke. Good simple all American name seemed quite reasonable now we had to come up with a logo.

Homework: How did you come up with your name? Is it easy to remember? Have you built a brand behind it?

Next Blog: Sarah develops a very cool looking logo

The third question I had was, “what’s the budget?” “Three thousand,” she said, “for the whole business.” This included the $2,000 investment in the camera which only left us a thousand dollars to create a marketing presence. In the world of creating websites and spending for Google search teams, you may find this budget a bit small, but not really. In the world of return on investment (ROI) based marketing, barter agreements, and good old fashioned begging, a thousand dollars is plenty.

For new business owners, you may not know how much marketing dollars you need to kick start you business. Many owners don’t spend any for fear it’s a slippery slope – once they spend a dollar they’ve committed themselves to $10 more.  Not necessarily true. For instance, hiring a good graphic designer can cost you from $30 to $50 per hour. With an average project taking only a few hours, you can produce some nice quality stuff for $100 or less.  Starting your Google AdWords account will cost you just $5 to start and you can set your monthly budget. Domain names cost just under $10 per year to own.

So we began to set out a wish list of marketing assets. We knew we needed a few things right off the bat – a corporate identity, marketing collateral, and finally a website. 

Homework:  How many money are you putting into marketing your business? Where does it go?

Next Blog:  Sarah comes up with a company name

Second, I asked Sarah about what would make her business different. I was surprised on how many wedding photographers existed. There are hundreds of wedding photographers in the Seattle market. I had to wonder what was different about hers. To do this, we had her draw up a mission statement. Here’s what she wrote:

Sarah Brooke Portraits offers a refreshing approach to family, senior and wedding portraiture. Creativity and technical skill work together to consistently produce the finest artistic images of my subjects.

I liked it. As it turns out, there are very few professional photographers that work in the wedding photography business. Most degreed photographers have moved to more respectful commercial work. So while creativity was abundant, real proven technical skill was not. This was a great differentiator.

Second, we did some research into the competition. It was clear that there were two types of wedding photographers. There were the really talented, really expensive ones; then there were the awfully bad but very affordable ones. The good ones started their packages at $1,100 and going as high at $5,000 for a basic package. The bad ones started as low as $300 but you certainly got what you paid for. So the second differentiator was that she wanted to offer high quality, affordable packages starting at just $700. So we appended the mission to also include:

We offer wedding packages for every lifestyle.

So we were set. We had a strong mission statement and had identified two key differentiators for her new business.

Homework: What does your business stand for? What are your key differentiators?

Next Blog: Sarah doesn’t have much to spend, but then again who does?

When Sarah and I first started talking about her business, she looked at me and said, “Where do we start?”  We could have easily jumped to the good stuff and began chatting about websites and Google Adwords, but we didn’t. I wanted to start by understanding her target customer, articulating the value proposition of the business, and determining what resources we had available.

The first thing we needed to figure out was which specialization and type of customer she was going to target. As a photographer, she can specialize in any number of ways – she can specialize in photographing commercial products, architectural and landscape, portraits of couples, seniors and babies, or weddings.

Wedding photography was of immediate interest. First of all the wedding industry was huge. Newly minted brides spend about $20 billion annually on weddings. Second, you’re photographing a party… someone’s happiest day. Third, it was lucrative. An average wedding can pay around $250 per hour whereas other specializations charge about $150 per hour. After some conversation, weddings was a logical first choice.

Homework: Who’s your target audience?

Next Blog: Sarah creates a Mission Statement

Sarah is just like you. Currently working at a PR company, she never managed to end up working for someone else. She has a degree in fashion photography from the Art Institute of Seattle and always dreamed of owning her own business. So with a little encouragement from me, she started Sarah Brooke Photography.

Sarah is an accomplished photographer, but knows nothing about Marketing – much less is interested in it. The first time we spoke, she confessed that she didn’t care for “pressing the flesh” as she called it and hated the idea of selling herself. In her perfect world, she’d prefer that her work would speak for itself. Love the idea, as I’m sure many of you do, but the quality of work can only take you so far. Enter Marketing.

Let’s say she has a great product (which I strongly believe she does), she still needs to get it in front of the buyer. This is called “consideration set.”  When a bride is looking for a wedding photographer, she will consider only those that she is even aware of, or that are part of her consideration set. So the second rule of small business marketing is “Do what you can to enter that consideration set.” Once you’re there, and then let your work speak for itself.

So where to start?

Homework: Are you a marketer? If not, do you know any? If so, why haven’t you taken them to lunch yet?

Next Blog: “The key to building a good house is… laying the foundation”

If you don’t already have a professional looking website, get one. Customers come to your site to evaluate you and the quality of your work. Consider it an interactive brochure. The look and feel of your site speaks volumes to the level of effort you put into what you do.

There are a lot of companies and consultants that claim to offer web development services. There are a number of ways to evaluate a good vendor. First, look at the portfolio of work. Is it professional? Does it match you’re style? Second, call their references. Where his/her previous customers happy with the work? Was this person easy to work with.

I personally like a resource site call eLance (www.elance.com). It allows you to find thousands of vendors, look at their portfolios, and get them to bid on your work. What a great way to have hundreds of web designers pine for your business.

As I tour around the country talking to small business owners, I’m quickly realizing that lead generation is a conversation that many of them are intimidated by. No wonder. Many small business owners don’t have a marketing degree. They didn’t get into business because they were great marketers. But they are quickly realizing that generating leads is a necessary evil if they want to stay in business.

Don’t worry. Finding customers isn’t as hard as it looks. There are dozens of ways to generate leads for your business, many of them you practice every single day. We’re going to talk about those techniques in this blog. We’ll discuss everything from good old fashioned networking to maximizing your Google AdWords.

I’ll do this using real world examples from a real small business here in Seattle – Sarah Brooke Photography (www.sarahbrookeportraits.com). Rule #1 – Shameless plugs are good marketing. J 

Homework: What do you hope to gain from reading this blog?

Next Blog: “There’s Something About Sarah…”