Please Take A Brochure

Another piece of the marketing puzzle for your wedding photography business should be a professional looking brochure. A brochure will help those clients that maybe don't have access to your online portfolio or older clients (MOBs and FOBs) who may see a brochure as an indication that you are an established photographer with a marketing plan behind you.

Basically a brochure is a glorified business card, but it can be so much more:

• a mini portfolio
• mission statement / who you are
• services you provide
• the who, why, how of your services
• a call to action
• provide helpful hints

A call to action is one of the most important things to include in your brochure. A call to action is a statement that nudges your potential clients to become actual clients. For example:

Call or email me today to meet with me and see my portfolio!

Take a few minutes to complete and send in this questionnaire about your preferences and we'll send you a coupon for 20% off!

Send $5.00 to start your trial of my new marketing plan! Cancel anytime!

Offering incentives (like the second CTA) can often prompt "fence sitters" by creating something of value they can get for free.

Your brochure doesn't have to be just a standard tri-fold layout. It can be any shape or size. Be creative! The more creative you are, the more your brochure will stand out!

I create my own brochures but there are many online retailers and local print shops that will make them for you very cheaply.

Steps to making your own brochure:

1. read up and be familiar with basic graphic design for brochures
2. use a good graphic design program like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator.
3. use a template to make sure your measurements are correct as to where to the folds go
4. include your business' name on the front flap and whenever possible on the inside
5. include a "mission statement" or a description of your services to your potential clients
6. don't get too cluttered or busy (see #1)
7. remember you have to design the inside and outside. They are both opposite each other.
   
8. take to Kinkos or other photocopy store and get them to do one double-sided test print to make sure both sides will match up.
9. when everything is perfect print out a good 50-100 so you won't have to go through all this hassle again later
10. crop and chop if needed, then carefully fold at your fold lines
11. hand them out and watch people get impressed!

So, please... make a brochure!

(graphic by Seattle Municipal Archives from Flickr)

Today's "What The Duck?"

I always love this guy's comics. Please check him out and subscribe to this comic strip if you're interested in photography!

I'm working on a few new articles for TheWedding PhotogBlog in the next couple of days so stay tuned. I hope a little WTD helps fill the void for now. Thanks for staying tuned!

Essential Adobe Software Updates Today!

I just heard that today Adobe has released updates for Lightroom, CS4 and their Camera RAW plug-in. If you are using any of these amazing editing programs for your photography, go right now and update these at the Adobe Website!

WHAT?!? You're not using Adobe software?
Adobe has been making the premier photo editing software for over 10 years now. Professionals across the industry use Adobe's suite of software for the media and design industry:

• Photoshop CS4 and Illustrator CS4 for graphic design
• Dreamweaver, Flash and Acrobat for web design and online media
• Premier Pro and Aftereffects for video and special effects
• Lightroom for specialty photography effects and fine tuning as well as editing and archiving.

Yes, most of these are a bit pricey (up to $2499 for most recent Creative Suite 4 Master Collection) but a few of these are definitely worth saving up for, especially Lightroom 2 if you are a wedding photographer. Your clients will thank you! Lightroom 2 is retailing for just under $300 for the full version right now and I would suggest buying this before you buy another single piece of gear. Good photo editing will make or break your business!

Budget conscious photo editing alternatives:
For those of you who can't afford to make the investment right now, you should at least look into Adobe's value versions of their most popular software usually retailing for under $100. The two titles worth looking into are Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 (graphic design and photo editing) and Premier Elements (for video editing). Both provide all of the essential Photoshop or Premier tools without all the complicated steep learning curve and obscure features that some say you need but will never use.

A few non Adobe alternatives that I would recommend are:

• Gimp - Gimp is one of the most popular and powerful open source (free!) graphics and photo editing software out there for a few years now. Some even argue that it rivals many of Photoshop (full version) features.
• Paint.net - innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials, and plug ins.
• Corel Paint Shop Pro X - retouch, Camera RAW support, color changer, noise removal

Most of these are less than $80 or FREE! So there's no excuse anymore. Get one of these programs and learn it. Having good photo editing software and knowing how to use it puts your photography well above "uncle Jim's" who's pictures are not well framed, red eyed and over exposed. You have the power to fix all of these little problems if you have a good photo editor.

Next time: Free online photo editors for working on you photos "in the cloud".