I just made a couple of new friends, Jeff and Erin Youngren from San Diego… And it took all of a couple of minutes.

Stephen and Danny first met these guys at WPPI in Vegas, and we’ve been in touch ever since. You may remember our post about their new website and promo video so I asked them to share some of their experiences around online marketing, business and their album strategy.  But it was their philosophy, not only to business, but to life, that dominated the conversation.

Let’s be friends

Jeff and Erin had just returned from a holiday to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, with past clients of theirs when we spoke. That’s pretty normal they reckon.

“We are very much driven by relationships and we love the relationships we build with our clients. We could probably count on one hand the number of clients we’re not still in regular contact with.”

Jeff and Erin have built their entire business on referrals and photograph a maximum of 20 weddings each year, leaving them more time to invest in getting to know couples before their weddings. So what’s the benefit?

“We’re in this for the relationships … When couples initially come to meet us it’s almost like an interview for a friendship. We don’t just want a business arrangement, we want a relationship.

“We feel it’s also important that our clients know who we are, so they feel comfortable and relaxed, and open up in front of the camera.”

Jeff recalled several occasions where they’d already met their clients’ families and friends before the wedding, simply because they’d become such good friends and been involved in their wider lives.

“When the guests are expecting us or already know us, we’re seen as friends, not just photographers. That makes our job so much easier! It really allows us to be able to step back and photograph the moments as they unfold without our clients or their families even realizing we’re there. They trust us because of the relationship we’ve already built.”

Marketing

Head to Jeff and Erin’s new website and you’ll land on their promo video. The idea of the video was to tell their story as photographers, and people, to potential clients within minutes of first visiting their website. They charged videographer Anton Lorimer of Lorimerworks out of San Francisco, California with capturing their personalities, and ‘getting prospective clients to feel like they know us in less than three minutes’.

“We felt a video was the best way for couples to immediately and effectively get to know us as people and photographers. We wanted people to have a clear picture of who we are, and be drawn to us. It’s  intriguing for potential clients to see us before they see our work. It encourages them to go deeper into our website and blog and learn more about us, and our art.”

Although working with Anton was a breeze, the website and branding was a different story. They’re over the moon with the result, but Jeff says if he had to do it all over again he’d travel a much straighter road. In other words?

“Hire an absolute pro and spend a bit more money.

“Things really came together when we found the designer that clicked with our vision. It definitely took a lot of work to get here, but it’s probably one of the most important things to get right.  It is integral for our brand strategy for everything to have the same feel – from the website to our blog to our business cards to our logo. We wanted everything to be really consistent.”

Facebook

I knew their marketing efforts wouldn’t stop at a flashy new website and promo video, and they seemed like the Facebook type.

“Facebook is great because it allows us to feature our work and personalities in front of a large readership and to keep reminding people of the cool things we’re up to. Lots of people don’t read blogs, and probably don’t even know what RSS is, but they’re on Facebook six hours a day.”

Facebook really fits with Jeff and Erin’s branding. Interestingly, they interact only through their personal profiles, but for good reason.

“We don’t have a business page or profile on Facebook. Everything comes from our personal pages. For example, when we post a gallery of a recent wedding, it’s on our personal page. We’re very conscious of crossing the line between personal and commercial interactions. Having personal profiles allows us to be seen as photographers sharing their photography life and images, rather than marketing our business. People know when they’re being marketed to, and we really want to avoid giving that feeling.”

Being yourself

Erin says that the key to developing your online personality is to always be authentic.

“No matter what medium you choose to engage in, you have to be yourself. Your customers crave authenticity and can spot a fake in an instant. It’s more important than ever to do your best to find out what’s remarkable about you and your style, and then find a way to tell everybody in a real, authentic way.”

Jeff has some simple but good advice about finding yourself as a photographer and defining your shooting style.

“You’ve just got to go out there and shoot, shoot, shoot, in order to develop your photographic style. A friend of mine told me you need to shoot over 100,000 images to discover what that style is. If you haven’t broken a shutter on your camera, you haven’t found your style yet!”

Albums

As Queensberry newbies, Jeff and Erin are in the process of developing new album offerings that will become a major focus of their business.

“Albums are extremely central to the transition we’re going through right now. Previously we were offering the same types of albums we knew our competitors were also offering, but we’ve realized we can use the album to separate us from our competitors.

“We want to create albums that simply blow people away and we want them to feel expensive and valuable. Our quest for the perfect fit eventually led us to Queensberry.”

I like the analogy Jeff uses to explain the album options they’re planning to offer their clients.

“We look at Queensberry albums as the Mercedes Benz of the industry, and we want to treat our albums like cars in a showroom. When you go into a Benz dealer, there’s only a couple of models, but they’re the best you can get!

“They’re all fully loaded with the latest gadgets and everything in them is of the finest quality. We want our clients to only have a few options too,  and for those options to be the best you can get. They need to feel like they’re getting something really valuable. We’ve spent a lot of time and energy developing our craft in taking photographs, and we want our albums to add to that value in a huge way.”

The Youngrens work hard to educate their clients about the quality of their photographic work and emphasize their unwavering commitment to providing them with the absolute best customer service possible. So we’re glad they felt Queensberry fit perfectly into their story.

How to be successful?

Here’s what Jeff and Erin left with me…their three tips to success:

• Be Honest to Yourself. Figure out who you are and what makes you unique, and build your business from the start around that. Your brand is more that just your colours or logo or website. It’s much closer to the core of you than many people think.
• Be Authentic. Once you’ve figured out who you are, resist the temptation to be something you’re not. Be confident in your uniqueness and market yourself around that.
• Be Generous. Make your business about helping people and invest yourself into the growth of other photographers.

Cheers, Nigel

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