I need some new ideas to promote my business...

Did you try the veterinary hospitals?

Check out PetFinders.com for more rescue places, too! Best of luck!

This is a guess, but professional pet photography is a high end market. Go to vets and pet stores in the upscale neighborhood. Drop some brochures off in the local spas and beauty shops.

I second Richard's idea: Go where your clients are shopping.

See if you can spend a day in a high-end pet store, and take photos of the pets people bring in. Print out a nice photo for the pet owner, and print your business information on the back of the photo.

This is a benefit to both the store (added value and interest in their store) and the pet owner.

Best of luck with it!

Kimberly,

I've passed by this place many times. I just went to their website, and found out they are sponsoring a pet photographer on their site.

http://www.downtowndoglounge.com/

I'll bet he just walked in and asked one day.

Hi Kimberly, Seems you've gotten some great suggestions here. You should also keep in mind that where you advertise has a big impact in other ways as well. Craigslist is a place people go to find super cheap deals. Not the place for you to find paying customers.

Also, I think you could stand to do some work on your Website to make it a more effective sales tool. Right now you have 10 navigation links at the top, and they actually run off the page. That's a lot of choices. Try getting that down to no more than 7-8. Twitter doesn't need to be in your main navigation, and a couple of your options could be combined under resources.

Currently you have very little written content on your site, and virtually none on your home page. What you do have up there is entirely focused on you and what you do, instead of on your client's wants and needs, and how they benefit by hiring you.

So if all I do is take the standard half a second to glance at your home page before deciding if I want to stay, I probably wouldn't based on what I'm seeing now.

Hope this helps...

Best of luck! Stacy

Demographics and Interactive Marketing

These are 2 of the most confusing business issues in the world. Most of us will just generalize our Demographic, instead of actually doing the research to find out who they really are.

"Well, I take pictures of pets. So pet owners should be my main demographic, right?"

Wrong! Your demographic is much deeper and smaller than that. Most pet owners are broke right now, which make them the least likely to purchase your services, even if they would be interested.

Demographics and Interactive Marketing are two of the most essential parts of your business. You can't even consider yourself a true business until you have spent a decent mount of time progressing your demographic research, and replanning your interactive marketing game plan.

If you don't already know, Demographics is a study of people, that are specifically predisposed to want or need your product or services. The study helps you decipher the consumer market that you need to be contacting.

Example: when I do my live music events downtown, my main demographic is: Young Men between the ages of 19 and 35, they generally make around 25,000 a year or are still in college. My sub demographic is young women between the ages of 22 and 38, who make an average of about 35,000 or more, or whom are still in college.

The men generally have a spendthrift attitude, and the women are much more frugal. Meaning that the mean are generally much more willing to spend their money, where as the women are much more likely to be careful with their money on a night out for live music.

The men generally drink beer, PBR is the most popular here in Seattle, then Budwiser or Coors. For women, it is most often a mixed drink that varies from woman to woman.

Most of the men are single, while most of the woman are at least in a partial or just starting relationship.

I know it is a long description, but I feel it is vital for your business to understand how deep it can really go.

How much do you really know about the customers that desire your photography services? What do you know about the people who wouldn't want your service?

To connect straight into Demographics, I use Interactive Marketing to get most of my information, as well as to gain new customers.

Let's use Facebook marketing, as you mentioned that you prefer that social network out of others.

When it comes to Marketing, one of the most commonly lacked skills in a marketer (the person selling a service or product), is the "Inter Active" part.

The second most commonly lacked skill is Closing the deal. But that will come later and more naturally once you master Interactive Marketing and information gathering.

FB was not intentionally designed with the business in mind. It was created for people to use to connect with each other. Which is exactly what you are doing with it, when you add friends and contacts.

Now, in order to stream line your marketing and to make more friends who are likely to be in your demographic, it is important to understand the tools that have become available to you through social marketing.

Things such as profile information. Did you know that when you add things to the "My Interests" or "About Me" sections, FB automatically finds all the other people in the world who also have those interests or common personality traits. So the idea would be to have as many personal traits or interests that you can think of, that would relate to your business.

Since you specialize in pet photography, it would be wise to have such interests as:

Pets, Pet care, pet training, dog breeding, cat breeding, kittens, cats, dogs, birds, animal companions, pet clothes, pet furniture, photography, still photography, personal photos, customized photo's, personal head shots, accessories, high class photography, camera's, saving money, making money, kids, working, art, crafts, monograms, photo editing, adobe, photo shop, computers, social networking, etc....

I am sure that list is enough to get the jist of it. You want to do that for each of your descriptive boxes, using at least 50 different things in each. Movies, Books, Idols, Activities, etc...

Have you ever noticed that FB will suggest friends to you? Know how they do that?

They use this information you have just updated on your profile, to find people with similar interests to you, whom might also be interested in being friends.

Which means that you will now be making friends who have pets, like pet accessories and photo's and also others who might be in your career industry and might be able to help you gain more connections.

Once you have taken the time to really set up your FB, you can get more interactive with your friends, fans and contacts.

Make sure to keep up to date with everyone's status updates, posts and activities. Read what they post, and comment sincerely without trying to sell anything.

The idea is to be friendly enough to catch genuine interest from your possible consumers, with out them realizing that you are testing them for possible consumership with your company. Then you just have to focus your profile on talking about your business. Let it do the selling, so you don't have to.

You want to be friendly with your FB friends, just as if you were just another regular person, with no other intentions then to be their friend.

There are many reason's for this, that I won't go into now, as this comment is long enough, but just remember to be genuine.

Also make sure to use your FB in the way that your friends do. As a marketer, I have learned that FB and Google Alerts go hand in hand. When you get your morning google alerts, you can go through and look at the ads, learn something new, and post any or all of the google ads onto your FB during the day.

These will catch the interest of your friends, fans and contacts, and also help them get to know they type of person you are, through the type of things that you post.

An added bonus to getting Google Alerts in your gmail, is that you can use the information their to become more interactive with your potential consumers.

Set up alerts that send you articles about Pet News, Photography Trends, Consumer Market Trends, Popular Pets, High End Pet Accessories, etc...

Then use those to learn about your market and then to write content, blogs, articles and publications about the information you are taking in and learning about.

Then you can post them on your FB, and this is something I urge you to do as often as you can. Blog about your business, the troubles you are having, the good things that have happened, ask questions like you are here on bizniks, and blog about your regular life, write articles about the things you know, answer other peoples questions in fields you know a bit about.

By using these tips and techniques, you start to become a real person, with vital and possibly interesting information. This rules out the chance that you are Bot, or just SPAM.

To add to aiding your question, when you put out the description of your services on your profile, website or craigslist ad, it is very very important to remember and focus on the REAL ways that your service can BETTER your customers life, or help them Save Money.

Don't just say, "You'll get the best quality for your money!"

This is nice bonus, but not enough to create desire.

Suggestion:

"Personalized to make you smile every time you see your pet captured inside a frame!"

or "Hold onto those precious memories of your pets younger years and fill your home with lots of happy vibes!"

I am sure you can see where I am going with this. Create desire, Clarify and Add Value, be realistic, and make sure the price you are charging for your service is fair and within the budget of the demographic you cater to the best.

If you need any more details, feel free to message me. I hope this helped!

Kimberly,

Have you thought of some free self promotion? Approach not-for-profit pet rescue organizations (MEOW Cat Rescue in Kirkland is my favorite) about doing newsletter and web site photos for free in return for a credit and link to your site.

I love Mercer Island Eastside Orphans and Waifs!

It's where I adopted Aldebaran eight years ago. If you're a cat person, drop by with a bag or cans of food. They even let you play with the kittehs.

Kimberly - I recommend you attend the Happy Hour here in Everett on November 4th. That can only help:-)