Marketing Photography Business: The Photographer's Guide To Marketing And Self Promotion - Maria Piscopo Book Review

A photographer is no longer just a photographer; the future belongs to the owners of photography businesses and so marketing photography business gains utmost importance. Maria Piscopo sets the tone for this book with these words and starts the journey about marketing and self promotion of photography. Though the major part of this book is about advertising , self promotion and marketing photography business, it also deals with all aspects of photography profession, from starting a photography business, preparing the photography business plan, manage and promote to how to manage the public relations – that too in minute details and is a perfect guide for any one who has taken or intend to take photography as a profession in order to earn a living.

Maria Piscopo has been quite successful and popular for last two decades in photography profession and in teaching about marketing photography business. The fact that this book is in its 4th edition shows its high and wide acceptance.

This book is divided into 6 sections, each section comprising of several chapters.

Section 1 deals with starting a photography business, ethics, hiring and working with agents and marketing coordinators.

Section 2 is on marking to clients. Consumer clients, commercial clients and marketing on internet.

Section3: research, using computers, packaging the cost proposals, and how to retain the customers and let them come back.

Section 4 – advertising photography. Free listings, direct mail marketing, email marketing,

Section 5 – portfolios, promotions, maintaining public relations, marketing by association

Section 6: writing and implementing marketing plans for photography business, both for commercial and consumer clients and how to sell your personal work and how to advertise your business.

The book starts with personal productivity tools like time management, managing stress, setting goals, how to act confident with clients and a list of computer resources. Then Maria addresses how to start a new business, the financial and legal factors, accounting, identifying marketing message by various angles and a sample business plan outline and a case study. Then the professional ethics required in this industry are discussed. The (legal) code of fair practice reproduced in this chapter acts as a reference adding further value to the information provided. Then the topic of working with representatives and marketing coordinators (this topic seemed a bit too early) is addressed along with a case study.

The next section deals with clients. In order to succeed in marketing, it is very important to understand the clients and their specific needs. Based on the usage of photos, the clients are divided into consumer clients and commercial clients. Two chapters are devoted to how to address each of these segments. This section completes with marketing on the internet.

This section is about doing market research to get new clients, using computers and internet, buying databases and information leads. The chapter on selling deals extensively on every step of selling from making a cold call to closing the deal. Clearly this book caters well equally to both new comers to this profession and experienced professionals. Once you close a deal, it naturally follows how to make a cost proposal, how to package and how to negotiate. These topics are discussed next along with how to retain customers and how get them to repeat business.

This section provides information on advertising, direct listings, email marketing and direct mail marketing in great detail along with example pictures. The do’s and don’ts in email marketing are quite useful. The approach of designing campaigns based on customer segments is emphasized and detailed at every stage.

The next in the series is developing and using portfolios, promotion pieces, brochures and other material effectively for marketing.

The next part of the topic is about handling public relations and issuing news releases to maximize the exposure. The last part of this section is using associations to promote the work. Maria puts good emphasis on this channel of advertising.

The last section deals with preparing marketing plan for commercial and consumer clients. This section lists sample contents of a proper plan for marketing photography business along with case studies in each area.

The last topic in this section is about selling personal work, how to market yourself in the right way. On the philosophical question of whether you should pursue a higher commitment to make a lasting contribution for human aesthetics or just follow a commercial goal for making money, Maria suggests you do both when you sell your personal work as fine art along with a discussion on fine art and case studies.

This book covers almost all aspects of photography as business and is an excellent resource for upcoming as well as established photographers. The value of this book is greatly enhanced by many real time case studies of successful photographers in the form of interviews across this book. Each major topic is accompanied by a case study in order to highlight the important points discussed. The relevant resource lists across the book make the information in this book even more complete.

Published byAllworth Press,New York. Maria Piscopo's book is a great guide in the area of marketing photography business.