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Finally…the DVD Release: Tofurious SEO Workshop and Blogging Strategies

Lawrence — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:37:23 +0000

How do you market your business? There are many ways to market yourself, but you can read about how I did it below.

Two months ago, I had the privilege of sharing what I had learned about strategic online marketing with many photographers ranging from top 10 in the world to those with less than 10 months in business.

My workshop focused on two items:

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) – being found on Google
Blogging Techniques – converting traffic into inquiries (examples)

Reasons Why I Chose SEO

The traditional form of advertisement (word of mouth) is only effective amongst the current client base. Outside that circle of influence, there is a large audience that is untapped. The goal is to be found by those who do not know you.

Why This?

There is probably a ton of options out there all claiming to be SEO experts, but when it all boils down, I can prove it with my inquiries and online ranking. Plus, it’s more than just SEO that makes a sale.

Being found is only half of the battle. The rest is strategic marketing (sample) through blogging, which will convert traffic into clients.

Some Testimonials

I didn’t have the chance to put together everyone’s testimonials, so it’s incomplete and a bit scattered.

Lots Of My Heroes

Aaron Dieppa, Becker, Ann Hamilton

Jasmine Star

Gene Higa, Keats Elliot, Catherine Hall

Dane Sanders

Sara France, Jose Villa

Mike Colon

Robert Evans, Doug Boutwell, Shaun Austin, Peter Garr, and more…

Catherine Hall

Tiffany Fosnight (Adeline & Grace Photography)

Doug Boutwell (Totally Rad Actions)

Kameron & Lyndsay (Shooting Gallery)

Kara Schultz

If Interested…

There will be a digital download coming very very soon so subscribe!

SEO Volume I and Volume II
Blogging Techniques (sample)

Invest into your business by arming yourself with new marketing strategies (auspiciously for the new year).

Sincerely,

Lawrence Chan

P.S. If there is one thing you could get for XMAS, what would it be? My Honda Civic is looking a bit bleh… Hmmm…

A Fun Few Days in Seattle

Lawrence — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:27:00 +0000

Seattle was so much fun! I met new peeps (non-wedding photographers too), learned about other businesses, and caught a fish!

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I hosted my wedding photography marketing workshop for various photographers at Grand Hyatt in Seattle. The view from the hotel was breathtaking! I was on the highest floor (30th) and I had a wonderful view of the water. Every morning I would trek down to Pike Place Market to see new things!

Workshop Attendees

Chris Waters – known as the “C” in JAC
Eternal Reflections Photography – spaghetti loving wedding photographers specializing in all things glamorous and fabulous
Jenny GG Photography – cool chick / cooler photog
Rockie Lee – Image Explorations dude
Candice Cunningham – octo-shot espresso camera-slingin’ photographer
Josh Thompson – Ventura photographer exploring Seattle for a day
Paula Wessels – need your website!

The very first Starbucuks in Pike Place!

I just had to seek it out! I even got their special bag of coffee beans. I can’t wait to get home to grind them – slurp!

I am a coffee fiend – yum!

Space Needle

Since I did not get to go to the top of the Space Needle, it only gives me an excuse to return to Seattle in the future. There is a restaurant at the very top! I wanted to eat there, but @bullysaurus and I arrived 2 minutes too late – ah boo!

New Friends

I must thank @SeattleMaven for all of the wonderful tour / food advices while in town. I even got a chance to meet her along with @moniguzman (blogger for Seattle PI) at Top Pot (a delicious donut place).

Ah – a social media tweet-up! Good times!

When I was at Top Pot, I could not resist the smell of the wonderful donuts, so I bought 4 dozen to Dane Sander’s Pictage talk that same evening…so delicious *salivating

So many wonderful places with so little time to visit them,

Lawrence Chan
@tofurious | mailing list

P.S. Rockie Lee invited me to speak for Image Explorations in Canada next year. I was honored and happy to do it. The only part that worried me was the fact that I’M OPENING ACT! For those of you who know me, I’m a bit of a recluse.

What Makes A Successful Photography Business?

Lawrence — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 01:37:28 +0000

How hard could it be to become a wedding photographer? If all I did was get a 5DMII, a couple of prime “L” lenses paired with Boutwell actions, I’m set, right? Being a wedding photographer is not very hard, but being a successful wedding photographer is difficult.

Over the past two years, I moved up from shooting weddings at $300 each to $5,000 each. My inquiries are still strong (2-3 a day) despite current economic conditions.

Understand that I am not the best photographer out there and I still have a lot to improve on. However, I do know a thing or two when it comes to making a wedding photography business work.

There are 3 things you should know:

Why are you doing this business?
What makes a good photographer?
How do you market yourself effectively?

Direction

Why did you start a wedding photography business? Or any form of photography for that matter? If you don’t know why, then that’s a big problem.

Dane Sanders focuses on the core of one’s business vision through Fast Track Photographer. The first step is to understand why you are doing it. If it is passion, then fantastic! If it is because the industry is lucrative, then fantastic! Whatever the reason is, you need to know why and exactly what you are cooking up for your clients.

Here is an excerpt from a recent article Dane Sanders wrote for Scott Bourne:

Technique can be taught but your core focus needs to be discovered first. And the best news is once you have a working sense of what you were made to create for the world, the sky’s the limit on where you will go with your craft.

Skills

When I started my business, I had my heroes and I think you should pick yours too.

I have heroes to give me inspiration – a goal to aim for. “One day, I want to shoot like them!”

If you are interested in learning the skills from one of my heroes, then a photography workshop that is coming up worth considering is the “DAVIS LOVE STORY” workshop. It is a 3 day experience with celebrity photographer – Bob Davis – as he photographs the wedding of Sarah and Brent at the exquisite Ocean Lodge hotel in St. Simons Island, Georgia.

DAY ONE begins with a meet and greet and flash lecture at the exquisite Ocean Lodge hotel in St. Simons Island, then on to a night shoot with Sarah and Brent.

DAY TWO is a meeting at the Ocean Lodge hotel and photographing of Sarah and Brent getting ready — making sure to cover all of the details. This leads to the first look where Brent will see Sarah for the first time in her dress followed by a beautiful photo walk…dinner, sunset ceremony and dessert reception.

DAY THREE will begin at the Ocean Lodge hotel in a conference room where Dawn Davis (Bob’s wife) will show you how she creates her beautiful book designs. She will share with you her Photoshop knowledge and all her secrets to designing for the stars (literally – like for Oprah)! After Dawn’s album design workshop, there is a “Trash The Dress” session at the ever-so-amazing Driftwood Beach on Jeckyll Island with Sarah and Brent, along with a few of their friends who will model.

I understand that there are only 5 seats left…actually, it might be 4 if I can squeeze it in.

Marketing

Donald Trump once said:

I like thinking big. If you are going to be thinking about anything, you might as well think big.

It’s nice to think big, but you must know how to get there. It’s nice to aim for 30 weddings a year at $5,000 each, but the steps to achieve that and to sustain that is quite a pickle.

I use two forms of marketing for my business:

In Person – yes, that simple. One suggestion is to organize a coffee meet with other photographers every Friday afternoon just to hang out, network, trade ideas or refer clients!

We create friction and connection by meeting people in person…these connections outweigh any online ones.

Online – There is a great deal of talk about SEO, but sadly that isn’t everything. It’s really two parts:

Getting the traffic through SEO
Converting the traffic into clients

Now these are my observations for becoming a successful wedding photographer and/or business owner. I would love to hear your thoughts on this!

Are you frustrated? I was there.

Lawrence — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 17:07:25 +0000

UPDATE: The Tofurious SEO workshops are now available!

Please click on the following image to proceed, but I still highly recommend that you to read the content of this blog post first

Dane Sanders

“ROI (Return On Investment) on SEO – No Nonsense” -Dane Sanders

Like this video? Share it with others, copy code to embed video on your own blog / forum:

Sara France & Jose Villa

“SEO is complicated…really deep, something I don’t even want to touch…” -Jose Villa

“Now I feel like an expert.” -Sara France

Like this video? Share it with others, copy code to embed video on your blog / forum

Responses to Posts

Wow! I wasn’t sure if people would like the questionnaires, but the responses were amazing! Thank you for taking the time and effort to answer the surveys!

When asked: How do you advertise and is it effective?
Top answers:

Do not advertise and rely on word of mouth – not working well
Online and local print ads – not effective enough / cannot get destination weddings
Blogging – “almost a waste of time”

Some of you may already know this (those who subscribe or follow this blog), but I once faced the same frustrations.

I spent $550 / month on TheKnot and was getting little to nothing out of it
My referral network had run dry
My efforts in building my website / blog were not helping me book more weddings

Believe me, it was not a fun time. I had financial obligations with no solutions to fix them. A company offered to do the SEO for me for $1,225 / month, but that still did not guarantee results.

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

The aforementioned quote means a lot to me. I spent a lot of time learning and experimenting until I got the results I wanted. I know there are lots of photographers experiencing the same frustrations.

There is plenty of room on the internet for all of us to use SEO to make more money, book more weddings and get the best possible clients!

If you are interested in more information, please subscribe to the mailing list. Thanks!

Sincerely,

Lawrence

P.S. I secretly like McDonald’s despite it being very bad for my health.

Lighting Workshop

Lawrence — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:27:26 +0000

Greetings,

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Thank you everyone who could make it out! We had local photographers from Orange County to super cool ones from far away – San Francisco, San Jose, San Antonio(Texas).

Due to overwhelming interest, the beginner’s workshop sold out in a few hours. Intermediate and advanced ones coming in the near future. They will be much smaller than this one because of the technical aspects of learning creative lighting.

Beginners – 3 hours

Understand what equipment to use
Get a feel of the difference between studio strobes and mobile lighting kits
Locate sources of ambient light and how to angle / compensate for them

Goal: Student will be able to setup a 2-3 point lighting scenario and properly calibrate for subjects

Intermediate – 5 hours

Learn how to frame an image effectively
Use of harsh / creative shadows
Understand how to reflect or deflect light
Play with ring lights, barn doors, honeycombs, grids, etc.

Goal: Student will be able to use creative lighting setups and calibrate for virtually any scenario in a matter of a few minutes

Advanced – 5 hours

Must have strong grasp of lighting
Use of snoots for pin-point lighting
Advanced level post production
Learn how to fashionably pose subjects

Goal: Student will be able to book badass gigs based on flippin’ sweet lighting setups

Models Information

Need a model or makeup artist? In fact, they can even do their own makeup and hair so it saves you the trouble!

Tracie Cotta – model / makeup artist

http://traciecotta.com

http://modelmayhem.com/ivebeenshot

traciecotta@gmail.com
@traciecotta

Kyuri – model

http://www.modelmayhem.com/880296

headcase.kyur@gmail.com

Some Student Work

The first image (my fave) is by Jenny Liu Photography (Orange County photographer)

All images taken at Ritz Carlton (Laguna Niguel) after marketing workshop

Cheers,

Lawrence

P.S. You all ROCKED! Just too bad, I did not take any pictures myself boo…