Singing Pig

Me and my friend are in the process of setting up a photography business,our aim is to specialize in portraits and weddings, we are looking at ways in which to market the business.

 If anyone has any suggestions all information will be gratefullt recieved thanks.lloydy

A colleague of mine has a photography business, and has great success with one of those 'business breakfast' network meetings. I wouldn't know how you'd go about getting into one though!

Apart from that.. the obvious stuff.

Targetted leafletting, targetted newspaper/magazine advertising, window cards, a shop front, a website, email marketing, signs on your car, bus signs, sponsor a sign...etc. etc. the list goes on.

I'd recommend firstly you need photos to show people - examples of your work.  Then you need a portfolio book (old school) and a website with all your best work on to show potential punters.  Then you need to get the people to see the photos.  I would suggest spending a few Saturdays standing in your nearest towns handing out A5 flyers giving details of who you are, what you do, and how people find you/get in touch.  If you had the portfolio sorted you could maybe carry it with you to show anyone who seems interested.

Will it be a work from home enterprise to start with, or do you have cash already for a dedicated studio?

Signs on your car is a good idea from Craig - if you get the magnetic ones, you can take them off when they would be a nuisance - don't forget other people can have them away quite easily too!

What about local radio?  Contest where winner gets free photo package i.e. so many family portraits FOC?

i'm in the process of doing the same interestingly enough. i started with a market stall which really built my confidence about the quality of my work and also gave a lot of exposure. just once a week and didn't make an awful lot but if i had business cards back then i could have offloaded a bunch to eager people. i did my first wedding this year and providing the results are good any unmarried bridesmades/guests immediately become targets. other than that try get affiliated with venues, maybe even doing some free shots of their facilities in order to get their reccomendation. hope that helps.

how are you setting up your business? are you both gonna be self employed? i'm at a stage where i have to go legit and i don't know the best way to do this. any advice?