Advertising

HelenRyan

Hello,

I am wondering if anyone has experience of advertising in regional/national newspapers and magazines.

What are the costs involved and have people found this to be beneficial.

I am a photographer and I was thinking of advertising in this way to generate some more business.

blue4ever

I worked on the commercial end of both national, regional and other publications. i you could be a bit more specific I will give you a few pointers. Who and where you trying to target?

HelenRyan

blue4ever wrote: »

I worked on the commercial end of both national, regional and other publications. i you could be a bit more specific I will give you a few pointers. Who and where you trying to target?

Sorry, I should have been more specific.

I specialise in wedding photography, so my clients are mainly 25-40 year old couples.

I have been in this business for the past ten years, generating work by word of mouth. However now as the economy slows down I need new customers.

I was thinking about advertising in wedding magazines, home furnishing magazines and newspapers. I have no idea of the costs involved and the effectiveness of such campaigns.

Sonnenblumen

When it comes to advertising, no single route is best, and remeber advertising sales people are as bad as secondhand car sales people

Costs can be a problem, national being more expensive than regionals. Geography of sales is probably not an issue for your business, and if you are prepared to travel then any wide ranging advertsing is feasible.

Monthly glossies should also be considered and specialist publications are certainly worth close scrutiny.

IMO although all advertsing might offer potential, print based advertising is increasingly slow burn, glossies are very good here as readers tend to hold onto features etc as part of their planning. Identify opportunities to support for your advertising through editorials/writing articles.

An alternative form of advertising might be the specialist wedding shows especially the regional hotel events. A relative of mine achieves plenty of new business from such shows, and bookings are up to 2 years in advance. Certainly in my business area, shows have always been more successful in generating more leads and more business.

You should also consider getting some exposure by writing articles in targeted publications, get to know the journos/feaures writers and send in new material regularly. Build relationships along advertising but also promotional lines.

Finally, I would also recommend that oyu look at your sales channel and seek opportunities for forging alliances with other vendors who are also targetting similar/common prospectsive customers.

niceirishfella

+1,
All good advice above,
OP, you need a targeted method of advertising, forusing on CPT, (cost per thousand).

antoinolachtnai

I do a bit of local paper advertising. It seems to work for me, but then I run a bus service. Basically, a half-page ad with distribution of 20,000 is going to run you in the region of 500 euros.

I wouldn't do local papers for this, because you are looking for a very specific audience.

There are specialised weddings publications and websites and I would try this way.

I think a website and google adwords are well worth a spin for this. I say that because this is the sort of purchase that people plan out and think about long in advance.

You will know pretty quick whether it's working for you or not.

Also, I'd say referrals are the big thing.

Old Gill

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

I do a bit of local paper advertising. It seems to work for me, but then I run a bus service. Basically, a half-page ad with distribution of 20,000 is going to run you in the region of 500 euros.

I wouldn't do local papers for this, because you are looking for a very specific audience.

There are specialised weddings publications and websites and I would try this way.

I think a website and google adwords are well worth a spin for this. I say that because this is the sort of purchase that people plan out and think about long in advance.

You will know pretty quick whether it's working for you or not.

Also, I'd say referrals are the big thing.

Exactly.. havign a good , classy website with proof of quality etc will be much more cost effective in the long run. spend about €500 on a top range site, put as much info into it as you can (wedding tips etc so people stay longer on site and help boost you in the google rankings). Also do adwords so you only pay for people who are interested in the site.

Theres also free ad sites.. it would take 10 mins a day publishing/refreshing ads and quite often they come up high in google searches

Why not start your own site. weddingtips.ie isnt taken so fill it up with as much knowledge as you can and under useful services you obviously will be the only photographer and if the site is good enough other services like limos etc will pay to be listed. just an idea..

Maglight

Consider advertising on weddingsonline.ie. They have a huge audience of brides

greg4577

I’m in the wedding trade myself.
Firstly you the need to get a website up and running, if you want more business you need one. Do some advertising on one of the online mags. I’m on weddingsonline.ie and get a lot of biz from that. Every bride that’s on the web is on that site. Then do some wedding fairs, either local hotels or the big 2.city west or rds, both on in January. The guy who done my site was very good. www.dublinformalwear.ie
Have a look and I can pm you his details if you like it.
Where are you based?

Tomthepost

Sonnenblumen wrote: »

When it comes to advertising, no single route is best, and remeber advertising sales people are as bad as secondhand car sales people


Finally, I would also recommend that oyu look at your sales channel and seek opportunities for forging alliances with other vendors who are also targetting similar/common prospectsive customers.

Thats a bit of a generalisation for you:eek:

I would recommend staying away from the glossy mags (too expensive) and only the major clothing brands that can afford double page spreads tend to get the benefit from them.
Many of the regional newspapers have a wedding section with photos of brides and grooms in the region from the previous week. Best place to go in my opinion. Also most of them do wedding supplements so its best to identify all the regional newspapers in your area (you really don't want to travel 100 plus miles for work), call them and ask when they publish their wedding supplement. Offer to submit an article about important things to remember about photography on your wedding day and of course give your own business a good plug in this article. If advertising in a wedding supplement ALWAYS only agree to do it if you get editorial as part of the deal.
I know very little about weddingonline.ie except it seems like its not working. The chances are that the site might already be saturated with photographers but there seems to be a load of similiar sites such as weddings.ie irishweddings.ie etc etc etc