Keep the ideas coming. I appreciate all of them. Even something that may seem a little out there, but you really put thought into, can always contribute to the final method of cracking this market.
I really need to start exploring and exploiting this whole Facebook thing. Made another sale directly as a result of that Facebook thing I'm so bad with.
That's part of the issues I face as well. Our school district has a photographer on staff for the district, so it's a full time paid gig for him. I also ran into this with football from another dad that shoots pictures for football team, the booster club requested him.
Now both are nice guys, I know them both. So how I handled this was and it may not be to your liking. I shot this whole year for free, yes I said it.
The Dad I asked how he got his sideline pass, he basically told me he was chosen by the boosters to take all football pictures for 9th-12th. Well, to make a long story short I went above him, way above him to the district athletic director. He provided the sideline pass the day after I emailed him. Now I provided all details about me, my boys and how long I have been here. Basically a resume that pertained to take pictures, even provided my website and said if you don't like what you then I understand.
So, I got on the sidelines and started taking pictures. I provided the link via Twitter and Facebook and made sure those who cared about them were aware of the pictures.
So it was kind of funny to watch my site traffic, first game was maybe a couple hundred hits. Then the boys started talking about it and my site stats went through the roof after that. I was seeing my pictures all over the place. By the end of the season I had people asking for my business card, even had offers to shoot a few weddings and other events. Well when wrestling hit, I had my highest stats and you have to keep in mind that a wrestling team equals maybe 10 percent of the football team as far as athletes. Well I hit an all time high of 18k of hits in one day.
Man I was stoked. And my favorite moment was at the football banquet, with hundreds of parents that didn't know about my pictures, we're seeing them on a big screen during the whole event. The even thanked the full time guy and the other dad for taking pictures, and then I heard my name. Man I thought I won a Grammy or something like that. Later my son was asking me, Dad did you see all of pictures in the slide show which was a cool dad moment.
So to shorten this up, get yourself out there. Sell yourself, utilize the free sites to advertise. Twitter, facebook, Instagram or anything else in your area that will allow you to show your talents.
So I mentioned free, it wasn't easy to do and my wife didn't understand, but afte the banquet she did. I had parents ordering pictures from my site, asking me how much and all of that stuff. I sold through smugmug, you can use whatever you want.
Get your print prices setup early and don't price yourself to high at first till you establish your worth. It's a long process to get the attention, but once it starts then it takes off.
So don't go after his job, just prove you can do it better, advertise and do it cheap. I can and will alter this scheme in the future, just not yet. I didn't want to turn into another job, I have one. It's a passion to me and all of the attention, parents praising me and the simple fact the kids were using my pictures on social media was enough for me. You know how hard it is to be cool enough for teenagers to like something that an old guy did, it was at first but it didn't last long.
Sorry to be so wordy, but yet again you hit in my area of experience. Be nice to the other photographers as well, just show everyone how much better your results are and the rest will come.
Oh, and don't forget about the yearbook staff that will be taking pictures while you are. I actually got to help a few of them and that was cool again.
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