So here's the deal. I'm 43, active duty military with 2 years left on my contract. My wife is looking to go home to Florida with the boys, but without me. I've been working with photography for numerous years (since 35mm) and I have the technical knowledge and I believe the eye for the art. My questions come up in the marketing and the selling end of the spectrum.

I want to be able to get this started in the near future so it is ready and running before my time is up. Hopefully for a seamless move back to civilian life and little break in cash flow. I currently have a couple of accounts on artist website (http://www.redbubble.com/people/mfmarsphoto & http://mfmarsphoto.deviantart.com/)

Does anyone have some ideas as to the marketing end that I can work with and expand on?

Hello Mfmarsphot,

Your work is very beautiful. I use to know a photographer who would give amazing slide shows that blended his photos together as each slide switched to the next picture. He became very renown in Northern Mn for several years. You might want to set up a small gallery for your work, offer to photograph events for people and have slideshows at you gallery.

Ruby

Have you ever thought about using facebook to grow your fan base. Using a fan page for marketing can be very useful in getting your work exposed. Once people start seeing what you got, they could easily become clients.

Hope the tip helps.

Local Marketing Consultant
http://FirstCoastMediaPros.com

Hi!

Here's what I would do:

I would create a website that is photography-related. It would require keyword research, so I can't tell you exactly what the spin would be.

For my idea, you would have to put a spin on your topic, because I know that the keyword "photography" is overly saturated and very competitive, so it will be hard to get found.

But one spin that comes to mind would be using your town or geographic region and creating a site on that. Something local people would be searching for. Then create pages that are photographic essays on the beauty and history of your town.

Make sure to create lots of original content to also tell the story in words (search engines can't read photos, so you need text to be found).

If you create enough pages and do it really well and artistically, you could also get some kudos from local news stations, libraries or art organizations who might link to you.

Then, as you pull the traffic from those pages and referrals, people will see your work. Gradually build in links to a sales page that offers your services in a compelling way.

This could act to not only get traffic to your site, but display your wares in a way that people would passively inspect, just because of the content of your site attracted them and the beauty of what you do impacts them.

Then your sales page tells them "I'm available for hire!" Getting this message to the top of local search results could be a very effective marketing tool that will work for you 24/7 and make you very well known around town.

Since you are active military, you could build the history pages now and add the photo portion when you are able to get home. The content is what gets spidered anyway, so getting that up earlier is beneficial.

When you get home, create a Google places listing so your name shows up in search results.

If your town won't work or you're not sure that's where you would live indefinitely, think of a similar topic to align this to. You'd have to put some thought into it so your idea is local enough to get customers, yet broad enough to allow flexibility in locale.

The point is, create a spin to get people coming to your site for pleasure, research or curiosity. There they will see your work. This will give you built in traffic. The eventual sales page will turn that traffic into leads.

Denise Taylor
SiteSell Answers
http://answers.sitesell.com

Check with anyone you know that may not be re upin~ Maybe they have a plan of their own that they need a great photographer for! I know I did, I had a civilian friend of mine who is doing the photography for all of my prototypes, but it may be a good way to market comercially your skills while allowing you financial freedom to persue your passion.
Best of Luck to you!
And yes I agree that social media is your friend!!!!
Collette Woodruff
Creator and Owner
My Trucks a Bitch Kit