Commercial Photographer: Your Guide to Marketing, Creativity and Growth Expert Corporate Photographer Stephanie Belton shares her business and photography experience and expertise with us.
Stefanie has been a professional photographers for twenty years in the St.Albans area. Her focus is now 100% on commercial photography.
Stefanie says it’s important to think about what motivates people to get photos. What are the triggers that make people want a photograph? This could be an event for a family, it could be being asked for a headshot as a business leader.
Stefanie says it’s very important to make it very easy for people to work with you. For example if someone wants a corporate headshot she already has a blog ready that answers many of the questions they might ask about headshots.
A few weeks ago Stefanie was working with a school on their marketing. She said the women at the school was convinced that she only did school photography as she had such a great landing page for school photography. Having specialised landing pages for areas you work in makes life simple for the lead which helps to convert them. Stefanie also ensures she responds to lead very quickly.
Stefanie also wants to engage the local community as she wants to work locally. For example last year she went on a local Mum’s Facebook group and said she wanted to help those with a LinkedIn profile photo that they were embarrassed about. She offered a free headshot for three people who were happy with their before and after shots being shared publicly. She got a lot of queries and then worked out who she wanted to work with using various criteria, including making sure they were very different. So the posts on the Facebook group created abuzz. She then started sharing what she did on LinkedIn. She did some posts asking people to help people choose their new headshot and gave a few options. This got lots of engagement as so many people saw the post and so many people were willing to chip and and comment on which headshot should be used. This process has also been working on the triggers helping people realise they do need a headshot.
Corporate photography UK is a Facebook group that Stephanie helps to run along with Martin Hobby (see our show with Martin here). Elise Marks setup the group. The group is about supporting each other and is Uk based. The group is also used for referrals, so for example if Stefanie does a photoshoot in London and the same company needs a photoshoot in Manchester, she would use the group to find someone to refer that work to. Stefanie says it’s vital that your website is excellent as it needs to appeal to photographers looking to refer work. Also she says she won’t refer work to photographers who don’t have a good website, even if she knows they are excellent, as she wants to ensure the person she is referring gets the right impression.
Marcus asks about Stefanie’s use of artificial light. She says she uses artificial light nearly all the time. As she is a portrait photographer then light on the face needs to be right and an artificial light is essential for this.
Stefanie’s advice for anyone moving to corporate photography is first of all to learn off camera flash. Understanding and creating light is a big differentiator between professional photographers and those shooting on phones. This skills means that during the day you may need to change your setup as the sun moves and comes in and out of clouds.
Marcus asks about dealing with people and getting them comfortable. Stefanie says you need to work with your own personality or it won’t work. Stefanie says she is quiet, calm person. So she doesn’t work in a high energy way, which others might if this is their personality. It is important to also understand where the person is coming from who is having their photograph taking and having empathy with them. This is related to our past show on listening.
You can reach out to Stephanie on LinkedIn here
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