Tricities Wedding Photographer

MISTY C

Inquire 

arrow

For Photographers

Top 10 things I learned from Katelyn James

July 14, 2015

Hi, I'm Misty.
Welcome to the blog where I share the beautiful parts of my business. You'll find tips, tricks, and stunning images. 
Learn more
arrow
Real Weddings
Real Weddings of Real Couples
See my favorite weddings of the year here!
See More

View More: http://katelynjames.pass.us/portfolio

 

Photo courtesy of Onlinephotoacademy.com

One of my all time favorite classes that I’ve taken from the Academy was Branding with  Katelyn James. She is the QUEEN of blogging, has the cutest puppy Bokeh, is an amazing photographer, and an amazing instructor. She influenced me to become a better, more consistent blogger.  I’ve always loved to write, but after having a baby, I lacked the motivation/time/will to do it, but this class helped jump start that drive again. I learned so much from her course about branding that it is really hard to narrow it down to just ten things that I learned, but here goes nothin’.

1. One of the first modules with KJ’s course was about marketing with what you have and being incredible at it.  She talks about making your brand another part of you. You want your clients to feel like they can relate to you so you are not only marketing your business, but an experience with you! She brought up a good point that your images won’t win you clients anymore. There’s an oversaturated market with many who take “good” images, so you really need to market yourself.

2.There’s three things she asked us to hone in. Think why your business exists (AKA a mission statement-luckily I had a good idea of this one from Matt & Carissa’s business course!) Then she recommends having a tag line, as well as 3 words to describe your business.  During the course, I had a hard time coming up with my three words, but after my stint with Jasmine Star, I was able to have it come down to fun, fresh, and romantic. My tag line was just a short version of my mission statement.

3.This was the second time I had to describe my ideal client. It MUST be important. 😉 She wanted us to really think about it! What is their personality, the type of wedding, their passions/priorities, like/dislikes, and she wanted us to think about what couples we worked with in the past that we would like to replicate. I started to realized the importance of figuring this all out, so I can help myself when it comes to marketing to who I want to work with.

The most fun part of KJ’s course was Mod 2- Your brand experience.

4. I learned a branding essentials checklist. You need 3 fonts (main, secondary, and content), 1 texture or pattern, 1 icon, 1 main color (bright colors look affordable, lighter looks more high end), along with 1 or 2 accent colors. Something I knew from a coding class I had taken in high school, was that all numbers have a code that starts with a #, so your should know all of the #codes to keep your brand consistent.

5.During this course, I decided I really wanted to shoot a promo film to help boost my business even more. I want to give my clients even more of a glimpse into who I am, how I shoot, what our time together may look like, and fun doing it. I haven’t been able to get it done yet, but hopefully in the near future!

6. With this course, it made me also realize that I really want my clients to have an experience with me. I want them to know that I care, and have a great time working with me. Part of this includes client gifts, checking out what they have been up to via social media, and staying in contact with them through their engagement. I love meeting new people and getting to create relationships with my clients, and I want them to know they’ll always be my friend. 🙂

7. I had a blog before KJ’s course, but I wasn’t utilizing it the way I should have been. I had a separate blog that was more personal than business, and this course motivated me to not only update my blog on a consistent basis, but also helped me create a website that I’m pretty dang proud of.  I wanted to hire a web designer, but decided that this time around, I could create a site with the knowledge I got from this course, and as I fine tune my shooting style and ideal clients, I can later hire a designer.

Here’s what my website looked like before. It was a template from GoLiveHQ. I attempted to customize it, but I just wasn’t happy with it.

websitebefore

Here’s what it looks like now. I was able to get a Showit site, and connect it with my Prophoto site, and was able to customize that so my brand is consistent.

Matt and Carissa Kennedy 2

I love it SO much! 🙂

8. Something that was kind of like “well duh” but was good to hear was if you shoot something that you didn’t necessary like and didn’t want to do it again, don’t show it in your portfolio. Simple as that.

9.Reaching a few people is better than none! That’s a few more than someone that doesn’t have a blog.

10.Creating a blog calendar helps SOOOO much. It’s helped me think of topics, write them down, and then I feel responsible for getting my blog posts done on time. That’s been a big help for me!

Seriously, I don’t know how I narrowed that down to 10 things. Katelyn James’ course has so much information! I love being able to learn from the best in the business. Do you want to learn everything from this course? Check it out HERE!

Misty  
 xoxo

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

reader faves

Browse
Categories

browse by category

Weddings

Engagements

Adventures

Personal

Education

Hey hey!

welome to my blog

I'm Misty! Welcome to the blog where I share the beautiful parts of my business. You'll find tips, tricks, and stunning images. 

Learn more

arrow

Search