Christmas Sales for Shutterbugs

Since we are rapidly approaching the Holidays I thought this would be a good week to post an article on some good gift ideas you can share with your family if you are a shutter bug or gifts you can buy your shutter bug.

Canon released the 7D Mark II not long ago, which has been a very successful follow up to their popular 7D and now the 7D Mark II is $1,049 down from it’s original price of $1,400, but you have to buy it with a PIXMA PRO Printer. If you want to catch this deal, run on over to B&H to get one, according to our friends at SLRLounge.

One again Amazon is blowing people’s minds by dropping the price of the original Sony A7 Full-Frame Mirrorless to under $1000 for the holiday season. You can run over now and get it, body only for $998 here.

Another great deal on the B&H site is Sony SD 32GB Memory cards at 94MB/s for $12.99. That is an insanely low price for such a fast memory card and if you remember my post from last week about memory cards, this is one of the ones you want.

For some holiday gifts for under $50, you cannot go wrong with the following winners for shutter bugs.

Joby Gorillapod tripod now just $39.99 on B&H, I personally have one of these and they are fantastic. You can literally wrap the legs around tress branches, fence posts, etc and mount your camera on it for unique perspectives.

Fotodiox Canon 24-105mm F/4 L IS USM Thermos Cup - $14.95

Pelican 0915 Memory card case - $17.99 This model is for SD, Mini SD and Micro SD cards and is made of Tough Polycarbonate Resin and water resistant. They also offer a model for CF cards (Model # 0945) if you have those as well like I do for $17.48

Last but not least in my opinion is the RAVPower 15 Watt Solar Charger with Dual USB ports that is foldable with iSmart Technology. This is one heck of an awesome way to charge your iPhone, iPad, or camera batteries out in the field. I am getting one this year after listening to my friend SnapChick rave about hers on her YouTube Channel. Currently on sale for $49.35 on Amazon.

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and are lucky enough to be on the receiving end of one of these awesome gifts.


Comments/Questions

Fall Season and Christmas Marketing

Hello Everyone.A happy Wednesday to you.

Now as we all start winding down from the Summer vacations and our month of giving back. It is really not a time to relax, but rather a good time to start ramping up your marketing for the coming season.

Most photographers normally make most of their incomes from the next 3 months. So it is not a time to recoup but take some extra NRG  and then push ahead.

Normally your marketing plans should have been drawn up a year in advance so that you have the entire year mapped out. This is usually decided upon by taking percentage of your annual income and using that money for your marketing campaign. Mine is roughly 5- 10% of total income.

I have a separate account for marketing expenses and then when planning my calendar I have this money available to spend.

Now if you do not have the funds or you are marketing as the money comes in, then it could be that you are not seeing the results that you would like. Why do I say this? Well from experience I have found that if you are not consistent then you have the tendency to lose momentum. Not everyone is looking for the same message at the same time. So by being consistent you can minimize your losses by spreading your marketing over a longer period of time focusing on a smaller amount of campaigns.

The free social media platforms work well. Facebook, Google+, Twitter and Instagram are daily methods of operation.This is where you have to post on a daily or weekly basis depending on your available time. However, you have to do it on a regular basis to actually see results.

You always have the option to pay for advertising. It is a personal choice, but I have found that you can use your personal circle of influence to generate quite a substantial income if you consistently mine the new opportunities that you encounter.

I use a lot of the free marketing videos and tutorials that I find from websites that I am subscribed to. One of them is from Sarah Petty of Joy of Marketing. There are great tutorials on her Youtube channel that can show you how to earn thousands of dollars.

Creativelive.com is also presenting their Photo Week conference starting Sep 18 - Sep 25th. It is all free and you will learn from the industry professionals how they find new customers and retain them.

So whatever your marketing plan is. Make sure that you are consistent and you are doing it on a regular basis. Don't spend any money if you have to until you have exhausted all your free options. Word of mouth is a great untapped secret that needs to be exploited and last but not least make sure that you get all your customer details so that you can start a marketing campaign using emails.

Try Mailchimp if you do not have any email marketing campaign and then you can always expand from there depending on your own business requirements.

I wish you all the best for the coming season and happy sales.

Denzil