New to NC & Need some advertising advice.

[RHONDAK]

Originally Posted by HP91

That's great you are successful...but keep in mind Wilmington is not St Louis...

St Louis metro population.......2.79 million.
Wilmington metro population....363 thousand.

I appreciate your concern and St. Louis is rather large, I only focused on a small section of the St.Louis County area. My clients lived in basically one general section of the St. Louis county. My target market was only 47,484 people. I also, work with a ton of A lister celebrities just you will never see that work on my website and that is another huge chunk of my income.

I appreciate the advice on the statistics, we looked it up I'm just not use to having so much out there to potentially advertise in. And I didn't grow up here so I don't really know the area well at all

Originally Posted by goldenage1

Do your current clients actually spend $3500 having their kids photographed?

Several of my neighbors would like to have their kids professionally photographed, and they look for word of mouth recommendations from friends who use Facebook. They are military and the grandparents are distant. But the $3500 figure sounds huge.

As HP91 said the Wilmington market is much smaller than St Louis. Jacksonville is even smaller at 70,000, and the beach towns have 5,000-10,000 permanent residents. I am urging RhondaK to have a realistic assessment of what she can earn. I think the best investment would be a good website.

The personal touch is also important, so you could make make some appearances at various local festivals. For example, there is an Autumn Festival in Surf City around October 18 where you could hand out flyers and display samples of your work. Our community has occasional Vendor Fairs where you have a display and hand out flyers.

Yes, my clients usually spend about $3,500 and recently I just had a high school senior's parents spend $30 K on her senior pictures. But not everyone is my market, I only photograph about 100-120 High School Seniors a year, the rest are models, celebrities, commercial, etc. Also, I realize it sounds huge, but this is why most photographers don't make a dime in the end.

$3,500.00
- 10% is my income $350.00
- @30% is Taxes 1,050.00 (not sales tax)
- 10% marketing $350.00
- 15% is cost to produce product @$525
- 35% is business growth $1,225.00 - this makes me a viable business - helps pay for upgrades to my equipment, education, just money in business savings, retirement funds, etc.

So yep, $3,500 sounds like a lot but if you are familiar with running the backend of a business that is why things cost so much. I stroke every quarter when I have to pay taxes.

My website is just fine and thanks for the tips on the Autumn Festival and the Vendor Fair's I'll see what I will be in St. Louis the entire month of October but I'll check into that stuff for the spring.


I appreciate everyones advice on getting a website, which I have, and what I can or can not make in the area. I'm very realistic that I will not be brining in 1.5 million my first year into a market that no one knows me, but wait 3-4 years and I will probably be up around there again if I decide to work that hard again. My kid is growing up way to fast!

I'm just asking from the locals or those who travel here, where they frequent the most, what do they read.. etc? Magazines and Promotional companies always flub their numbers and of course their magazine/promotion is way better than someone else's. But being that I don't know the area I'm reaching out to you all.

[movedtothecoast]

I get what you are saying and to reach that kind of clientele around here you would want
to target people living in areas of Wilmington like Landfall, figure eight island, forest hills neighborhood, Wrigthsville beach area.
Check and see if Landfall have their own publication [ surely they do] there is a monthly magazine in Wrightsville beach [ called , well, Wrigthsville beach magazine ] it is distributed throughout New Hanover county and a very nice publication.
There is a monthly magazine called Salt, the art and soul of Wilmington, also a very nice publication.
I don't personally think you would get much out of going to any festivals around here such as the one
in Surf city , just imo.
best of luck.

[RHONDAK]

Originally Posted by movedtothecoast

I get what you are saying and to reach that kind of clientele around here you would want
to target people living in areas of Wilmington like Landfall, figure eight island, forest hills neighborhood, Wrigthsville beach area.
Check and see if Landfall have their own publication [ surely they do] there is a monthly magazine in Wrightsville beach [ called , well, Wrigthsville beach magazine ] it is distributed throughout New Hanover county and a very nice publication.
There is a monthly magazine called Salt, the art and soul of Wilmington, also a very nice publication.
I don't personally think you would get much out of going to any festivals around here such as the one
in Surf city , just imo.
best of luck.

Thank you so much for this information! I realize the other people were just giving a word to the wise, but I kinda know what I'm doing. This is great information! Thanks!!

[goldenage1]

Originally Posted by movedtothecoast

I get what you are saying and to reach that kind of clientele around here you would want to target people living in areas of Wilmington like Landfall, figure eight island, forest hills neighborhood, Wrigthsville beach area. Check and see if Landfall have their own publication [ surely they do] there is a monthly magazine in Wrightsville beach [ called , well, Wrigthsville beach magazine ] it is distributed throughout New Hanover county and a very nice publication.
There is a monthly magazine called Salt, the art and soul of Wilmington, also a very nice publication.

Those are some very good suggestion as RhondaK seems to want the wealthy clients. (I am shocked that anyone would spend $30K for a kid's High School pictures, but I am obviously not in that budget league.)

There is also Wilma, a magazine for women, which I see occasionally. Here's the web version: Wilma - Wilmington, NC

[HP91]

Wilmington Parent is certainly the place to go for kids...most of the pre-schools advertise in it.

[ditchoc]

Even though Wilmington is a smaller market than St. Louis, I would point out that there are a fair number of "affluent" people in the area. One example are the numerous plantation communities in Brunswick county south of Wilmington. The average home price in many areas are 400-600k and go up from there.

Many of these home owners are retirees. I'm not sure if there is such a thing as a "legacy photo" but it is something to consider. In addition these same people have children and grand children that visit all the time. They could very well be the focus for weddings, special occasions, milestone anniversaries and so on.

These same plantation communities often have their own newsletters and magazines that are, more often than not, populated with custom home builder advertisements. They could also be a good choice for photography ads.