If you don’t track where leads are coming from, there is no way to know where to put future time, effort and money.

Reviewing Google Analytics is an important part of tracking website traffic and understanding your Internet sales funnel.

Tracking clicks from your latest e-mail campaign will help you become a better e-mail marketer.

Tracking your social media statistics is important to understand what works to drive the most engaged traffic.

We have wonderful technology available at our finger tips. This doesn’t replace important old-school marketing information.  This information comes from the most important thing you can do when you finally receive that e-mail or phone call requesting your services.

Ask the right questions:

• How did they heard of you?
• Why did the prospect chose to call you?
• What images did they like the best?

Ask the questions that will make you a better marketer.

Rosh Sillars is a photographer, author, blogger, and podcaster supporting the photography community at http://www.roshsillars.com.

There’s no question that tools like email newsletters, trackable bit.ly URLs and other digital tools with baked-in statistics are a boon to businesses wanting to market themselves. You can test different approaches and come up with meaningful measures of how comparatively successful your efforts have been.

But one of the most effective ways of leveraging your existing marketing is even simpler than that, and woefully overlooked: keeping track of the people who refer business to you.

Think about what usually happens when you give a referral, and you’ll understand what I mean. A colleague needs a recommendation–for a plumber, a graphic designer, a stylist–and you serve one up. Often you’ll get a thank-you from the service provider (with or without accompanying graft). But imagine if along with the thank-you, that service provider came back to you with specifics of how the job went? And imagine if then, six months down the line, you received a follow-up note of thanks, along with news of another terrific job the provider had been able to do for your colleague. Provided the provider didn’t go overboard, wouldn’t actually knowing that the job(s) went well make you more likely to keep sending referrals their way? I know it does me.

The people who refer business to you are part of your extended marketing. So take care of them by keeping track of them. You can use a robust database, or a combination of a calendar and the notes field in your Address Book app. But use something. Your business depends on it.

Colleen Wainwright loves the people who refer business to her just as much as the ones who attend her lively ASMP talk on marketing, “Making People Love You Madly.”

Tracking your marketing efforts closely is a great way to understand what is working for you and what isn’t.

For each mailing campaign, I record the recipients, the type of campaign (4×6  postcard, mini-portfolio, etc), size of the mailing, date and the cost.  For broader endeavors, such as a yearly subscription to a list service or, in my case, attending a trade show, I record the full cost for the year.  If a marketing endeavor is essentially free, such as a LinkedIn account, I make note of how much time I spend setting it up, updating my portfolio and resume, etc.

Finally, I monitor responses & booked jobs.  For example, if I received 50 responses from a mailer but only booked one small job, that’s information I can use.  If I spent X dollars on a trade show and had a 0% rate of return within the following year, that tells me something too.

It’s important to remember that marketing campaigns are typically effective over time.  I still want to monitor my efforts in detail, so I can look for patterns and adjust accordingly.  An easy way to start is by asking every potential client a very simple question: “Where did you find me?”  Sometimes the answers are surprising.

Jenna Close spends a lot of time marketing.  So far, it’s been time well spent.  She can be found at www.p2photography.net.   

©Richard Harrington

I have a tendency to carry a lot (and I mean A LOT) of memory cards on a shoot.  Between shooting panoramic photos, time-lapse sequences, and HD video, I burn through memory cards faster than most.  I find myself needing to be certain that I avoid accidentally erasing data.

Here’s my strategy for safety:

1. Make sure that all memory cards are erased BEFORE going into the field.  Don’t bring cards with data or you’ll sit there wondering if you transferred them already or if you’re about to wipe your only copy.
2. Have two card wallets.  One full and one empty.  Make sure they have the same number of slots.
3. Put the full wallet with all of the blank memory cards into your right pocket.
4. Put the empty wallet with no cards in it in your left pocket.
5. As you shoot cards, place them upside down in the card wallet in your left pocket.
6. Repeat this phrase ten times… The cards in the right pocket are the right cards to shoot with; the cards in my left pocket should be left alone.

I know it’s simplistic…  but it’s saved me more than one time.  Give it a shot.

Richard Harrington is the founder of RHED Pixel, a visual communications company in Washington, D.C. You can read Rich’s blog at www.RichardHarringtonBlog.com as well as follow him on Twitter @rhedpixel. To learn more about time-lapse, HDR, and panoramic photography, explore www.3Exposure.com. If you’d like to check out his books, just swing by his Amazon page.

There are two apps that can keep you from falling asleep at the wheel on the road to your photo marketing success: Evernote and  iCal. When used in conjunction, they’re even more powerful.

1. Good content always comes first. Evernote is a great app to capture portfolio shoot ideas as they come to you; great ideas can happen anywhere, anytime. Don’t let them slip away. Rope and tie ‘em.

2. Then use iCal’s reminder function to actually schedule your portfolio shoots. Commit to scheduling a minimum of 6-12 new images per year. Put them on your calendar now even if you don’t have the actual idea fleshed out yet. Create deadlines with multiple alarms for every aspect of the shoot.

3.Use Evernote again to capture any promotional ideas, leads, and resources that inspire you about marketing. Use the Tags feature.

4. Then schedule action steps related to your marketing ideas into your calendar. Use more alarms. Move a task to the next hour–or the next day– if you don’t complete the task on time. Keep the alarm active until the project is totally complete. Getting sick of hearing the alarm go off can be a powerful motivator. And it will create new habits.

5. Finally… schedule a victory reward for the work you’ve done to support your creativity and your intention to move your marketing forward.
Don’t skip this step!

Carolyn Potts, photography marketing consultant, former photo rep, and compassionate butt-kicker, shows photographers how to get more work. Although, only 3 alarms were needed to write this article, there are several more alarms to go before her new website launches. In the mean time, find her at www.cpotts.com , http://bit.ly/FaceBookPottsConsulting and http://carolynpotts.net.

I measure the usefulness of any piece of software on my computer by how much I miss it when using someone else’s machine.

By that measure, easily the greatest item I’ve ever bought has been the text storage and expansion utility for the Mac, TextExpander. (Full disclosure: four years after becoming a rabid, vocal, and paid user of TextExpander, the company hired me to do some consulting work for them last year.)

At its most basic, TextExpander stores snippets of text (or pictures!) which you can then easily insert on the fly with user-defined shortcuts. Thus, it’s great for storing all kinds of boilerplate text–email signatures, telephone numbers and addresses, replies to frequently-asked questions, URLs, HTML code, etc. Pretty much anything you find yourself typing over and over again is fair game for getting turned into a TextExpander snippet.

There are also a number of incredibly useful snippet groups that come either come standard (time/date stamps, frequently misspelled words) or that fans have created and shared (accented words, keyboard symbols, etc.). Without even getting into advanced features (there are some fancy things you can do with creating forms and having the cursor move around automagically), I’ve saved close to 40 hours in four years thanks to TextExpander. (And yes, the statistics counter is probably my favorite feature of all.)

The #1 rule of lifehacking says that when you find yourself repeating monotonous tasks, find a way to automate. The #1 rule of TextExpander is when you find yourself on a computer without it, get back to your own rig, pronto.

Colleen Wainwright lives for finding creative ways to save time and energy, which she then uses to fuel her ASMP chapter talks on Making People Love You Madly.

One of the biggest issues for my business, and it becomes the biggest issue because of my great desire to avoid it, is the finances. OK, I don’t avoid it, I hide from it completely. So yes, on my short list as my business grows is to hire someone to handle it for me. But until then, I have to put on that bookkeeping hat.

Here are 5 easy tips for keeping all those receipts straight:

1. Never throw away any receipt, business or personal. This ensures you don’t accidentally throw a business one away. You can always throw away the personal ones you don’t need later.  Oh, and another selling point to keeping every receipt – when audited by the IRS, if you have a receipt, that is 99% of the battle.
2.  If a receipt is specific to a project, write that on the top of the receipt at the time your get it. That way you’re not guessing later.
3. I have a hanging folder with two folders within it, one labeled Business, one labeled Personal. Each receipt goes in the coinciding folder. OK, that means you have to keep your business and personal purchases on separate receipts, but I know you’re doing that already.
4. Every Monday morning, I go through my receipts from the previous week and enter them into QuickBooks. The receipts then go into an accordion file with individual months on the tabs, which is my “archive.”
5. In the last week, it has dawned on me, duh, think they have an app for that? And sure enough, there was one. You photograph your receipts, the software extracts the data and puts it into a spreadsheet complete with categories. It says it can even import directly into QuickBooks. I haven’t played around with it much, but, I’m guardedly optimistic. But wow… with the IRS now accepting scans of receipts, no more accordion file of receipts to keep for years on end, no more potentially lost or faded receipts (if you scan it right away), and my standard back up procedure ensuring I don’t lose the electronic data… “what a wonderful world it could be!”

Kimberly Blom-Roemer is a Gulf Coast based architectural photographer who has experienced endless sighs of dismay from her mother, a professional accountant, due to her avoidance of all things financial . kimberly@r2-photography.com

Have you ever received a message from the universe that wouldn’t let you escape it? Something so clear, simple, and obvious that you feel silly when the realization occurs?

In the last couple of weeks, I have encountered one consistent message from over a half-dozen sources including several conversations, blog posts, books and a trade journal. One after another, they pointed to the Pareto principle as an effective tool to be used in my decision-making process.

The Pareto principle, or the 80/20 rule as most people know it, states that roughly 80 percent of the results we achieve come from 20 percent of the effort we apply. Although this is a concept I understand in theory, in practice I often find myself mired in activities that produce very little positive outcome for the amount of time I’m investing in them.

When used thoughtfully, the 80/20 rule is a powerful tool for simplifying our decision-making process about the various areas we each need to manage and be productive in.

For instance, most businesses receive 80 percent of their income from about 20 percent of their clients. But how many of us spend an inordinate amount of time trying to satisfy requests from clients that we don’t really want to work with because they’re not helping our businesses grow. Have you discovered that the demands that many clients make are in inverse proportion to the amount of income they produce for you?

This simple but easily overlooked principle is one that can encourage you to focus on activities that produce the best outcomes for you, including doing the things and being with the people that bring you the most pleasure for the least amount of effort.

Based in Raleigh, N.C., Charles Gupton photographs real people, really well. While seeking a life of chronic joy, with bouts of acute happiness, he aligns himself with people and projects that are enjoyable to work with.
cg@charlesguptonphoto.com | www.charlesguptonphoto.com | www.charlesgupton.com

Ask any photographer whether they would be happier shooting to layout or collaborating with their client to define the look and feel of a shot and most would reply the latter.  Photographers live to collaborate. During the process they feel alive, excited, creative, productive, useful, valued, and, yes, loved.  The process is exciting. Brainstorming, open conversations, two minds and hearts working toward a common goal, what’s not to love?

If collaboration makes the shoot even sweeter, why are more photographers not being asked for their ideas before a project is creatively completed?  It’s simple. Photographers rarely promote their interest in collaborating.  Most clients aren’t going to propose the option unless they have already been sold on the photographer’s  interest, skill and experience as a creative partner.
If you want to collaborate you must walk the talk. You cant expect your clients to give you collaboratively oriented  projects if you don’t let them know you are interested and if you don’t give them ample opportunity to trust your ability to deliver.

It’s up to photographers to show clients their collaborating skills and then gently remind them of their interest and experience.  It’s a rare photographer that will proactively seek collaboration, even though most crave the gift it brings.

But you will be different! Start by building a vision based portfolio. Who wants to collaborate with someone who hasn’t taken the time to develop their own approach to photo? Check out the wording in your bio on your website. Is there copy there that speaks to your interest in co-creating? Consider mentioning your love of collaboration in blog posts. Stop putting off in person visits as they are a great opportunity to promote your interest in collaboration.

Are you lacking examples of your collaborating skills?
If so, approach an art director, or graphic designer you know and ascertain their interest in working with you on a visual project. If you shoot editorial or motion, identify a non profit or publication you’d like to contribute to. Create a photo project and approach the PR director, or a freelance photo editor and offer to collaborate with them.

Every one gains through joint creative  ventures. The exchange of ideas and process for those involved is huge. The end result for the viewer is one that would not have happened if the process was not in place. The reality is that if you are interested in collaborating with your clients you will need to walk your talk.
Are You ready?

Selina Maitreya is a consultant to visual creative professionals.  Go here to download a free interview where Selina shares the steps to success that you need to take.

For an introvert who’s generally happiest holed up in a cave, flailing away at a keyboard, I’ve racked up a surprising number of creative collaborations–everything from a TV pilot for a major network to a comic play (with music!) about two of the world’s least sexy chronic illnesses.

Most recently, I completed a massive fundraiser that required collaboration on several fronts, including (among other things) building a website, creating prizes for giveaways, producing a video, and coordinating a massive benefit party for 150 people complete with musical entertainment, art raffle, tacos, and a head-shaving.

From what I can figure out so far, here’s what made the collaborations successful:

1. People got to do what they loved. I know I’m happiest contributing to any project when that project is utilizing my strongest skills or addressing my most pressing needs. So when I invited collaborators, I made matching project tasks to contributor interests a priority: the charismatic friend who loves wrangling crowds emceed the closing party; photographer friends documented the evening and shot the photobooth portraits, etc.

2. The boundaries were exceptionally clearly drawn. I was as clear as I could be up front about exactly what I needed, and exactly where the commitment would begin and end. And when I needed something extra, I made it clear I knew this was an additional favor, not an expectation.

3. Communication flowed freely in both directions. Most of my previous lousy collaborations had in common lousy communication: we either didn’t speak the same language, or one of us was scared to speak, period. For this all-volunteer, no-money-and-less-time effort, I was merciless about including only people I was sure I could keep the lines of communication open with.

Of course, the final words on making a collaboration work well? Always be grateful. “Thank you” goes a long way toward achieving that!

Colleen Wainwright loves working with fun people, especially the fun people at ASMP who are helping her bring her Making People Love You Madly seminar on non-sucky marketing to so many wonderful ASMP chapters.