Rebel Fish noticed a good discussion going on over at OSP. A photographer was asking the forum how best to market to high-end brides. Rebel Fish has taken the liberty to cut and paste Kevin Swan’s response below:

Before I get flamed, all of this is just my opinion and it’s based on my experience. Your milage may vary.

You need to define “high-end.” Do you mean $50,000 weddings or $500,000 weddings or $5,000,000 weddings? Who is your target market, because you need to shape your business to that goal. Don’t just say you want people who are spending more money than the ones you currently serve–that’s not a very concrete goal.

Bridal shows are good to get started, because they get you some gigs and you can work on your craft. Until you’re very comfortable, selling to high-end brides won’t be happening. Do not continue them after you get your start because the mediocrity of the mass of photographers at such events will pull your brand down to their level. The brides leave feeling overwhelmed and frustrated and you just become “another photographer.” All the high-end clients I’ve shot have found me through referral or through a high-end event planner. I doubt you will ever see a high-end bride trolling a bridal show (again, this will depend on your description, but I’m talking about brides who are spending at least $100,000 on their event and around $20k on photographer). Their time is more valuable than that–that’s why they hire planners to recommend them 1 or 2 of the best options, rather than sifting through 30 photographers at a show.

You should consider things like packages and how you word your pricing. Do wealthy people really want to know nitty gritty details, or are they used to someone just taking care of their needs? When you buy an Aston Maritn, do you go in because you heard about a sale going on? Not likely. Do you have the work to support a high-end clientele? Do you have references in their circles? Who plans their weddings; have you taken them to lunch or bought them a nice book?

Consider your focus (or lack of it). On your site you basically say, “I specialize in shooting everything,” which is to say, you’re not specializing in anything. That looks desperate. High-end people prefer specialists. In fact, everyone prefers specialists.

On your site, why do you separate “philosophy” from “about me?” Just to have another tab? You are your business; don’t make people have to click around more than is necessary.

Consider how you “speak” on your site. High-end folks like to get to the point. You say, “What I have found that I love with photography is the ability to showcase the power and beauty of life as it is without bias.” That’s the long way around of saying, “I love photography because it shows the power and beauty of life.” (Of course photography is biased, by the way… what you chose to shoot and not shoot an an event, how you crop something out or leave it in, the angle you select–they are all formed from your bias and perspective of the event.)

You say, “I began my artistic career nearly 10 years ago as an Interactive Designer and Art Director which transitioned into a passion for photography as my career.” You shouldn’t use the same word twice (career) in a sentence. This is also the long way of saying, “Over the last decade my passion for visual art has brought me to photography as the perfect career.”

If you want to appeal to high-end folks, you need show that you can hang with them. Wealthy people are generally smarter, more efficient, better educated, and more perceptive than the average people. If your materials, your dress, your speech, etc. don’t match up, they will notice.

Ultimately, I think the most important thing (and this is true for any level of customer) is do they trust you? Do they feel you could hang at an event that may have famous people attending and you won’t act like a star-struck little girl? Do you have the proper etiquette for their class and their event? They want to know you’ll dress and act the part if they’re putting on a million-dollar, black-tie wedding. They want to feel you understand them, that you can hang with them, and, at some level, bond with them. If you’re nervous about getting the gig, and show it, they’ll suspect you’ll be nervous shooting it as well.

You should also consider that the fewer weddings you do, even at a higher price, means you’re in front of planners and other vendors less often. The less you are seen by influential vendors, the less likely you are to be referred. The genius Jim Kennedy has made more than probably 99.9% of the photographers in the US by going after the upper-middle market bride. His company is shooting multiple events every weekend. He has wedding planners asking HIM to be put on HIS referral list. He realized early on that there is MUCH more money to be made in the mid-level market than the high-end market. So, again, define what you’re going after.

So, those are some thoughts, in no particular order. You should probably grab Mike Colon’s “marketing to the high-end bride” DVD if you’re interested in pursuing this more. He’s a master at it, as his work and client list will attest.

I’m just an Indiana bumpkin.

$.02

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Now that she’s had her iPhone 2.0 for a week, Rebel Fish feels it’s time to chat about it. All-in-all, it’s been a satisfying experience; and the applications… oh! the applications! It seems about 20 a day are arriving at the store, with no end in site.

Let’s start with the hardware of the phone, itself. Rebel Fish got white, because it’s different and beautiful. It does scratch, but so does black. The basic feel of the phone is a little sexier, due to the slight bevel Apple has introduced to the back of the phone. The overall dimensions are roughly the same.

The bevel, while feeling nice in the hand, is a bad idea when on the table. Rebel Fish loves the rock-solid feel of the 1.0 phone when using it as a calculator, texting, or whatever she happens to do. With the new bevel, the phone rocks and slips when you hit the edges of the screen. Bad.

The audio quality of the speakers and microphone are both improved. It’s much easier to hear and people seem to enjoy better microphone pick-up. The metal buttons are pretty, but otherwise unchanged from the original.

The battery doesn’t last as long as the 1.0 phone, but Rebel Fish suspects that’s more due to the addition of the 3G capability, which she’s glad to sacrifice some battery life for. The 3G requires more power! And, while it doesn’t last as long as iPhone 1.0, it still lasts longer than any other 3G capable phone on the market.

The addition of the GPS is fantabulous! Rebel Fish frequently turns on the Google Map program, activates the GPS-follow mode, and turns on the satellite image. When you’re driving, you can zoom in and see the buildings you’re zooming by in real-life mirrored on the phone. Your little, pulsing, blue dot moving on the road you’re on–even showing it on the correct _side_ of the road. It’s so fun!

But really, the heart of the upgrade has been the software. Rebel Fish has downloaded many of the available applications, and she’s screenshotted the ones she’s decided make the cut–just for you! Click the thumbnail to see them all.

Rebel Fish loves Loopt, a little application that auto-detects your location, allows you to take a photograph, and post a little note. It then updates Facebook, Twitter, and more!

The language learning applications are fantastic. From flash-cards to native speakers, it’s becoming much more practical to learn a language.

The games are great, of course. In the iPhone, we’ve got the world’s best gaming platform–and you can expect folks to start developing some awesome titles for it. Texas Hold’em, by Apple, is perfect. You can play against other folks on your wifi network, or in single mode. It’s a blast to sit around a table with 4 or 5 friends, still chatting, tossing insults, and playing a great game of poker–without the cards or chips!

Rebel Fish also enjoys Twitterific, a simple app to keep tabs on her friends that Twitter and Tweet.

There is, of course, a down-side to all this joy. The push applications (which, Apple has admitted, aren’t exactly push applications) seem to take more of the battery life out of the phone. Syncing and backing up the phone takes longer, as there is now more to sync. Essentially, we have been enjoying the iPhone’s speed because we’ve had way more processing power than was required to run the basics of the phone. Now, with hundreds of third-party applications arriving, the little processor is feeling it’s limits.

Rebel Fish heartily suggests that anyone with an iPhone who hasn’t (is there anyone?) upgraded, dive in; the water’s great!

Go go gadget Apple!
RF

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We’ve talked a few times about the GTD system. Here’s a 45-minute video of David Allen (author of Getting Things Done) going over the GTD system at Google.

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Lots of photographers think they have the stuff to make their own logo. Usually, they are disastrously mistaken. Fortunately, Rebel Fish will share with you all a fun resource for getting a logo done GOOD and CHEAP.

Click here

It’s called Logosauce. You put up a description of what you need a logo for, you commit some cash (minimum $200) to the winner, and then it’s open season. Whoever wants to invest the time to design can, and the submissions are all voted on. You can give feedback and the designers can respond. You award the winner with the cash you proposed.

It’s smart, and you get some pretty savvy designers jumping on your brand, which can be a good thing.

Check it out!

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Rebel Fish has been using Quickbooks Online Edition to run her photog biz for the past year. It’s the best decision she’s made when it comes to the biz side of the biz! The down side has been the lack of Mac support; she’s had to run Bootcamp or Parallels or VM Ware to access her books.

This week, Intuit announced the iPhone interface for Rebel Fish’s data, and she couldn’t be happier! You know it’s just a matter of time before we’re able to enter transactions via our favorite little gadget. It’s so sweet! Check it out:

The main interface:

Who owes Rebel Fish:

Look at a transaction detail:

Client details are fully clickable: phones dial, addresses send it to google maps on the phone.

There’s much more, but it’s an exciting step forward!

Swim on!

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On a recent trip, a friend of Rebel Fish’s lost his phone… Not only was it sad, because the iPhone is so sexy; it was sad because all of his texts with his wife, friends, and associates were there. Photos, emails (and the ability to continue to send/receive emails!), notes, and contacts. It was all available to the lucky new owner of his phone.

Rebel Fish, of course, has an iPhone. She’s taken to storing much of her needed information in her address book entry. E.g., credit card numbers, passwords for frequently used sites, social security numbers of her friends and their credit card info. hahahah.

So, seeing his distress, Rebel Fish worried what would happen if she lost hers.

That’s why Rebel Fish now locks her phone with a passcode. You can find out more about it HERE. She highly recommends doing it, and despite the fact that you have to enter the code when you turn on the phone, every time she does it, she’s reassured that her personal info is safe. Besides, it makes her feel like a secret agent.

Swim on!
RF

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Rebel Fish knows that when you blow your knee out in a soccer game, you don’t want to go to a general doctor–you want to go to the orthopedic surgeon who specializes in knees. The guy that does nothing but knees; day in, day out, and has done it for 20 years. The guy that can point you to hundreds of successful surgeries–on knees.

The same is true in any business you might have, but _especially_ wedding photography.

A bride doesn’t want a photographer who “specializes” in parties, architecture, portraits, children, weddings, corporate, models, and animals. She wants a wedding pro. She wants the specialist who eats, breathes, and sleeps weddings.

What’s your branding look like?
Are you a specialist or a generalist?

Are you worried about turning work away? Statistics show that, by specializing, you will attract more business than you do by generalizing. Sure, you’ll scare the persnickety pet owner looking for that perfect portrait with her beloved beagle, but you’ll attract more than enough blushing brides to make up for the lost cash.

Trust Rebel Fish. Or, read the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing. Either way, Rebel Fish don’t lie.

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This post, from 43 Folders, made some simple sense to Rebel Fish…

Purging info-poor entries from Address Book
You may share my Address Book pollution problem — having too many orphaned names that got scribbled on a PDA or were manually added but never fleshed out (like: 10 years ago!).

Here’s a really stupidly useful Smart Group for Address Book that helps identify entries without any real information attached to them.

Seem too obvious? Maybe. But it helped me kill eighty-two entries yesterday that might have sat around for another ten years if I hadn’t made it. Yay, obviousness.

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We talked about picking a hill and claiming it. Here’s Seth Godin’s take on the same concept (Rebel Fish thanks Rachel from LaCour for this heads-up!):

The opposite

The opposite of up is down.
The opposite of in is out.

Those two are easy. They are one-dimensional.

The opposite of Steve Jobs is Bill Gates.

Sort of. That’s because Bill and Steve have a lot in common (outsize personalities, many Google matches, successful tech companies). But it’s useful to consider them as opposites because we learn a lot about their approaches, personalities, and yes, brands, by looking at the inverse.

The opposite of Starbucks is Dunkin Donuts.

Not an independent coffee shop, and not coffee at home.

On the other hand, the opposite of Dunkin Donuts is not Starbucks. The opposite is ‘not having coffee out.’

That’s because when someone considers getting their morning coffee, the choice is usually home or Dunkin. That person doesn’t have Starbucks as part of their choice set. Defining your brand in this way makes it easier to ignore the irrelevant competition and easier to figure out what you are (and aren’t).

Bill Clinton and John Edwards aren’t the opposite of Rush Limbaugh. Al Franken is.

The Blackberry isn’t the opposite of the iPhone. A plain jane Motorola phone is. Apple understands this. Blackberry doesn’t seem to.

The opposite of the Food Network is hours spent poring over cookbooks at a local independent bookstore. Or perhaps it’s Good Housekeeping magazine. Or Gourmet…

One of the hardest things to do is invent a brand with no opposite. You don’t have an anchor to play against.

Does your team agree on who your opposite is?

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