Self promotion has been one of the most difficult things for me to over come as a photographer.  I constantly ask myself who cares, is this relevant, do I sound like a douche bag.  I’ve decided to get over myself this year and just put the work out there and let the chips fall as they may.  Too that end I started this year with a new promotional piece that focuses exclusively on my sports and fitness work.  I was encouraged by several  of my peers to share the promo piece on my blog.  Since at least two people thought it was interesting I figured there had to be at least seven more.  So here is a look at my newest promotional material.

If you follow me on social media you’ve probably already seen bits and pieces of the the finished product.  I wanted to get more into specifics on all the different components. First and most importantly we have the actual magazine.  I printed it through Blurb designing it via InDesign with the use of one of their temples.  The nerdy details are it’s 8.5 x 11 inches printed on 80# matte paper, the cover is semi-gloss and it’s 36 pages long.

 

I’ve printed things before through Blurb and their quality has just gotten better and better over the years.  I’m able to order as many or as few as I want at a go and it usually takes about two weeks to receive the pieces.  I get a price break over 10 units and there is usually a coupon code floating around on internet that I can use.  That isn’t to say these promos are cheap, because they aren’t.  They cost just shy of $9 a pop and that’s before I package and mail them. This is probably a good time to mention I’m not sending out hundreds of these.  I’m sending these out in a very targeted fashion based on responses to email campaigns and past clients.

Each promo is hand addressed (by my wife, I have terrible handwriting), hand wrapped (by my wife…she’s just better at it than me), and tied with twine (I did that!).  Than they are stamped with my fresh hottness of a logo and ready to be stamped with $2.47 postage and put in the mail.  You read that right, $2.47.  Like I said these aren’t cheap.

Of course it would be nice if the job was done once they were in the mail.  Now comes the follow up.  I dropped the first batch in the mail just shy of a week ago and I know they are already hitting desks.  Next comes the follow up where I get to do this…

 

The inside of the book is very straight forward, lots of pictures.  You’ll get to see it in just a minute.  But there is one page that I wanted to take a little extra time to talk about. The last page of the magazine includes a map of  the United States and where Tulsa, Oklahoma is in relation to other near by major cities.  There is really no easy way to say this, but nobody knows where the hell Tulsa, Oklahoma is. I said it and I stand by it. I’ve had SO many conversations with clients about where I am and how long will it take me to get to X.  I thought I would help simplify the process.  Of course in the bio below I do remind the recipient that I know the way to the airport too.   

I took some time and made a quick video showing the promo piece inside and out.  I think I broke a camera in the process of doing this. SO YOU’RE WELCOME!  I hope you enjoyed the post.  If you have any questions about the promo please feel free to leave them in the comments section.  I probably won’t notice them since all I get here is SPAM about purses and dick pills.

ENJOY!

KMR