As the holiday rush comes to a rest it gives us all an opportunity to reflect on what worked and what didn’t in the last year. As well as a chance to put together a strategy for how you are going to kick even more ass next year.  If this resonates with you, why not earn some extra cash ($200-$500 per post) while you go through this process.

If you have previous experience blogging and growing your own photography business we want to hear from you.

It didn’t take long before StickyAlbums customers realized they could put any JPG–including one with text–into their Albums. That realization really opens up the possibilities of what you can do with StickyAlbums.

One of the best ideas we’ve heard about lately is personalized holiday cards. Talk about surprise and delight! Imagine your client’s reaction when you send them a StickyAlbum with some of their best shots as a holiday card. Then imagine their reaction when the last image is a coupon for holiday cards or prints.
 

 
Printed cards are nice, but they’re really expensive…prohibitively so if you’re trying to personalized them. And printed cards stay at home on the fridge, while StickyAlbums accompany your client to each and every holiday party.
 
Photos obviously make a great gift, and people’s gift buying budgets often have room for more prints than they’d otherwise buy. More importantly, though, your client’s not expecting a personalized anything from you this time of year. The holiday card StickyAlbum gets you back on their radar, and the coupon puts them over the top. The Albums are a cinch to create, and you can design one coupon to use with all of your “holiday cards”.
 
Share a link to a StickyAlbum you are created in the comments below, and we will share our favorites on our Facebook page.

Did you catch any of Sal’s Wedding Photography Bootcamp on CreativeLive last week? Rumor has it, it is on track to be the MOST viewed CreativeLive to date. Damn.

We all know that there are no single silver bullets to marketing your business, and Sal does such a great job of going through the practical ways he combines several tactics to get his brand in front of his brides, and on their minds.  From direct mail campaigns, to bridal shows, each method is working in concert together.  Lets be real. Sal doesn’t need StickyAlbums,  his studio did over a million in revenue last year.  This makes me even more honored that Sal has gone out of his way to add StickyAlbums to his already well oiled marketing machine.
 

Sal is never short of great ideas you can use right away to start growing your business, and The Wedding Tour was no exception. The only challenge is trying to remember ALL of the awesome techniques he can show you at rapid fire.

That is why I had him sit down with me and walk me through – step by step – how he is using StickyAlbums in his workflow and in his sales process. Watch the recording here:

*This webinar was recorded a couple months back, so as you watch Sal walk through the StickyAlbum builder, make note of when he asks for a new feature that he wants me to add to the published albums. He thought of another very subtle yet effective way you can wrap your imagery in your brand, and I am happy to report that this feature is already live.
 
You can now use a transparent .PNG for your logo header image. Now your logo will show both at the top of the app thumbnail gallery AND hover over each of your images when in slideshow mode.
 

How often do you stop and think about the return you are getting on your Marketing tactics? It’s November: What worked this year? What didn’t? Or maybe you’re someone who asks this question more frequently: Every month? Every week? Every day?
 
In this fascinating interview, I sit down with Kirk Volcain, one of the top portrait photographers in the country and the founder of one of the very first online communities exclusively for pro-photographers: the Pro4um. If you haven’t been to Pro4um yet, it’s invaluable.
 

 
This interview starts with a classic Kirk anecdote: a great story about the year he bought a Harley Davidson instead of investing yet another $10,000+ on yet another direct mail campaign. Guess what? He made the phone ring just the same.
 
Kirk and I discuss the challenges of building your own business, the benefits of building a reputation, and an amazing way you could partner with your competition that you never would have thought of.
 

Share in the comments what off the wall marketing tactics you have tried!