MARKETING ACTION STEP 1: Define your target market.
Run a PVP analysis on the different people or businesses you work with to find out your ideal target market. Then, narrow it down further by choosing gender, age range, and geographic region. Be as specific as you can.
MARKETING ACTION STEP 2: Describe your target market.
What are the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of this ideal client? Where does this client spend most of their time? What do they do in a regular day? Who is in their family? Do they have any pets? What websites do they visit? What social media sites do they frequent?
Be as specific as possible so you know how to tailor your marketing message. Take a look online by Googling the phrase, “Customer Avatar.” It will give you a good idea of all the details you can fill in for your client. The more info you have, the better!
Be as specific as possible so you know how to tailor your marketing message. Take a look online by Googling the phrase, “Customer Avatar.” It will give you a good idea of all the details you can fill in for your client. The more info you have, the better!
MARKETING ACTION STEP 3: Come up giveaway ideas.
Come up with 3-5 ideas of things you could give away for free to people who might eventually become clients. Remember, they must be things that are valuable to them. After coming up with the ideas, ask some of your current clients which idea they would be most likely to download if it were offered to them online for free.
MARKETING ACTION STEP 4: Decide on your email capturing tool.
Come up with a general idea of how you’re going to get people to download your item. Are you going to create a squeeze page? Or are you going to create some sort of popup that shows over your website? I generally recommend creating a squeeze page, but the choice is yours.
MARKETING ACTION STEP 5: Build it.
Create your downloadable product for your potential clients.
MARKETING ACTION STEP 6: Create your page.
Create your squeeze or landing page and then show it to some of your current clients to get their feedback. Don’t be afraid of negative feedback, as that is more valuable to you than having a close friend say how good it is if they just want to make you feel good. Remember, the whole point of this page is to convince someone to download your free report or product in exchange for their email address.
MARKETING ACTION STEP 7: Calculate how much you can spend at most.
Do the calculations to find out how much you can spend per client, and then find out how much you can theoretically spend per month to bring in the number of clients you feel comfortable working with. Knowing these numbers will give you an idea of the boundaries for your marketing plan.
MARKETING ACTION STEP 8: Decide what you're committed to spending to test.
Find out what amount of money you’re comfortable spending per month to test your advertising plan and see whether it works or not. A good number is somewhere between $25 and $200 per month. Less than that will be too little to see realistic results, and more will be too expensive to risk wasting if your first few attempts are a failure.
It's important to remember that once you pick a number, you should not change it. Set that number as your budget and spend it all before you make a judgement call as to whether the test was a success or a failure.
It's important to remember that once you pick a number, you should not change it. Set that number as your budget and spend it all before you make a judgement call as to whether the test was a success or a failure.
MARKETING ACTION STEP 9: Decide which email autoresponder system you’ll be using.
Choose an email autoresponder system from any of the ones you find online when searching Google. Aweber GetResponse, Mail Chimp, and Constant Contact are some of the popular ones as of this writing in 2018. I highly recommend Aweber, however.
MARKETING ACTION STEP 10: Decide what paid advertising vehicle you’ll use.
You need to figure out where you're going to place your ads, and this should be based on where your target market is mostly hanging out. Most of my course is focused on online marketing tools but technically, paid advertising can also be defined as newspapers, The White Pages, offline publications, billboards, television, etc.
MARKETING ACTION STEP 11: Write out your emails.
Write out your 12 emails so they are ready to go when you set up your email auto-responder system. Also write out about 5-10 short tip emails that can be sent out once a month to people after the 12th email has been sent. Be sure to include reminders in every 3rd or 4th email to book you for your services, and if you don't have your headshot yet, get that taken so you can add it at the bottom of your emails!
MARKETING ACTION STEP 12: Write your sales email.
Write your strong sales email and figure out where in the order of emails you’ve written you will place it. Remember, even though it's a strong sales email, it still needs to be friendly and make people feel comfortable!
MARKETING ACTION STEP 13: How can you be awesome?
Come up with at least 5 things you can do for your clients that will simply blow them away. These should be things that won’t cost you much money or extra time, but that none of your competitors would do for their clients.
MARKETING ACTION STEP 14: How can you increase customer lifetime value?
Come up with at least 5 ideas of services or packages you can offer that will allow you to sell more services or products, convince clients to pay you more frequently, or raise your rates.
MARKETING ACTION STEP 15: Create a referral incentive.
Design your incentive offer and write an email that is designed to stimulate referrals.
MARKETING ACTION STEP 16: Set up your email system.
Set up your email marketing campaign with each of your auto-responder emails, and link it to your squeeze page. Test to ensure everything functions properly.
MARKETING ACTION STEP 17: Write and test your ads.
Write a simple ad to post on your chosen advertising vehicle. Set up your spend budget and begin running your ads. Test to ensure all your links are working properly.
MARKETING ACTION STEP 18: Implement, test, measure, repeat.
Set up a reminder to check in two weeks to see how many people have subscribed to your email marketing campaign. Then, in two more weeks, check to see if anyone has hired you for your services. Whether they have or haven’t, you can see how much money you’ve spent and whether your campaign is working. If it’s not, it’s time to change something. Don’t change too many things at once though! Re-test for another two weeks, rinse, and repeat until you find something that works.
MARKETING ACTION STEP 19: Write out your post-work emails.
Come up with a series of about 15-20 short “Tips” emails you can send to people who decide to hire you. Include information on how to make the most of their work with you. You can also use these emails to incentivize them to refer their friends to you!
MARKETING ACTION STEP 20: CELEBRATE!
About Me

Martin Bentsen, founder of Bentsen Breakthrough Consulting, has spoken numerous times at New York University, has run educational seminars at Actor's Connection on branding and marketing strategies for performers, and has written a 60 page informational book called Get Cast™, focusing on marketing tactics actors can use to find more consistent work. He is a member of both the National Association of Sales Professionals and Sales & Marketing Executives International, two highly acclaimed marketing organizations in the United States.
Martin graduated in 2011 with honors from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts' Film and Television program with a focus on directing and in 2010, he founded City Headshots®, which, according to Yelp, is ranked the top headshot studio in the United States. City Headshots currently employs seven people and has locations in New York, Denver, and Philadelphia. Some of City Headshots’ repeat clients include well known companies such as LinkedIn Corp, Facebook, American Express, and many of its photos have been featured in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
As a business owner who has grown a photography business from zero to half a million dollars per year, Martin not only understands the intricacies of marketing and finding clients, but also what it takes for clients to successfully navigate the marketing world and make themselves memorable. He coaches small business owners one-on-one with their branding, marketing, and operational strategies, and in how they conduct themselves with actual clients.
Martin’s long term goal is to run major business seminars across the country while expanding his City Headshots brand to go international.
Martin graduated in 2011 with honors from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts' Film and Television program with a focus on directing and in 2010, he founded City Headshots®, which, according to Yelp, is ranked the top headshot studio in the United States. City Headshots currently employs seven people and has locations in New York, Denver, and Philadelphia. Some of City Headshots’ repeat clients include well known companies such as LinkedIn Corp, Facebook, American Express, and many of its photos have been featured in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
As a business owner who has grown a photography business from zero to half a million dollars per year, Martin not only understands the intricacies of marketing and finding clients, but also what it takes for clients to successfully navigate the marketing world and make themselves memorable. He coaches small business owners one-on-one with their branding, marketing, and operational strategies, and in how they conduct themselves with actual clients.
Martin’s long term goal is to run major business seminars across the country while expanding his City Headshots brand to go international.