Businesses have focused on customer retention after the sale for quite a while… but what about building a relationship before the sale? I’ve found this to be a very effective technique for my photography business. Using social media (Twitter and blogging on locally-focused sites), I’ve established relationships with a variety of people in my area and established credibility as a photographer.
In practical terms, here’s what I did that helped me develop relationships before the sale. I live near Portland, Oregon and there is an active online community – businesses and individuals from a variety of backgrounds and industries are on Twitter. The mayor of Portland routinely posts information for citizens on his Twitter account. I jumped into Twitter full-force, and started following a lot of local people. I interacted with those people, learning about them and sharing my life, including my photography, on Twitter.
Over time, by talking about my photography and sharing links to my work, I established myself as a photographer and my Twitter followers. People started contacting me directly about potential photography jobs. Better yet, when others would bring up the subject of photography, my Twitter followers would refer business to me, letting people know that they’d seen my work.
Studies have shown that people will buy from people they trust; Twitter is a great way to build up relationships (and trust) with a large group of people. By developing those relationships and trust over time, when people think about needing a photographer, they’ll think about that photographer whose work they keep seeing on Twitter.
photo by Aaron Hockley
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