ArtE Soukh Time Square Dubai

This Friday I will be attending ArtE Soukh for the first time with my own table.
I will be selling my Digital Photography Art as well as Dubai motives printed on greeting cards. I will also sell photographic prints.
The Greeting Cards are 25 AED each or buy 5 for AED 100.
The photographic prints are varying in price due to its size, it is either AED 15, 30 or 45.
If you come and see me on Friday, book and pay for your Family Photography Session there and then I give you 25% Discount on it. Original Price AED 1,300 on Friday you pay only AED 975.
The Family Photography Package includes up to an hours photography shoot on location in Dubai, may be outdoors or at the comfort of your home.
You receive 30 edited images in high-resolution on a CD ready for print as well as low-res images that you can email and use on facebook and other online media.
Details of ArtE Souk. Location and timings go to: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=231192623594881
A sneak peak for you to see what to come on Friday.

Come and see me on Friday and book your next photography session. If you want to have new photographs taken for your christmas cards it is best you get yours booked now while there are still dates available.
I will be at Time Square, Sheikh Zayed Road from 12.00 - 19.00. Hope to see you there!!!
Cheers,
Helen
Tel. +971 55 10789 88

Is it cheating when changing an image in PS?

It has been very busy times since I got back from my New York trip.
I am working with a travel agent that wants new images for their image gallery on their website and their brochures. Now when you get a project like that and you have a deadline its not always the weather is on your side. So is it then cheating to add interesting foreground and backgrounds to an image in PS? Well, Yes if the picture is supposed to reflect what the place has to offer it is cheating. But adding a bit of interesting sky such as a nice cloud here and there I do not consider it cheating that is to me in my book ok to do. But then you need to calculate in all the extra hours that you need to actually make it happen. That kind of editing I do in Photoshop but all my photographs starts out in Aperture and get a bit of work done on them there first.

I have also been busy working on an advert for a local hotel. But that is all done and printed and posted on location already. Sometimes Egypt surprises you with its efficiency. Or does it have to do with the people that are executing it….. hum probably.

How to market yourself.

With my background in marketing I often get the question how do you market yourself when you don't have a product but a service to offer?

- Well simply put I do have a product the service ends up in a product!

But anyway I thought I would try to give you a few tips here anyway. I have just written down something that you can start out with, the list can otherwise be very long regarding marketing strategies and activities that you can do for yourself or your company.

When it comes to marketing yourself / your company there are not really any right or wrong answers. It most of the time comes down to how much time and money you have to spend on your own marketing. You can get a long way on a budget longer than I think a lot of people realize.

It is very much up to you and your imagination to come up with ideas that are suitable for you. The ideas do not need to be unique you can very easily check other companies that are working in your particular area of expertise/service or have a similar product and see what are they doing and does it seam to work for them? If they are doing something that is not working then you don't have to try to fail at the same thing it will be a total waist of time.

A few tricks that I have up my sleeve is the following:

+ Write Press-releases! This is the most effective way of getting published in an objective way in magazines/newspapers that are relevant to your market and your potential target clients. Remember do not write them as an advert with slogans and other catchy sales talk it will not work because the journalists working for the magazine will through your letter straight into the rubbish bin. Once you have mastered writing a good press-release (or hired a ghost writer) and gotten a good relationship with the editors at the magazines that you have picked out are

your target then its just to keep sending them regular news about what you are up to that are of interest to them. There is no point sending a press-release to a magazine that will not have any interest in you or your product it's a waist of your time and theirs. Always remember to leave your contact details so that they can contact you for more information and pictures that they want to use together with their article that they are creating out of your press-release.

+ There are also several websites on the Internet where you can submit your press-release where journalists go and look for new material to write about or just to get something newsworthy for their magazine. So submit your press-release to as many as you can as well.

+ You can also make videos and add them to different Internet websites such as youTube and other similar sites. You have then a good coverage of potential clients viewing your video. Make sure to write relevant tags and a good description of your video so that people can easily find it when they are searching for videos.

Below are two examples of my videos that I have uploaded to youTube just to give you an idea of what you can do. These videos are actually a collection of photographs that I have made a video of.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bhuzXCfHI0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q36ujhoJcws

These are just two simple activities out of several marketing activities that you can do to help yourself get more noticed.

If you have any questions or thoughts regarding this do not hesitate to contact me.

Good luck. H

This is not a press-release that I have posted but a poster that you can put up in areas where your clientele mingle about, notice boards etc.