People ask me all the time what everyone does–emails, mailers, etc. They want to know exactly what other photographers’ pieces look like and ask questions about specific results for each piece. They do this so that they can emulate what others have done successfully.
I think that’s a really bad strategy. In fact, I think it is so bad that I do not show examples of photographers’ marketing pieces (generally) when I lecture. Why? Because too many photographers lock in on that one piece with the success story and try to copy it. I’m not kidding…I used to show examples and then later I would get emails with new promo ideas that looked EXACTLY like what I showed.
Here’s the trick: Do your own thing to get noticed.
Look at these examples of innovative business cards–notice how different they are (mostly) and how compelling they are? Several are photographers’ cards (yea!) but they don’t look at all the same. I’d bet dollars to donuts they were all created by professional designers and not a photographer playing with a Mac. They also all have a concept (some are stronger than others, of course, but still). One concept. And one that clearly defines that company or person.
That’s what you need to do for your marketing materials–conceptualize and execute in a way that best represents your business. Don’t look at those examples and say “I’m going to do a metal card like Duffy’s!” or “I’ll do the folded card thing like ‘Scott’ did” but rather be inspired to originality by these examples.