Advertising and goals

[Shay Stephens]

I have a goal, to be the first wedding photographer to shoot a celebrity wedding on the moon or low earth orbit. But not Mars, that is just to trendy.

Lofty goals. Impossible one may say. But I would argue nay, it is not impossible. Let me 'splain...

Having found out that private firms were going to open up space for tourists, I decided that I wanted to be a part of that. So I have been looking for opportunities to start positioning myself toward my goal. Last year, one such opportunity arrived in the form of Bigelow Aerospace. They launched the Genesis II spacecraft that is now in orbit.

To go along with that spacecraft, they had a "Fly Your Stuff" program where you could send them something to put in the craft and it would float around inside the cabin and they would photograph it and put the results on their website. So I sent them a wedding photo and put my business name on it. It just showed up on the website:
http://www.bigelowaerospace.com/fly_stuff/view_fys_photos.php
Enter the photo ID#: 17200032 in the upper right corner and press the go button.

It is not much to look at right now, but it is the first semi-recognizable image to show up. Hopefully over the next few weeks or so a better shot may show up. Either way, the bride in the shot is thrilled she is rubbing shoulders with the astronaut set hehehe.

And this is my first solid step toward achieving my goal. The cost to send up the card was $300. We'll see if that translates into any short term interest or not.

How about you? Any stories of interesting advertising that may be outside the norm?

[Stella Bella]

Hey Shay...thats really cool. I think that might be the most unique advertising strategy I've heard of.

[leaforte]

...Only Shay Stephens! WTG! How about getting an Astronaut to tattoo your logo on his/her shoulder (forehead?)!

[Shay Stephens]

How about getting an Astronaut to tattoo your logo on his/her shoulder (forehead?)!

I have seen posts online talking about tattoos one should never get, and a lot of them are company logos. I wish I knew that before agreeing to that goldenpalace tattoo. Live and learn right hehehe

[saurora]

That's very cool. It's what I would call the ultimate destination wedding! Somehow I have this very strong hunch you're going to pull it off. I hope so! :D

[quark]

That is an awesome goal. For those of us content to remain earthbound do you have other suggestions for advertising you did that you found particularly successful?

[Shay Stephens]

That is an awesome goal. For those of us content to remain earthbound do you have other suggestions for advertising you did that you found particularly successful?

Lately, advertising through venues has been working well. Find venues you want to work at (maybe close to you) and see if you can get in their brochure or other materials. Piggybacking on them helps get better qualified customers to you. The one caveat being you usually have to have worked there at the venue once and it will most likely cost money.

The most effective method I have found of getting people to me has been through search engines. So if you have not worked at a place yet but want to, try putting up a web page that talks about the venue and make it easy for the person who finds the page to contact you. Put pictures of the venue on the page. Try to get the venue to let you take some photos during a down period, they will usually say yes. Make that page informative and helpful, and you may just land a booking or two.

So you see the direction here, instead of trying to advertise yourself only, you are trying to get people who are looking for a location, and through that, you.

[quark]

Thank you! Great idea - I will ask around at a few I have been at lately.