As the year comes to a close I wanted to spend this time to reflect on the past year, some of our favorite moments, where we’ve been, what we did different and then look forward to 2015 and go over some of the changes for next year. As a business owner, I feel that this reflection is important because it gives me a picture of the growth that took place, but also areas that could use growth. More importantly, for you the reader, the possible wedding, possible portrait booking, or possible video booking, it’s important to see what a business is doing to ensure growth so that you have a confidence in that business.
The biggest thing that took place this year was a complete overhaul in our branding. I wrote a blog about my position on where I was. To recap, my branding wasn’t unified. My logo, my website and blog, my pictures, everything had it’s own look but all of it together did not look like it belonged. So the first thing I started with was the branding (website, logo, blog, social media). I wanted to make sure everything had a unified look. The blog and website now look very similar. For SEO purposes I have these 2 sites separate from one another so making them look alike was a challenge. My logo was revamped and given a fresh look. Everything started to come together and then around June the pictures started to take on a unified look as well. We lean more toward the classic film look with our pictures.
A couple years ago it was my goal to travel more for shoots. Even if that meant simply going to St. Louis more, it’s not far but it’s something. After making that a goal and pursuing it we were able to make it out to Las Vegas, Denver, Chicago, St. Louis and parts of Indiana. Again, most of these locations are fairly close by but even St. Louis is a lot further than where I was just 3 years ago. As 2014 came about, we added Dallas to the mix of Chicago and St. Louis and even more shoots in Indiana.
Every year we revisit our customer service and what that is going to look like as well as where we succeeded and failed. So 2014 was a year to totally revamp everything we do since our wedding collections included some new things we had not previously included. But we knew, being a transition year, that it would take a little bit of work as our business model had pretty much changed because of our new wedding collections. Two years ago we wanted more canvases leaving our studio and we paved a way for that to happen and in 2014 we wanted more metal prints leaving the studio as well because couples absolutely loved these prints! Like the canvases, we created a way to make that happen and half of our wedding bookings this year had a metal print going to the couple.
And of course every year we want to make sure we expand our reach. Last year we really start pushing our work out to publications and since then we have been published in magazines and blogs including The Knot, Something Turquoise and Beauty & Lifestyle Bride. Two years ago we were honored to be working with EIU and Tony Romo to film a highlight video of an event. This past year we were incredibly honored to work for Google and photograph a Google e-cities event in Effingham.
So what does next year look like? We have our branding down, we have our customer service lined out and canvases and metal prints are now a common item leaving our studio. One of the big changes this year, while not so exciting for most is our business management has been revamped. Like I said, not quite as exciting as pictures, or branding but this business management is going to help us stay more efficient and better efficiency means better service for those who work with us.
Another thing we’ll be doing is pushing out to even bigger publications. I’m never satisfied and never want to be and while it is truly amazing to have our work published already I want to continue to raise the bar for our published events. We’ve worked with EIU, Google and a few local businesses that have a huge impact on our communities and we want to raise the bar there and continue to work with or even expand to larger markets. With our weddings, obviously we want to raise the bar in the quality and work and service couples receive. So this next year we are introducing acrylic prints and these things are no joke! Heavy, and insanely awesome!
Overall 2014 was a great year. The couples we were privilidged with working with were absolutely amazing. The portrait sessions and events we were able to work with were equally as amazing. And already 2015 is panning out to be one amazing year as well. Happy New Year all!!
