3 Lessons Your Small Business Can Learn from an AG Client's 1970s Shoot (with FREE PRESET!)
Whether or not you’re a subscription client with Alexis The Greek, if you use photos for your social strategy, no doubt you can pick up a thing or two from a recent ATG shoot with Plants & Ponytails, a boutique plant and lifestyle business in Hanover, Massachusetts.
With 2019 winding down, Maryann, owner of the new plant boutique in Merchant’s Row, started in October looking ahead to 2020. Realizing her retail space would likely experience a drop in foot traffic in the post-Christmas quarter, she decided to use the down-time to test some creative marketing experiments.
More specifically, she thought of Instagram. As one of ATG’s subscription clients, each month she’s already thinking ahead to what we’ll be shooting in the coming 30 days. What she came up with for January was a themed shoot—a 1970s themed shoot, to be exact.
All her associates got fully into it—tracking down bell-bottoms to wear, styling their hair to be stick-straight, and picking up little knick-knacks from the decade at thrift shops and incorporating them into scenes. The result is what you see in the phenomenal (if I may say so) images below.
What I loved most about this shoot, though, was that Maryann naturally stuck to a few principles that I’ve observed to be key in marketing success, particularly on Instagram. As I gear up to launch my first online Instagram class, I thought it would be appropriate to share those lessons here on the blog.
Are you ready? Let’s go!
LESSON 1: PLAN AHEAD.
My photography clients always get more photos out of a shoot when they come prepared with a “shot list”— a definitive list of all the shots they want and how they intend to use them.
Maryann not only came with a list of shots she wanted (both shots that would incorporate products from her shop as well as shots of old records that were plant-themed, magazines and books from the ‘70s that were about plants, and “scenes” between people that told a story); she also came with all necessary props and an overarching vision for the “mood.”
This really guided our process and allowed us to move fluidly from one scene to the next without a lot of time lost in brainstorming and staging. In the end, Maryann came away with 60 winner shots from about an hour’s worth of shooting—which is usually only a number I can hit in two or more hours!
LESSON 2: GET CREATIVE.
In retail and food service especially, it can be easy to default to taking pictures of the products you’re trying to sell—here’s a plate of food, here’s the latest T-shirt in the shop, that sort of thing.
But to be really eye-catching in the Instagram feed, it’s important to shake it up a bit and get a little more creative. After all, your feed shouldn’t look like a catalog—Instagram is a social platform. People want to know what you are doing, not just what you’re selling.
This 1970’s-themed shoot was far outside the wheelhouse of what most business owners would even feel comfortable doing—which is likely why it will be a real winner in January, when everyone else is talking about post-Christmas sales, snow closures, and other (semi-boring) topics that most users will forget after just a few seconds. Paired with video, this series is sure to be a hit!
LESSONS 3: BE AUTHENTICALLY YOU.
A 1970’s theme wouldn’t work for any ol’ brand—but it really works for Plants & Ponytails, where some of the products in-house are already 1970’s-inspired, due to a big “plant wave” during that era that still informs a lot of household plant care today. Well, that and I think Maryann just really likes the 1970’s!
In any brand, there will be a handful of ways to work authentically within the bounds of the culture and community that surround the product or service. Maybe you don’t have to go all-out, trying to track down eyeglasses, party glasses, bell-bottoms, and boardgames from a particular decade, like Maryann did, but you could do a photo shoot “off campus” somewhere that makes sense for the brand; stage a party or scene that makes sense for the brand; or photograph a real event, like a pop-up or company retreat, that tells more of the story than customers and clients generally get to see.
This sort of effort invites your tribe deeper into the inner circle, makes them feel connected and “in the know.” It can be a wonderful strategy not only to boost engagement in the short-term, but to keep those same people coming back for more.
FREE LIGHTROOM DESKTOP PRESET:
BEFORE-AND-AFTERS
Tap the right arrow button on the slideshow below to transform my unedited images into edited images with the 1970’s custom Lightroom preset!
For each subscription client, I typically create 1-3 custom presets in Lightroom desktop so that editing can be a breeze month over month. For this seventies-inspired shoot, I actually made an additional custom preset for Plants & Ponytails… which I most likely won’t get to use again for a very long time (when will I have the chance to do a 1970’s-themed shoot again?!)—but I’m so proud of it, I want to share it with you!
About this preset: Grain has been set a little higher than normal so that the images can look more like they were shot on film. (No digital cameras in the 1970’s!) Whites and yellows are also really bright, and the highlights and shadows are tinted to create an era-specific color balance as well as a hazy effect that feels (to me, anyway!) very true to the decade.
If you’re a Lightroom Desktop user, you can download this preset for free by entering your email below! You’ll get instructions for how to install the preset into Lightroom CC, too, for both Mac and PC:
Get the Preset Now!
Did you love this post? If so, I’d love for you to pin your favorite image to your best Pinterest board so others can find it, too! Then leave me a comment below with a creative idea for YOUR next photo shoot. I can’t wait to hear what you come up with!
HELLO! MY NAME IS ALEXIS.
Coffee lover, day dreamer, foodie, and creative. I believe in doing what you can with what you have where you are. I blog to help you do more with what you have. I hope you love it here!
