About Photomo
Digital marketing for photographers fuelled by a love of photography
Headed by a digital marketing professional with a passion for photography – actually formerly an AIPP Accredited Professional Photographer and an Australian Professional Photography Awards silver award recipient – Photomo specialises in digital marketing for photographers.
Why Photomo founder’s failure as a pro photographer is your gain
How a gut-wrenching decision to leave the photography industry led to a new skillset & a passion to help other photographers succeed
My name is Fred McKie. I'm Photomo’s founder and director. I'm also a former AIPP Accredited Professional Photographer turned digital marketing specialist, based in Queensland, Australia.
Almost four years of working in a fast-paced Sunshine Coast digital agency with local, national and international clients across many different industries, in addition to an in-house marketing role with a company whose operations extend across four countries, has provided me with significant know-how around website, search engine and paid advertising campaign optimisation I wish I had been able to apply in my previous photography business.
You see, I heartbreakingly folded my business in 2017 despite:
Having been awarded Silver at both the Queensland Professional Photography Awards and Australian Professional Photography Awards
A high level of client satisfaction
Seemingly already knowing more about online marketing than the majority of fellow photographers I spoke to at industry conferences
It was the toughest decision of my life.
Unfortunately, across four or five years as Fred McKie Photography, I had simply failed to build revenue beyond a mediocre level. Enough was enough.
The upside for you is that having had awesome wins for digital marketing clients across various industries, I'm taking what I've learned and applying it to help photographers succeed. I want to help people like you avoid ongoing struggle and instead achieve your business goals. However big you dream.
Photomo has been created with the intention of helping photographers better leverage their websites as a lead generation (or sales) platform, including optimising it to convert better, driving more organic search traffic to it from Google and implementing strategic online paid advertising campaigns.
PHOTOMO in fact stands for PHOTOgrapher Marketing Optimisation.
My APPA Silver award-winning image Monument Valley Storm that was also a finalist in the Head On Landscape Prize (above) and (below) a few images from my client photoshoot archives from my days as a commercial photographer.
Learning from my mistakes so you can thrive
I'd ridden a rollercoasters of highs and lows as a commercial photographer, primarily active in the architecture and lifestyle genres, but the fact was that four years in the financial return wasn't even close to replacing the income of my previous career of 15-plus years in print journalism.
I'd burned out trying to make things work and I just couldn't do it any more. It wasn't just me who was stressed to the max. My extremely supportive wife, Paula, was also struggling with the situation and we were simply fortunate that during my dark days she had some of her most successful years in her commission-only sales role. In all honesty, though, the pressure on her must have been immense. I came pretty close to losing her because I'd battled on too long without any significant improvement to my bottom line. By mid-2017, enough was enough.
Looking back now, it's clear my failure was the result of not generating sufficient lead volume. It wasn't for lack of trying. In fact, many months I probably spent more time working on my DIY website (during four years I went from WordPress to Photoshelter to a hybrid of Squarespace and Photoshelter) and changing up my marketing than I did on photoshoots. But in truth I was going around in circles, hoping somehow something would suddenly click and all would be well.
The upshot: I thought I was doing a decent job with my DIY marketing efforts, but in reality while I'd managed to rank well organically on Google I was wasting my ad spend. I saw virtually no return at all from a poorly set-up Google Adwords campaign that was virtually set-and-forget, with few ongoing optimisations taking place. The biggest trap I fell into was perhaps implementing no structured Facebook Ads campaign and relying instead on boosted posts. Huge mistake. Massive wasted opportunity.
The next chapter: my steep learning curve in digital marketing
As devastated as I was, I was fortunate to immediately be granted an opportunity to start afresh in a new career. Primarily because the owners of the agency that took me on realised that while they'd need to show me the ropes when it came to digital marketing done properly, my versatile skillset – also including copy writing, copy editing and design capabilities – meant they could value-add to their clients by expanding their existing offerings.
Within the first month of starting that new chapter of my life, I'd realised where I'd gone wrong in business. Among all the many hats I'd worn as a photographer and solo business owner, if only I'd outsourced my marketing to a specialist in that field who truly knew how to get the results I desired.
I'm not afraid to say that the first few months at the agency was a steep learning curve, as every day there was something new to get my head around. But within 12 to 18 months I was the only member of the team who had worked across every single digital marketing service offering the agency offered ... and I was achieving great results for clients, including upswings on accounts I'd taken over from more experienced colleagues.
Digital marketing success stories
How can a guy who failed in business as a photographer help you to thrive in business as a photographer?
Firstly, failure equals growth. It's a stepping stone to success.
Secondly, while Photomo is still in its infancy, I've achieved results that have been absolute game-changers for clients in other industries.
Although I can't go into specifics, here's just a few examples:
260% increase in online revenue in first two months from organic search traffic for an established fashion ecommerce store via an SEO program
44% increase in conversions, from a 17% higher spend on Google Ads, across the first three months of campaign management for a builder
35% increase in leads from organic search traffic in the first month for a client following a copywriting and website conversion optimisation project
In the early days of Photomo, I also recently achieved month-on-month increases in organic website traffic of 62.1%, 59.6% and 19.1% respectively for my first three clients – all wedding photographers – simply through the implementation of a business digital footprint expansion project.
Placing emphasis on upholding values
I hope the fact I'm being fully transparent with you has earned a little of your trust.
Whether as a journalist and sub-editor, photographer or digital marketer, throughout my career I've always been true to my values, taken great pride in my work, applied a strong work ethic and been dedicated to doing the absolute best job I can at all times. This approach is continuing through Photomo.
To give you an idea of what others say about me, here's a few excerpts pulled from LinkedIn recommendations I've received over the years:
"Fred is an ultimate professional and it was an absolute pleasure to work with him and his team."
"An efficient and effective operator."
"Fred's experience and work ethic is an asset."
"Always extremely courteous and professional, with an unfailing good sense of humour ... quite strength and calmness in a high-stress environment."
"Smart, tuned in, incredibly efficient."
"Fred was highly regarded for two things: competence and calmness."
"Giving Fred a brief for a campaign ... is like setting a sparkler off. Working with our ideas he produced concepts and price options that not only fit the budget but exceed expectations from the start."
