Small Businesses & Advertising In Tokyo

I am a fashion and advertising photographer moving to Tokyo in April.

Does anyone know how I can reach/locate new small businesses to offer them photography services? I am primarily interested in reaching clothing designer, shoe/jewelry designers, small business retail stores, and other businesses that would require photographs for advertising.

Also, I am trying to find a place to advertise my business as well. Somewhere new small businesses on low budgets would find me.

Thanks for you help in advance.

Your question/situation seems simple enough but in truth I think you have a lot of questions to ask yourself first.

Do you have connections in Tokyo?
What is your language ability?
What is your advertisement budget?
Where will you be working from?

And many more.

I started off writing the info below so take from it what you can but really you need to access your situation.

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If you don't speak fluent Japanese, many people aren't going to work with you. You need some connections or people in the industry to introduce you.

You obviously need to create some dazzling pamphlets and other marketing materials, a professional website, and multiple portfolios. Also, everything needs to be in both Japanese and English.

If you need help with design go to: www.guru.com

The most common way to advertise in Tokyo is to research the companies you want to target, make a list of several hundred companies, and develop and direct mail cycle where you send DM to companies every few months.

You can increase efficiency and lower costs by contacting the companies via phone or e-mail and qualifying their need for your services. The biggest waste is sending mailers to companies that don't need your services.

With the businesses you are targeting, you also will be able to exploit "tobikomi" to a certain extent; this is just going to the place of business and selling your services. However, Tokyo businesses often hate this and it's quite inefficient.

There also is the ACCJ magazine.

I know someone in your profession, who has had a good track record in Europe/US, the tried to continue that job in Japan (by the way he is married to a Japanese national so no problem in terms of visa permitting him to work). But he got nowhere - and this was before the financial crisis - so he went back to Europe for several months to build up some good portofolio with seriously good fashion brand names, then came back again. He has a full-time Japanese manager, who takes care of booking and promotion.