Archive for marketing for photographers

A Swift Kick: Growing a Photography Business Every Year

When we first start out in a photography business, it seems that the sky is the limit. We’re new to all of this and there’s nowhere to go but up. We gain clients, our business ramps up, and our dreams begin to unfold. But as we start growing busier, we find ourselves challenged to continue the behind-the-scenes operations. So we hire someone (even if just part time) to assist us with bookings, invoicing or answering the phone. And that alleviates some of our time, so we can shoot or edit more.

When our photography business continues to grow, we become too busy to market it. In the beginning when we had nothing, we were obsessed with marketing. After all, it was the only option for growth. And now, that clients are calling and booking, we scale back.

This is the number one mistake any business owner makes, and it’s the number one reason that causes any business to plateau or decline.

Marketing can never be stopped. It doesn’t matter if we’re starving or well-fed, our marketing is what promises the health of our business into the future. So even if it feels strange to invest money or time in marketing your business when you’re so busy you can’t see straight, get over it. Read More→

Marketing Campaigns for Photographers – The School Fair Set-Up

Whilst working for a high street portrait studio franchise a few years ago this marketing campaign was suggested to us from our head office as a summer campaign. For the most part it worked quite well but there could have been some improvements so I’ve included those in this article.

The reason I like this campaign is that not only are you promoting yourself within your local community but it can be very good for data collection. To start off you need to do a bit of research.

Identify your local primary schools and find out who organizes the fundraising events. I would do this early in the year as you are going to want to approach your points of contact in early Spring.

The Offer
In return for a stand at the school’s summer (or even spring) fair you either pay the asked fee or offer a percentage of your profits taken on the day towards the school’s fundraising. These are charity events so it is important to be flexible and to fit in with what the event organisers have planned. Some organisers will simply ask if you can take some pictures of the event in return for your stand and if this is the case then make sure you have another photographer or someone to man the stand when you are doing this.

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Marketing Campaigns for Photographers – Online Directories

One of the easiest ways to build inbound links to to your website is to sign up to online directories.
It seems that every month I get an email from a new directory offering me ‘the opportunity’ to list my business on their site “For Only £xxx a month!” The effectiveness of such sites is of course debatable but online directories do come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and the right ones can help bring in some good referrals.

Different Types of Directories

Online ‘Books’
Theses are the traditional book directories, or rather their online equivalents. Sites like this normally offer a basic free listing but this doesn’t always include a web link. This is a technique which the companies use to get your information so that they can up sell a premium listing to you.

Traffic wise, these are going to be the most popular of the directories and they usually have smart phone and tablet applications as well. That popularity comes at a price and in all honesty I’m not convinced that their effectiveness is equal to the spend.

Being larger, more expensive and of course more established, these companies do offer a lot more information in terms of traffic insights and analytics. One service that has come from the print days are special phone numbers which allows you to track how many calls you actually receive from your listing. You can also expect a break down of how many impressions and click throughs your listing is receiving.

Generally speaking these directories are working harder than most to get your business listed and offering more and more features and apparent benefits but if the cost is going to consume a large amount of your marketing budget then I would perhaps suggest that you look elsewhere first. Read More→

Marketing Campaigns for Photographers – Wedding Fairs

Traditionally this is one if those marketing campaigns that are essential to many photographers wedding businesses.

Wedding fairs or fayres can be fruitful when it comes to getting leads but at the time they can be costly and hard to get into. You do have a couple of options when it comes to how you approaching a wedding fair.

  1. Play the numbers game and try and speak to ask many people as you can and collect as much data as possible.
  2. Try and spend time with each couple you talk to and really sell your personality as well as your work.

Both approaches work and it is possible to do both. I’ve found that at some of the bigger wedding fairs photographers go for too much of a hard sell too early. It’s just a case of creating a balance that suits your personality.

Here are a few tips to help you along the way.

  • Make sure your stand screams “This is my USP!”
  • Dress immaculately. A smart appearance goes a long way. In fact make sure your table is dressed to impressed, a nicely ironed table cloth is just the start.
  • Don’t hide behind tables, it’s always better to be visitor side of the table even if it means moving round when people approach you.
  • Don’t sit. It makes you look bored and disinterested. Read More→

Marketing Campaigns for Photographers – The Appointment Card

Being a photographer and having my business listed several different places has it’s advantages….. it also has it’s downsides, the most irritating being cold calls. If it’s not someone guaranteeing a top spot on Google or similar, it’s someone asking me a advertise in a local wedding brochure.

I’ve experimented with several forms of advertising in the past and one form of print advertising I’ve been mildly happy with has been on wedding dress shop appointment cards.

The cost of this ‘opportunity’ varies but I’ve always been able to generate enough business from them to cover costs. Plus there’s the added bonus of building a bridge towards a relationship with the shops in question.

But after a while I started thinking….. why am I paying to appear as a small ad when I could produce these cards at the same cost?

This is where I got the idea for today’s marketing campaign.

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Marketing Campaigns for Photographers – Build your referral network

As a wedding photographer there’s nothing worse than receiving a great lead from a big spending past client only to realise that you’re already booked!

This certainly happens to me more and more as my own business grows but with every disappointment there’s an opportunity. An opportunity to build on relationships with my referral network.

The worst thing you can do in such a case is to reply to such enquiries with a note saying….. sorry we’re already booked ……. actually that’s the second worst thing you can do….. the first is to just ignore the enquiry altogether.

This could be potentially damaging to relationships you’ve already built with past clients. At the very least letting them know you book up a year in advance will act as a call to action in regards to any other potential client they might send your way.

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