You love taking pictures, and now you’re ready to start getting paid for it. That means finding customers willing to pay you for your work. Here are 10 photography marketing tips that will help you generate a pool of interested clients that you can pick and choose from.
Remember, the more leads you have the more likely you are to find someone that’s willing to pay you what you what you deserve. Here are four simple photography marketing tips to get started.
When someone types a location and a business type into Google — like Colorado landscape photographer — those businesses that have signed up for a Google Business Listing show up first, ahead of the organic listings. Create a Google business page. They are free.
Blogs are the lifeblood of any website, and a key part of any digital marketing effort. Your website will generate more traffic and more highly qualified traffic if you have an active blog. If you put enough work into it, and your writing chops are up to par, you can even develop a loyal readership. A key thing to consider before you start blogging is who are you blogging to? Who is your intended readership? Answer that question and you’ll know what kind of content to produce.
The next step to take once you’ve got a good blog going is creating an email list. Many professional photographers spend years working without doing email marketing only to realize they should have been collecting email addresses from day 1. Where do you get the email addresses from, and what do you offer them in return? Get addresses as you network, as you build professional relationships. Start a newsletter that features your work and lets people stay up to date with where you are and what you’re taking pictures of. Start small and grow!
OK — not like your life depends on it. You don’t want to be too pushy. Simply create an incentive for your customers to refer you to their friends and business associates. That way you don’t have to ask or beg them or remind them to pass your name along. Word of mouth advertising is one of the most effective means of advertising because it passes the “social proof” test — it’s a recommendation coming from a customer, not from the company itself. One way to provide an incentive for referrals is to offer free prints or a free class if you teach workshops (another great marketing technique) to clients that pass your name along to X number of people.
Want to learn how to create and sell a landscape photography calendar? Need help with a photography pricing guide?
Our blog is full of business tips for aspiring professional photographers. If you’re looking to hone your skills or take a landscape photography adventure with professional photographers, Jim and Lori Steinberg of Steinberg Photography offer workshops and tours to help photographers improve their skills. These sessions are suitable for everyone from beginners to professionals.
