Your marketing choices for your business are actually pretty personal. In this post, I’m going to share questions to ask yourself before deciding on your marketing strategies and affordable photography marketing tips to get you started.

This post contains affiliate links. Read the affiliate disclosure.

Photography Marketing Questions

Marketing is a part of being in business, but how do you know what marketing efforts will actually pay off for you? The issue that a lot of people run into is that photography marketing can take up a lot of your time and cost more money than you may want to spend. And, no matter what approaches you take, you are either going to get a lead or you’re not.

If you want your marketing to actually work, it will take some brainstorming, because your choices need to make sense for you and your business. Start thinking through the following questions:

1. Who are your ideal clients?
2. How are you different from your competitors?

Who Are Your Ideal Clients?

Who are your ideal clients? This question can take time to figure out when you’re first starting out. In the beginning, I was pretty much willing to work for anyone. This wasn’t a good business practice for me, however, because it caused me to connect with clients that weren’t a good fit for me or my business.

When it comes to finding your ideal clients (not just any client), it actually starts with getting to know your most important client first… yourself. I wrote a blog post that talks more about How To Find Your Ideal Clients, so be sure to check it out.

READ MORE ABOUT: HOW TO FIND YOUR IDEAL CLIENTS: A SHIFT IN MINDSET

How Are You Different From Your Competitors?

How are you different from your competitors? If you don’t know the answer to this, it’s important to take the time to figure it out. Otherwise, your marketing efforts are going to blend right in with everyone else’s. Some questions to consider are:

• What do you love about your industry?
• What do you hate about your industry?
• What do specialize in?
• What can you do differently that sets you apart?

Once you do a deep dive on those questions, demonstrate your answers throughout your marketing efforts. The photography industry is incredibly competitive, so saying, “I’m a photographer and my work is what makes me different.” isn’t going to help you stand out. It’s just way too general and a lot of other photographer’s are saying the exact same thing.

I bought a book a few years ago called Badass Your Brand and it was incredibly eye opening about figuring out your brand and communicating how you’re different. I’ll link to it below so you can check it out.

READ MORE ABOUT: BADASS YOUR BRAND BY PIA SILVA

Photography Marketing Tips

Tip 1: Build A Good Website

Having a good website for your photography marketing is super important. It’s the face of your business online and everyone is online. And, no matter what other marketing efforts you try, potential clients will always be led back to your website to look at your work and learn more about what you offer.

So, what is the difference between a website and a good website? A good website has the following things:

• Beautiful presentation
• Clear brand statement
• Curated portfolio
• Easy to navigate
• SEO optimized
• Uses rankable keywords
• SSL certificate

I dive deeper in to all of this in the post below, so please stop by and check it out! 😉

READ MORE ABOUT: HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR BUSINESS WEBSITE

Tip 2: Use Pinterest To Drive Traffic

Pinterest is a visual search engine and it has the potential to be your website’s BFF. There are roughly 454 million monthly users coming to Pinterest to find something. And, here’s the best part… Pinterest wants to send people to the content that they’re searching for. If you are adding helpful pins on Pinterest that people are searching for, Pinterest will promote your pins which will ultimately drive more people to your website.

Unfortunately, a lot of people are focused on using social media platforms to drive traffic to their business. The thing people don’t realize is that social media platforms and the algorithms are designed to keep people engaged, not send people away. Not to mention, the algorithms are constantly changing resulting in businesses trying to keep up with the changes.

Pinterest is a much better use of your time for actually getting people to your website and I have a blog post that dives deeper into this linked below, so be sure to check it out.

READ MORE ABOUT: PINTEREST FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS

Tip 3: Connect On LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a really great way to connect with potential clients. There are 774+ million members in more than 200 countries worldwide on LinkedIn. That’s a lot of people who are there for job opportunities, professional connections, industry news, business trends and insights. Although it’s considered social media, it’s business-focused platform. You can share updated work with your network, make new connections, discover mutual connections, spark conversations and grow your professional community. If you’re trying to make money as a photographer, use this powerful business tool to your advantage.

MUTUAL CONNECTIONS

One of my favorite features of LinkedIn is discovering mutual connections. This feature allows you to see who your connections are connected with and you never know when one of these connections might become a potential lead. If someone you’re connected with is connected with someone you want to meet, they can introduce you to each other. How cool is that? People will always respond to people they know and trust, so don’t be afraid to ask for an introduction.

Tip 4: Word of Mouth & Testimonials

Word of mouth is the best form of advertising. If someone you have worked with or know personally can recommend you to a potential new client, it’s most likely going to result in a lead that could become a client in the future.

Testimonials are a really great way to highlight “word of mouth” advertising yourself. Don’t be nervous to ask for testimonials from clients you’ve worked with in the past. Words of praise from happy clients are really valuable for you. Add these testimonials to your website and on your LinkedIn page so you can attract more clients.

Think of testimonials like online shopping… when you see a product with several five-star reviews, you are more confident to buy it. 😉

Tip 5: Grow Your Email List

Growing your email list is incredibly powerful marketing tool for your business, not to mention, a very freeing break from the social media hustle. An email list helps you build your own community of people who genuinely want to hear from you. You have complete control over what you share, how often you share it and there’s no algorithm to get in your way. Hallelujah!

Social media followers are great, but if Instagram decide to shut down tomorrow, how would you reconnect with all of the people you worked so hard to connect with? Invite your followers to sign up for your emails and more importantly, add different opt-in forms to your website so people can sign up there too.

INTRODUCING FLODESK

In order to start collecting emails, you will need an email marketing service provider. There are a lot of options to choose from, but I use Flodesk for building my email list.

Flodesk is an email service provider that helps you grow your business and email list. Here are some of the things I love about Flodesk:

• Easy to use
• Simple, beautiful, customizable templates
• Text-focused templates and image-focused templates
• Pop Up forms
• In-Line forms
• Full Page forms
• Analytics to track how/where/when people sign up and how they interact with your emails (clicks, open vs. don’t open, etc)
• Ability to group people into segments
• Ability to setup automated workflows

Some of the other providers are really robust, but I don’t really need the extra bells and whistles that they offer. I just want to build my email list, share helpful photography information with them and see if the information I’m sharing is interesting to them. I absolutely love using Flodesk and the coolest part is that my email subscribers are growing on a weekly basis.

At the end of the day, when it comes to marketing your photography business, you need to do what’s best for your business and the type of clients you want to work with. I hope these affordable marketing tips were helpful for you to get started. Reach out with questions anytime!

Happy Creating!

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This post contains affiliate links which means if you click or make a purchase through my site, I might make a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only promote products that I actually use and support. 

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All images ©Regan Baroni 2021.