You take beautiful photos. You’ve perfected your elevator pitch, and you’ve got business cards to match. You've built a beautiful website just waiting to be discovered by potential customers. What's next?
It’s time to promote your business.
It's one thing to have a website. It's another thing to drive traffic to it. Without a marketing plan, it's like putting a sign out at the end of your driveway and hoping for walk-ins. You wouldn’t build a brick-and-mortar studio without advertising your business, so don’t fall into the trap of thinking you'll make sales simply because you have a website.
Your marketing plan should have specific goals, which in turn will guide you toward the right tools for your business. For example, are you a wedding photographer? If so, then you want to draw in brides and book engagement and wedding shoots. Are you a landscape photographer? You want exposure for your fine-art images and your stunning, wall-sized prints.
There are more marketing tools out there than ever before, from traditional print ads to social media and everything in between. Many of them cost nothing more than your time; if you do it yourself, make sure you create relevant and meaningful content. And don't shy away from hiring an expert: Think about the impression you'll make with a polished presentation to match the polished product you'll deliver to your customer.
Tip: Make sure your site gets found among the hundreds of thousands of sites that potential clients will find in Internet searches.
For Awais Yaqub, photography is ultimately about sharing—sharing images, sharing views, sharing knowledge. SmugMug’s one-click sharing to social-media sites like Facebook and Twitter helps him fulfill that mission. “For me, there is absolutely no reason to create a photograph and keep it in cold storage. What good would it do if I was not able to spread the message, inspire someone, or help someone in their learning process?” he says.
You've finished a shoot for a client and uploaded the finished product into a gallery on your SmugMug site. How do you let the client know you’re ready for them to come buy your work? There are a multitude of sharing tools built right into your SmugMug galleries, including good, old-fashioned email right from the Share button. Or send people straight to the shopping cart from a blog post by embedding shopping-cart links.
Referrals and word of mouth are powerful ways to build your business. Give clients postcards or business cards with a code they can give a friend. When that friend books an appointment with you and references the code, give the referring customer a discount coupon, like a print credit.
Social media is a powerful marketing tool for photographers. SmugMug’s sharing options allow your fans to post images to Facebook and Twitter with ease.
Tip: Create a Facebook business page and start posting meaningful and relevant content. Link your blog posts, announce any large events you’re photographing, share any special promotions you’re offering, post portfolio-worthy photos. Your content needs to be beautiful and exciting so your visitors will love sharing it with their friends.
Don’t be afraid to solicit sales! Pitch your local news media, post samples of your work on the Facebook pages of agencies, make sure your SEO is rock solid. It's imperative that all your images link back to your SmugMug website so potential clients can see more.
Once you've established the basics of your business, you may want to consider advanced options, such as the following:
Think about what works best for you and your business, then get the word out! Your photography deserves to be seen.
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