Marketing ideas for photographers

If you are in business for yourself, then you know that advertising is the key to building your business. Advertising can be expensive and without guaranteed results. Thinking outside of the box tends to get more results and if you are creative enough, cheaper as well.

So, how does a photographer stand out above other photographers to get work?

Specialize

One way to stand out is to specialize in something and then broadcast it to your community. Do you love taking family portraits the best? How about pets? My goal is to specialize in maternity/newborn photography. If you want to go with this route, then it narrows your market down to make it easy to connect with the right people.

Some marketing ideas to attract specific clients:

Maternity/Newborn

Connect with maternity clothing stores:

• Ask to swap brochures, business cards, etc.
• Offer to hang a maternity or newborn portrait on their wall if they will put your business cards on their counter.
• Offer to do a photo shoot modeling some of their clothing.

Connect with Ob Gyn offices:

• Make a desk calendar with photos of babies and drop off at all doctor's offices-I do this and it's a big hit with the doctors. They love them!
• They would probably love to have a baby portrait on their wall as well.
• They might be will to exchange advertising too.
• Make a mini "magazine" with short articles about pregnancy and babies in it and include an ad for your photography services. Stick a postcard advertising a special in them as well. Drop the magazines off at doctor's offices, letting them know they are free for patients to read. This isn't as expensive as you might think!

Do maternity "model" casting call sessions:

• Put an ad on Craigslist, offering a discounted (or free) sessions stating that you want to try out new props or outfits.
• Offer prints from session with every referral they send.
• Offer a free newborn session if they send 5 clients your way.

Children Portraits:

• Go to local second hand clothing stores and exchange advertising.
• They might be interested in free portraits for their walls.
• Have a give-a-way and ask if they would let you put a bowl on their counter for people to enter.
• Go to mom related vendors and ask if they would be interested in networking.
• Go to family restaurants that do parties, like Chuckie Cheese types and offer to do a give-a-away to shoot a party for free in exchange for your business cards on their counter.

Pet Photography:

• Go to shelters and offer to do their pet photos for the paper.
• Volunteer to shoot a pet event like doggie runs, etc.
• Hold a holiday photo event, like Halloween costume contest. Donate proceeds to local shelter.

Marketing for all photography markets:

Below are ideas that you can use no matter what you specialize in:

Start a "vendor bag"- Collect local businesses' cards and specials and put them together in a pretty bag that you give to clients.

Mini "magazines"- You can make wedding and family mini magazines as well. Sometimes, a business may turn up their nose to networking-I don't know why-but, I have come across businesses that think you are trying to get free advertising out of them. That's why I find it easier sometimes to be able to walk into a business and offer them something for free to hand out to their customers instead.

Desk calendars- These work well for other doctor's offices and even dentists!

Do a charity calendar or book-I heard these give you lots of free publicity!

Some more expensive advertising routes:

If you have the budget, I would definitely recommend putting your business in the phone book. I really don't think that it's THAT expensive to list your business. Ours is 300 a year. I don't have mine in there yet, but, I think I'm going to see what my budget is around the time that they do printing.

Another more expensive route you might want to consider especially if you specialize in seniors is renting a kiosk at your local mall. These can be costly, but the return could be worth it. Our mall has 1-3 months options, so I might consider doing two months to see if it pays off.

I'm sure there are lots of more awesome marketing ideas that you readers have and I'd love to hear about them! Leave us a comment and let us know what you do!

Branding with video

Branding is very important when it comes to defining yourself as a photographer-actually, in any business. Finding the right color combination, the perfect logo, the right packaging-these are all an important part of branding.

What about your bio? Sure, we all have an 'about me' page with a photo of us beaming with our camera in hand. It's all good. Or is it? Have you thought about using a promotional video?

Promotional videos seem to be popping up on photographer's sites and I absolutely love it! If you read Jasmine Star's awesome blog/site, or Scarlett Lillian's very cool site, both use promotional videos to let potential clients get to know them even before they meet them.

Screen shot of Scarlett's blog.

Screen shot of Jasmine's blog.

Visit their sites and you'll want them to be your photographer. They make them look fun and easy to be around. They appear to be a sought after photographer. You find yourself drawn to meet them. Wouldn't you want clients to feel that way about you?

Here is a sample of a promotional video. Not one of my favorites, I like Scarlett and Jasmine's videos better, but you get the idea.

Now, I know what you are thinking. These photographers ARE sought after and well-known. It would be silly for little 'ole you to do one of these. I disagree with a capital D-I-S. You are just as important and cool as Jasmine-even if you weren't asked to photograph the royal couple's wedding. So, let's get onto the key factors of planning your own video and how fun it can be to put together.

Plan Ahead.

You need to have a vision before starting. Think about what you want to come across to your clients. Pick the perfect location, outfit, and maybe what you specialize in. Like Jasmine and Scarlett's videos show them shooting weddings, you could do a session with a child.

Simple & Short.

People are distracted easily by shiny objects. Their attention span is short, so your video only needs to be 2-3 mins long. Don't worry, you can get a lot across in a short amount of time.

Music is a Must.

What music you choose will make or break your video. Pick the type of music that you want to show what personality you have. Soft music will imply a laid back photographer, etc. Try Triple Scoop Music for free music!

Hire Someone.

Shooting a promotional video is not as elaborate as shooting a commercial, so the cost is not as bad. If you don't have anyone to shoot your video, call around to different videographers to find out prices. Otherwise, here are some tutorials on video editing.

Live or Slide Show?

If you can't afford a videographer, or you are just too shy to shoot a video, you can still put together a promotional montage just using photos of you during a shoot, or photos of you at your favorite spot. You can set it to music and adding words or sentences describing your personality. Or, add your voice to it, talking about your likes and dislikes in a fun way.You can even use Windows Movie Maker on your computer to put it all together.

Do I have you excited yet?

Go ahead now, make that video!

Your first meeting

I was pleased to find out that I do my meetings with my wedding clients the proper way without even knowing it!

Do you know who Gary Fong is? He is a retired photographer turned millionaire inventor. I love this guy's products-and his advice on weddings. I had gotten away from reading his blog for awhile because I was just too busy, but one day I had some free time, so I hopped on it.

He just happened to post a video about where to seat a couple and what kind of table, etc. Things that you may not think about but has a big influence on their opinion of you as a photographer.

(For some reason, blogger isn't letting me embed the video, so Click here)

And this one too.

I always have two or three books on hand for the couple to look through. Shouldn't this be a given? I would hate to have to share a book with my husband-he's sooo slow at looking at things. lol.

I also use our kitchen table for meetings. I make sure they are as comfortable as possible. I have a whole other post on marketing your clients in your home soon to come.

These techniques can be used for any type of session meeting, not just for weddings. Isn't it funny that the littlest things can make such a big difference? What do you do during your first meetings?