You’ve got your camera and a dream, and now you’re ready for the clients. It’s time to get the word out about your new photography business with some advertising. Well, you’ve come to the right place. I’m here to help you advertise a photo business especially when you don’t have any potential clients yet. Not only have I done this before (built a photography business from zero clients to full time) but I have helped hundreds of photographers to the same.
In this post, you’ll get many ideas and strategies for ways to advertise your business, so keep in mind these are things you will build over time and probably wont implement all at once.
First things first, let’s make sure your photography business has everything in place to serve your clients well. Be sure to check out THIS VIDEO for a step-by-step guide to setting up your photography business. It covers things like naming your business, deciding on your services, and establishing your ideal target audience.
Getting Visibility Through Content + Social Media
I’m about to share with you the simplest and easiest method of planning your content: Start with a blank calendar of the month ahead. You can print these out online or grab a desk calendar from the Dollar Store or Target. Here are the steps:
- Pick the social media platforms you plan to post on (Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Etc.)
- Decide when you’re going to post (the frequency)
- Think about the type of content you can create – will this be video, still images, or a combination?
At a minimum, I encourage you to start with Instagram since it’s such a visual platform and odds are your ideal client uses this platform. If your clients are a bit older (not teens especially), Facebook is another great one!
You can even use a calendar per platform. If you plan to blog, and use Instagram, have 2 calendars to plan the content out. This will help you keep everything clear in your advertising plan!
How to use social media to advertise your photography business
Have a primary Social Media Platform and devote 80% of your focus to that platform with your content.
Consistency is key for getting results in advertising! If you know you can realistically only show up 1-2 times per week, write that down. It’s better to consistently show up 2 times, with quality content, than to show up every day for 2 weeks and then burn out and stop posting at all.
Still curious or unclear about WHO your ideal client is?
Before you can effectively advertise your photography business, you need to know who exactly you want to reach. If you’re thinking “anyone who wants to pay me” you need to be more specific than that. Your marketing becomes so much clearer when you’ve established the types of people who would be perfect for your style and type of photography.
In order to get to know them better, it is really helpful (and essential) to do market research. One of my favorite ways to do this is to look at the posts and comments under a hashtag I *think* my ideal client might be using or searching on.
Examples: #yourlocationphotographer #yourstyleandlocationphotographer and so on
Are there any Facebook groups or pages you can find your ideal clients on? What kinds of topics do they talk about? What do they seem to care about?
I know many marketing experts tell you to think of a single person but I find it to be helpful to think of my ideal client as a small group instead of a single person, since that can feel really limiting. My clients and customers will vary of course and yours will too. But they likely have some things in common.
The things they have in common can help you to clarify your marketing and your brand. For me, I prioritized those things in my images and messaging to make sure that people who came across my work would see that I spoke right to them.
Set Up Your Google Business Profile
You’ve likely already got a website – if not, you need one! The next thing you’ll want to do is set up your Google Business Profile so you are much easier to find your photography business online and in search! This profile allows you to share details about your photography business, link to your website, share what kind of photography you offer, and gather reviews. It also helps with local SEO (search engine optimization).
I have a whole post on how to do that here.
Leverage Email Marketing in Your Advertising Plan
Email Marketing is such a powerful way to get more clients and stay connected with potential future clients. The coolest part of email marketing is that the list of subscribers you build is actually YOURS (unlike social media). Which means you are not limited by any algorithms.
We know through research that people check their emails multiple times per day and very rarely change their email address – which is great for you as an advertiser! If you are looking to start email marketing I recommend looking into Flodesk.
How do you get them subscribed? and what do you send?
This video explains some strategies for leveraging e-mail marketing and exactly how you can get them to join your email list!
Create A Referral-Worthy Client Experience
An often missed area of advertising a photography business is client experience. Photographers can become so focused on getting the next client that they fail to create an exceptional experience. From inquiry, to booking and delivery, your experience has the potential to WOW them or disappoint them.
Way’s to improve your client experience:
- Use a CRM like Honeybook – this will allow you to create templates, have a system for booking and communicating with your clients, and also get paid easily. As your business grows, you’ll be so glad you organized it with a tool like Honeybook.
- Be EASY to work with. Ask yourself: is the process of inquiry and paying you easy?
- Create resources for your clients. Style guides telling them what to wear, or location guides can be really helpful.
- Over-deliver. Create ways to surprise and delight your clients by going above and beyond. Come under your expected file delivery date. Give them more than they thought they would get!
Attend this free class on 3 Secrets to a Client Experience That Will Keep you Booked Solid!
Use Insights and Data to Refine Your Advertising Plan
Be sure to keep track of the insights you get from the content you create. This is why I love the calendar system. It makes it easy to reflect on what you have done to get the word out and share your work. If you use a digital planning system like Trello or Notion that is great too. Review what you have done over the past few weeks or months to promote your business including where you have posted, what platforms you have seen traction on, and take note of the wins you’ve had.
Instagram provides insights on your content to make it easy for you to see what content has resonated the most. I like to check this out in addition to looking at my website analytics, and number of leads.
Starting from zero or near zero is not easy – so celebrating and tracking your growth, your reach, and your wins from all your marketing efforts is essential.
Remember that your client experience is connected to your marketing. If you want to watch a quick free class all about this and learn 3 strategies you can watch that class HERE.
