Five Strategies to Market Your Photography Business That Don’t Include Social Media
Is social media a powerful marketing strategy for photographers? Yes.
Is it the only one? Not by a landslide.
Social media is only one of many marketing strategies you can employ to reach a broader audience and grow your business.
Social media is time-consuming, addictive, and, let’s be real, it will probably suck your life force out over time. So, it’s essential to employ additional marketing strategies for the weeks you need a break from it. In this article, I’ll discuss five of the eight marketing strategies we teach in Lancaster Photography School’s Kickstart Your Photography Business course on a surface level.
Networking
If there are industry vendor events or meetups near you, go! The key to a full schedule year-round is a network of other photographers. No one photographer can shoot all the sessions. So, if you have a network of successful people, you can help fill each other’s schedules by referring back and forth to each other. Community over competition is truly a beautiful thing.
The key is to find others with the same lighting goals and editing style as you so you can confidently refer people to a photographer with a similar style. In other words, the person you may have considered your most significant competitor in the past could become your strongest ally. Plus, having someone to talk photography gear and business with is terrific!
Collaboration
Hosting collaborative giveaways or styled shoots is a fantastic way to demonstrate demand and become well-known in the industry. Plus, it can scratch your creative itches. People in the industry, such as makeup artists, hair stylists, florists, and wedding rental companies, are often asked about photographers, so being well-known by them is a great marketing strategy. People are much more willing to give glowing recommendations for someone they have met in person than for someone they only know from the pretty pictures they post on social media.
Find vendors whose work you love and ask them if they have a vision for a styled shoot you can help bring to life. If they say yes, you can use your shared networks to get the rest of the details and vendors together.
Then, once they have received and loved your photos, offer family sessions to solidify the bond.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is a marketing strategy to either get your clients back in front of your camera for another shoot or to buy products from your gallery shop. People are busy, so they often forget it’s been a while since they’ve updated their photos or that they should shop their gallery to buy something as a holiday gift. Email marketing can help remind them without emailing each client separately or hoping they will see your social media posts. People are much more likely to take action on something they were offered in an email than something in a social media post. It’s much more intimate and personal.
Step 1: Choose an ESP
First, you’ll need to sign up for an email service provider (ESP). Many have free options up to a certain number of email subscribers. Our course Kickstart Your Photography Business gives our students our time-tested opinion on which ESPs are best to start with.
Step 2: Get Subscribers
Then, you’ll need to get your clients on your email list. You can add a link to sign up in their gallery delivery email, letting them know that only those on the list get notified about future discounts and session opportunities. You can add a signup form to your website. We explain how this works in the course. Lastly, you can ask past clients if you may add them to your new list to ensure they get notified of your special discounts and offerings. Do NOT add people to your email list without asking first. This could get you into some trouble. Information on how you will use their email should also be outlined in your website terms and conditions. Again, all information we’ll take you through step-by-step in the Kickstart Your Photography Business course.
Step 3: Send Emails
Once you have people on your list, you will email them about product sales, busy season schedule-by dates, to fill a last-minute session cancellation, and links to informational blog posts or your newsletter if you write one.
SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) involves being strategic about what you put online so that when people search for a photographer, your business comes up at the top of the search results. This way, your business is marketing itself even while you sleep.
SEO is a dynamic strategy that can be difficult to understand for some. This is why we break it down into simple terms and the essential actions in the Kickstart Your Photography Business course. As a bonus when you enroll, we offer a mini course by an SEO expert that goes much deeper. The course helps photographers understand both free tools they can use and paid-for tools they can utilize to go further. SEO is a must if you don’t post on social media regularly.
This mini-course is available to the public for the first time as a stand-alone course. Get it today and start putting SEO to work for you!
Generosity and Service Donation
Generosity and service donation can be a powerful marketing strategy but should be used strategically. It’s not for every person who asks for a free or discounted session from you.
Generosity
If you think someone could represent your brand well but can’t afford your rates, it might be better to do it for free as a gift while you are kickstarting your business—or anytime afterward. Your photography skills are your gift to give as you see fit. No one needs to know you did it for free, either. This is your startup marketing budget, and you are paying with your time and use of your expensive gear.
Service Donation
You can also donate your services to a cause that you support. This builds trust with your audience. It warms their hearts and will make you more valuable because they will see you as a good person involved in the community. Just keep in mind that if you donate to a cause that your ideal client does not support, this could backfire. Also, remember to use the donation as a tax write-off. Every little bit helps when you are running a small business!
I hope this short article fills you with hope that the social media death march isn’t the only way. If you aren’t employing at least three of these alternate strategies, your business probably isn’t taking off like you would like it to, and it’s time to get to work! In our signature course, Kickstart Your Photography Business, we’ll outline and go deep on these, along with three other strategies you may not have considered. When you enroll, you’ll also gain access to our private community and get SEO for Photographers, along with our Studio Lighting mini-course as a bonus.
I’ll see ya on the inside!
Megan Hoffer
Founder & CEO, Lancaster Photography School