Episode 73: What Kind of Marketing Should You Be Doing to Get Photography Clients?
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I bet you could ask every business owner what their biggest challenge is and they would say they need more customers.
If that’s you, I am going to tackle this head on today and what I will say is going to surprise you.
My view of photography marketing came from the years I spent before I opened my photography business.
I was a marketing director at an advertising agency and my whole job was to get customers for my clients.
If we didn’t accomplish that, we got fired.
If you’re beating yourself up because marketing is a struggle, please know that marketing is such a hard concept to learn, especially in a school setting or in a business book.
I feel like that is what really makes what you learn from us at the Photography Business Institute so different and why it works so much better.
Most people teaching marketing to photographers just tried some things that happened to work for them and now they’re going to sell you how to do it.
Their ideas aren’t based on concrete strategies that have been tested over decades and tactics that can be consistently replicated.
Fix Your Photography Marketing By Serving Clients Well
The first thing that must be done to make sure that your photography marketing works is to fix the leaky boat.
If you want your marketing to attract the right clients into your boat, you first have to have a business set up to serve them, and that is not digital files.
It isn’t a viable business model that can make you money and continue to give you the life you’ve been wanting.
The way to get a boat that will keep floating and keep adding more people is by offering and selling beautiful products for them to have as heirlooms.
You have to have prices that are profitable so you can get your life back.
Then you must change one more thing before you start marketing.
Photography Marketing Isn’t What You Think It Is
You must know how to educate prospects and get them to book you without being the cheapest.
You have to cover seven specific things on the first phone call, and the most important of those is price.
Once you do that, then you can add clients into your business the right way.
Marketing is not what you think it is.
Marketing’s job is to make the phone ring and selling’s job is to book the clients.
So if you’re looking at marketing as a way to get someone to go on your website and book a session, you’ve got it all wrong.
6 Things You Need to Keep Clients Coming In
For your boutique photography business, if you want to keep a steady stream of clients who love you and refer clients to you, you have to play a long term game.
You have to be priced properly, have the right products to sell, learn how to talk to people, get involved in your community, become a leader in your market, and create relationships that benefit others.
If you’re looking for a different or easier way, there isn’t one unless you want to be in the price race to the bottom.
There’s not one exact specific marketing tactic that works for everyone.
My advice is to come and join us to first fix the things that are keeping your marketing from working and then learn marketing the right way once and for all.
Get Your Business’ Foundation Set Firm
While photographers all over the world were going out of business last year in the pandemic, photographers who attended Go Boutique Live, my LIVE 3-Day event for photographers, made $2.9 million.
I know you’re a creative.
You’re heart centered and you want to put your amazing artwork and passion into the world.
But if you don’t have a solid business foundation and know how to keep a steady stream of clients coming to your door, you’re not going to be able to stay in business.
If you want to have a business that makes money and lets you put your life back, don’t you think that’s worth learning?
I hope today has opened your eyes to the fact that photography marketing is a long term mindset that you have to have as a photographer.
It isn’t hard to do, but it is hard to learn, especially if you haven’t had the right coach teaching you.
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