Growing my Wedding Photography Business

Dear All,

 

In the first year of wedding photography, I did 5 weddings advertising in

Yellow Pages. In my second 10 and third 20. If this continues next year I

should be upto 40 and doing this full time and dropping my part-time teaching

job. However, I'd like to know your opinions of how best to expand the

business. Do I advertise again in Yellow Pages, rely on word of mouth and my

much improved portfolio. Or attack the situation aggressively...get off my arse

and take flyers round, advertise in every newsagent within 20 miles. Indeed my

last booking was from someone who saw my card in a chinese take away! I'd love

to know your tips for expanding my business!

If an ad venue works for you then consider exploiting that venue more. Advertise in other regional phone books as well. I don't think flyers will net that much for you because its more of a scatter gun approach and not tailored to the BG market. Word of mouth is good but slow. Seek to develop relationships w/ wedding venues, such as hotels, bridal/tux shops, florists, limos operators... and as Marc Williams suggests wedding planners too.

 

I'd open up the 20 mile radius, maybe to 60 miles or more, if you have a website where BG can review your work.

 

Develop a reasonable plan of attack. Pick your targets carefully, intelligently, and one that will increase and improve on the perceptive quality of your business.

 

DO GOOD WORK!

 

Best - Paul

Give this a consideration. If I read your post right you have done about 40 weddings and expect to do that many next year My suggestion would be that you go back and analyze which weddings were the most profitable, and how you booked those and then pursue that avenue of advertising as your first step.

 

Second is exposure. Evaluate who is involved in the weddings you do. Are there specific venues that you shoot often or DJ that appear frequently? IF so consider targeting those people/organizations for strategic partnerships.

Word of Mouth! Read the book "Creating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Customers

Become a Volunteer Sales Force" by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba. It's an amazing book

that really shows you how other companies have grown their businesses by focusing on

the clients they already have and getting them to promote the company.

 

My entire photography business (100%) has been Word of Mouth and it's been amazing.

The clients are better and are more willing to pay a higher price because they already have

a trust in me and my work.

 

JT

How's the Ipod slideshow thing going?

 

PS- I apologize for sidetracking this thread.

There was a very successful photographer here who retired a couple of years ago. One of her best tips was to send one or two 6x4 prints to every professional who supplied anything for the wedding. She always stamped them on the front with her name and they were always excellent prints. So when the limo company or gown maker or cake maker or florist or whatever wanted a photo to use in an ad they used hers because it was easy. She looked like she was everywhere and other people's advertising also advertised her. Very smart!

Dave,

 

I don't know if someone has said it but....go where the girls are...the hair salons are a great place...ask if you can display some of you work...even take some shots of them...for free. then put them up.

 

Customers like to see photos of the people in the salon...and it's one of the places that brides, brides to be, moms and seniors girls have in common.

 

Dave

Never quit you day job, especially if you get benefits. Doing so many weddings is nice, but you will burn out. I shot 24 avg a year and worked for 28 years full time. Semi-retired at 48. Now I shoot around 11 or 12 a year. There will always be competition and someone undercutting your prices. It was nice to get a guarenteed packcheck with benefits, every week.

Hi.

 

Great advice on marketing your wedding photo business. I'm just starting on the wedding

end of it and will use the advice given here. (And I will keep my day job :) )

 

I need some advice from you on the forum. I've shot two weddings. The first was free due

to the fact it was my first. The second was also free because it was a coworker who I

thought could not afford much. (I later found out he was able to rent a beach cabin for a

weeklong honeymoon.) No hard feelings, though.

 

Enough rambling. I've been tryiing to get more shooting gigs now for twp months.

However, no real bites. I'm not sure if it's my rates (too low or too high) or my marketing.

I'm getting weary of friends of mine who don't know how to turn on a camera getting paid

to shoot weddings on a fairly constant basis.

 

Then again, maybe I'm a crummy wedding photographer.

 

I'd like your advice on my:

 

My photos

My Rates

Website design, etc.

Anything else you want to throw at me.

 

I'm thick-skinned and willing to learn. Please let me know what you think.

 

Thanks

Marc S

Forgot the web address: www.inframepictures.com

Marc,

 

I will see if I can help you a little. Your site looks like a template that was purchased pre-designed, which is no problem really. This may work better for you because it makes the work flow easier. I however recommend learning as much as you can about website design if you are interested at all, so that you can design and build your own site. If this isn't a good solution for you, I can recommend more solutions.

I own an internet marketing firm called Simple Tiger. I am not trying to sell you my services by any means, because you can do it your self with a little studying. I manage marketing campaigns for large corporations all the way down to small businesses and my own. One of the best marketing systems now available is Pay Per Click advertising and SEO. Go to https://adwords.google.com and create an account. The account costs $5 to set up, then after that you set up a budget of how much man you can afford to spend per day/week/month and set an advertising duration like "2 weeks" and choose your keywords like "Atlanta Wedding Photography". The ads run on Google and the Google Ad Network and the amount of coverage and traffic you get is absolutely ridiculous. Of course as with any advertising method, the more you can afford the better it will work.

The best and most enticing part is that you only pay when it works. If an ad is up, and no one clicks on it, you don't pay a penny. You have to set how much you want to spend per click your ad receives, and the ad sends the 'clicker' to your website. Try to make a good landing page on your website that will convert the prospect into a sale like: "10 free prints with the purchase of a 2nd class wedding package!" or something you like.

SEO is very intense and time consuming though, and I recommend visiting my marketing firm site to read more about it: www.simpletiger.com.

I hope this helps all of you, as I know these forms of advertising are simply amazing when it comes to ROI. Let me know what you think, and feel free to ask me any questions. I do professional consulting at around $100/hour, but I love the photography community, and I would love to help you guys out some.

 

Thank you!

 

Jeremiah Smith

770-361-2656

the issue with net advertising is that alot of people don't go there for every type of purchase. In photog, chances are you would do better with the phone book in the areas you can provide service, saving yourself money and time. For some things the net is great -such hotels, air lines, rentals- the net is also great for commodities such as books, retail type stuff.

 

Wedding photog is a personal service type business, where people want to go face to face before investing potentially thousands of dollars. Other personal service type businesses are lawyers, doctors, pyschologists. I would not hire any of the mentioned off the internet because you migh get a quack.

 

It would be wise to have some kind of net presence if only to refer customers to your work.

<p>Can anyone tell me if theres a way to make a professional looking website without paying an arm and a leg. Is there a way to make a professional website for free?</p>