Whatever your business, it’s important to ensure your online presence is as complete as it possibly can be. In a world where the majority of consumers and buyers navigate their way through different industries online, you’re likely to be giving yourself a massive advantage if you spend some time and effort into building your web-based presence. In the world of digital and wedding photography, with everyone being able to take images and share them in innumerable ways, it can really make a difference to the bottom line of your business to set some time aside to develop the ways you can be found online. In this article, we’ll delve into the world of wedding photography, and look at how you might be able to increase your presence and open up the possibility of more shoots to a wider range of people. To help find your way through this post, we’ve created five different sections based on some of the most important aspects of attracting business as a wedding photographer.
Personality
Create a Human Personality, Not an Online One
Personalities and people create the Internet – in recent years it has become even more apparent in small business marketing that an honest and real personality online attracts the right kind of people to your site. Especially when it comes to your marketing as a wedding photographer – couples getting married are going to want to know, trust and understand who you are and how you operate. Involve yourself socially with the people you want to market to and allow them to get to know you, write your copy in a friendly and welcoming way and allow the design of your site to flow and be as simple as possible.
Be Helpful, Personable and Friendly Online
On Twitter it pays to be friendly and helpful, even if conversations aren’t necessarily directed at you. Don’t jump in to unnecessary conversations on social media in which you’re not invited and you don’t belong, but praise people on their work, offer suggestions where appropriate and be warm and welcoming. It’ll pay off if you genuinely help people – enquiries are much more likely to flood in.
Photography Platforms – Share your Personal Images
It’s surprising how many people don’t shout about what they do best or take the time to showcase some of their best images. With client’s consent, of course share your best wedding images in your portfolio, but also share images of your day-to-day routine and allow prospective customers into your life a little. Whether it is through WordPress, Blogger or Instagram, sharing thoughtful and relevant updates through photography is a great way of showcasing your talent and leaving it up to the viewer as to how they’d like to consume it.
Keep Engaging Content Fresh – Start a Personal Blog
A blog is a great way of engaging with a prospective audience or prospective customers. Creating high value, engaging and targeted blog posts on your site can attract people to your site as well as provide authority and expertise for people who are already aware of your photography. Well-written blog posts are not only interesting but they can add a personal touch to your wedding photography business. Interesting stories about weddings, other events you’ve attended, personal anecdotes – all these help to create a genuine, believable and involved personality behind your brand. Well-targeted and researched blog posts can also drive traffic to your site by matching user intent to a good selection of keywords. We’ll discuss more about this later in the article.
Appearance and Design
Get a Designer Involved
You may be wonderful behind the camera and a complete pro at Photoshop and Lightroom, but if you don’t have a graphic designer’s eye, it really makes sense to employ a proper designer early on in the process. People naturally share and are attracted to things that look great and just ‘fit’ – trying to piece together your own logo or typeface if you don’t really know what you’re doing just won’t cut it.
Don’t be Afraid to Stylise your Offering
What is it about the photography that you produce that makes you stand out? Weddings come in all shapes and sizes, and it’s important that your wedding photography does too. Many people who offer wedding photography need to go the extra mile to distinguish their work and their creative take on the subject. Most people or couples like to be photographed in different ways and it’s your eventual style and creative ideas that will stand out – the quality of your work will shine through and it must be borne in mind that it’s worth putting aside time to honing your craft.
Social Media
Use Social Media Intelligently and Accurately
You will need to develop a social media presence as one of the primary ways of commuting online and generating a web based personality. As a photographer, social media, especially Facebook and Pinterest, is a great way to showcase your best images to the world. It must however be used with a strategy behind it – people will soon yet bored so you need a plan in place and an idea of what you’d like your social media campaign to achieve.
Encourage your Subjects at Weddings to Share Your Images Online
It’s all very well sharing your images on your own Facebook and website, but the most authentic marketing occurs when other people share the images on your behalf. After you’ve sent the wedding couple your images, encourage them to share and put the message out there.
Keep Images, Blog Ideas & Creative Ideas Ready for the Off-Season
Although winter weddings are most definitely rising in popularity, there will still be a predominance of weddings and parties during the summer. A quiet spell can easily develop and you will find yourself with less content and photography to upload to your site. Ensure you keep images and creative ideas to one side for the less busy periods – ensuring you are still interacting with your audience and keeping your content fresh online. Many wedding photographers will have side projects and other journal-type content that can be uploaded when weddings aren’t as frequent.
Create Best of Posts and Reach Out to Others
Maybe there’s something specific you want to shout about that’s happened in the past year, or maybe there have been some excellent business developments that you think will make a difference to future customers. End of year best of posts can help summarise a collection of your photos, mention and thank people you’ve worked with and set out some business or creative ideas for the coming year. It’s also a great idea to reach out and mention others in posts such as this, building your online presence and chances of being mentioned on social media.
Networking
Attend Weddings Fairs, Shows and Events
Another way of building your online presence is to blog and tweet live from weddings fairs and events. Often these occasions will be well marketed and will have Wi-Fi and other forms of connectivity – employing active hash tags to generate conversation and buzz. If you strike up conversation with people or companies at these events it pays to send a tweet afterwards as a way of retaining contact and starting to build a relationship.
Business Cards
The age of the business card is not yet dead. If you run a photo booth, or a designated area for photos at weddings, hand out business cards with your website and social media handles on them. It’s likely that some people at the wedding will also be thinking about getting married and in need of a photographer. For more inspiration – visit PixelCurse and the 50 Best Photography Business Card Examples
Give Referral Bonuses
An online presence can be developed through more conventional word of mouth marketing – helping build your business by offering bonuses and incentives for people who recommend you to their friends. Many people like to offer free print, framing or developing credits – lots of friends of wedding couples are similar ages and are often looking to get married in the near future.
Shout About What You’re Good At
Modern marketing is varied, tactile and often based on celebrating your best attributes and skills. Take the time to realise your best attributes as a business and brand, and also creatively as a photographer. When you’re compiling your marketing strategy ensure you take time out to not only talk about what you provide as a wedding photographer but also what you stand for and why your personality makes you different to your competitors.
Other Marketing
Local Marketing
In both the real world and the search results, local marketing is on the rise and is likely to have an impact further afield around the country. If you’re located somewhere with character, or somewhere well known for specific events or occasions, be part of them online, get involved and show your face. The one caveat with this is some brands and businesses do whatever they can to be involved in events no matter what – occasionally to the detriment of their image or the people involved. Local marketing needs to be subtle and with a specific target market in mind.
Email Lists
If you start adding people to email lists you are beginning to grow an extended network of people you can not only market to but also start a relationship with. Take down emails at any opportunity and consider the virtues of investing in some email marketing to these people (you never know who the people you meet at wedding fairs and trade events might be!).
Get Featured in a Wedding Blog or Magazine
Wedding blogs such as Rock my Wedding, and magazines like Wed Magazine offer guest features on people or businesses involved in the industry. They’ll feature some examples of the kind of work you do, where you’re based and who you are. Their websites and blogs are also frequently visited by those getting married – getting yourself features or even in one of their directories will go a long way to ensuring your online presence is as complete as it can be.
Dedicate Some Time to Online Presence
As a business devoted to booking weddings to photograph, it’s completely correct and understandable that you’ll want to dedicate your resources towards delivering results to the best of your business’ ability. However, when the dust has settled, it is prudent to actively make and spend a bit of time building your online presence. In order to improve your online presence in the wedding industry some dedicated marketing work will go a long way – set some time aside each week.
Branch Out into Video
Even if you don’t want to create wedding videos of the couple, it can be a good idea to create a personal video to show your face, communicate your style and let people know a little bit more about the way you work. It’s a friendly and approachable way for your potential customers to learn about who you are before they decide who to hire
Invest in SEO and Digital Marketing
One of the key things to consider when you’re looking at building your online presence as a wedding photographer is getting ahead of the competition. With the amount of people offering wedding photography as a service, and the availability of a number of online platforms to share this work, it may be wise for your business to invest in SEO to keep ahead of the competition. Compared to many forms of conventional advertising, SEO is regarded as a good investment especially when used as part of a joined up digital marketing strategy. With so many people looking for the services they require for weddings online, it makes sense to appear as high up the search rankings as possible. Combined with a personal tone and approach and a targeted and efficient social media campaign you are likely to see a huge return on your SEO investment and a marked difference to the bottom line of your business.
Spread the Word via PPC
There are many opportunities available in PPC advertising that will dramatically increase your exposure online. A display campaign showing some of your best images is a good bet – and target relevant websites within your industry to raise brand awareness. Remarketing is also a good idea, as people who have already been to your site will be shown your best imagery and photography again as they travel through the web. It’s great for reminding them of your service and work in the industry. As well as offering a digital marketing service, we can also provide comprehensive PPC services for your wedding photography business.
We have experience working within the events sector and believe that the wedding industry and SEO is a great match.You can find out a little bit more about why we think this is the case in this article written on our blog.
If you would like to find out more about the world of Search Engine Marketing, or think that our services here at Digirank might be a good fit for your business, do get in touch. T: 0117 923 9276 E: [email protected] We are social creatures – we’d also love to hear from you on Facebook or Twitter!
