5 Marketing Strategies for Wedding Photographers with Vanessa Joy
The time between Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day is huge for wedding photographers because so many people get engaged during this time. I often get asked during engagement season how to effectively market wedding photography services. When photographers ask this question, they are looking for me to give a quick and concise answer that will have clients beating down their doors. Sadly, such an answer doesn’t exist. Marketing Strategies are hard, and you have to cast a wide net to snag the number of clients that you want.
There are five tried and true methods of marketing a wedding photography business—or really, the business of any professional photographer. In this article, I’d like to answer that frequently asked question, although, by necessity, in much less succinct form than the askers may have hoped.
Use Social Media
Social media is free, and free marketing is great. Well, let me pause there for a second. Social media is potentially free. Many professionals, myself included, find it advantageous to pay someone to manage social media accounts. We do this because free very often means time-consuming. It certainly does when talking about social media.
But social media is a great place to find potential clients, and here’s why: The age group that is currently getting engaged and married is all over social media. For wedding photographers, the demographics and content line up perfectly for Instagram and Pinterest. Those are the top two on my list, but there are other options as well. Facebook’s audience skews older these days, so its users are likely already married—but their children aren’t. It could be a great place to target your marketing specifically to the parents of future brides and grooms. If trying to be on every site feels overwhelming, just pick one and make the most of it.
I used to have my social media manager post to my Instagram account every couple of days. Lately, I’ve been having them post every other day, with the off day being the time I post an Instagram reel. I post stories pretty much every day. Quality has to be there, but quantity helps when trying to get your work out to as many people as possible. When you want to make a strong marketing push, posting more often can go a long way.
I’ve got one more important tip for using social media before we move on: Whenever you work on a project with other professionals, tag them in any relevant posts. This does two things: First, it gets those people you enjoyed working with some well-deserved exposure of their own, and secondly, it increases the likelihood that they will share your posts with their followers. When that happens, both of you are benefiting from following each other and your message gets more views. Be sure to return the favor if they tag you.
