Setting up your own photography business is a full-time job, if not more. It’s a great gig, but running this or any other kind of business will instantly make you the wearer of many hats. As with any other type of business, with photography one requires booking more clients to grow and give you more profits.
In this article, I’m going to share a few tips on how to book more clients, along with useful tools to implement these marketing tricks. Running a photography business is an expensive thing in and of itself (I’m not even talking about photography equipment), so almost all the tools listed here are free.
Tools for Your Photography Business
1. Impress & Overdeliver
It’s always a problem to share finished photos with clients after a photo session. There is no need to meet with each client and give them a flash drive with photos or send them via email. You can create a custom photo gallery with photos, and share a link to it with a client.
Defrozo gives you the opportunity to do this. Defrozo is a free tool for creating a photography website. The feature “Website for Clients” allows you to create a gallery with post-processed images and share it with clients. They can also share a link to this gallery with their friends and give a boost your business. It’s like a custom photo album made online.
Also, there is a way to impress your clients even more. Imagine this situation: You shoot a wedding, and, during the day, you deliver a few of the best, printed photos to your clients. It’s possible with the Print n Share app that is available for iOs and Android. Using this app, you can print photos through WiFi, USB and Bluetooth printers or your own computer, right from the smartphone.
2. Organize Your Social Media Activity
Social media is one of the best ways to start your photography brand marketing campaign. Make people know about you with various social networks, like Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Flickr, 500px, and more. But while setting up a photography business, you’ll likely not have time for it. Therefore, use scheduling apps to help you to maintain all these social media shares.
Also, try to stay active online (thank God all social networks are available on smartphone these days!). Answer all the comments and messages you have to show people that you’re an open and social person. For instance, even Jeremy Cowart, who has millions of followers through various networks, spends a lot of time communicating with people and answering comments on his blog.
Buffer is one of the leading tools for scheduling your Facebook and Twitter posts. It’s totally free. Moreover, Buffer allows you to monitor your analytics with ease. Social media activity will get more world-of-mouth for your brand and help bring in more clients.
There is one more tool useful for Twitter communication: It’s Hootsuite. This service allows you to follow all the mentions of your nickname and get the most of online correspondence. With Hootsuite, no notifications will elude you.
3. Make In-Person Meetings Delightful
Meeting clients before a photo session is one of the most challenging tasks, as you work on your first impression and your future profits depends on it. So, take care of your meeting room, and don’t forget about how it smells. A good smell, like a vanilla air freshener, would impress people who come to you the first time.
When it come to the meeting room design, you can use Houzz for inspiration. This website has all types of rooms and locations to get new ideas from. Moreover, on their website, you’ll find a directory of local designers and architects who could help you. Houzz is also available for iOS and Android.
4. Tell a Story
People love stories, especially video stories. A promo video is just like a TV ad that can create a buzz around your photography brand and reach your target audience. It could be a “behind the scenes” video to show potential clients how you work, or it could be a custom-made story of your life. It’s all up to you.
Use Magisto, a free mobile app for creating short videos. All you need to do is upload a few videos and photos on their site, add some cool song you like, and choose a theme. Magisto will pick up the best moments from the video, mix it with images and create an awesome video clip.
5. Convey Your Brand With a Logo
In the competitive field of photography, you should put extra effort to add some personal touches into branding. Photography branding includes a lot of things like a website portfolio, logo, business card design, and a lot of other stuff. Start establishing your business with logo and business card designs to make a great first impression.
You can create a logo even without graphic design skills. DesignMantic is a perfect tool for creating your logo and business card online. Enter your company name to get started, choose the industry, choose custom colors and fonts, all of which you can do as many times as you wish for no charge, then when you have the design you love, you will have to pay $29 to download it – a very small price to pay for a great logo.
Join the Conversation
I hope these quick tips and tools will help you to give a boost to your photography business and get word-of-mouth for your brand. If you have something to say, don’t be shy to use the comment field below. Social sharing is welcome!
