Today we want to share the top 3 strategies we would recommend for you to implement immediately when it comes to marketing your brand photography business.
Because (spoiler alert!) YOU are the dream photographer for so many clients who are out there looking for you.
And since you know that they’re out there looking, it’s time to refine your marketing strategy, attract your dream clients, and book them!
First, a little backstory…
HOW WE LANDED MULTIPLE MASSIVE BRANDING CLIENTS WITH THE SAME AGENCY
It could’ve been the handwritten ‘thank you’ note that we sent 📝…
…or, it could’ve been the songs that were bumping in the background during the shoot. 🎶
(There’s something to be said about when a playlist just hits, am I right?)
Maybe it was one, or both, of those things that got us labeled ‘their favorite photographer of the year’ when we worked with the marketing agency for household brand name, Snuggle.
I suppose that it also could have been the way we consistently showed back of camera peeks during the session, openly communicated about everything while we were shooting together, delivered sneak peeks the next day, and sent them the final gallery in half of the time that we promised that had them coming back for more, but we were doing something right.
That same marketing agency who booked us for Snuggle also represented the household brand name, Soft Scrub, and when they were in need for branding photos for a marketing campaign around Soft Scrub, they came back to us!
And do you know what drove their decision to hire us and work with us as their brand photographer? (We found out because Jon asked them.)
What they saw on social media and on our website.
They said that they liked what they saw from the photos we shared on Instagram, they liked what they heard from what we outlined on our website, and combined with how they said that ‘we looked like we were fun to work with’, we landed multiple massive branding sessions through this agency!
YOUR MARKETING SUPERPOWER
You need to understand that marketing weaves in and out of everything that you do and say.
Marketing happens through your actions and your words.
That alone is why your client experience is one of the most powerful tools you have for marketing your business.
And you want to know the best news about that?
Your client experience is one thing that can’t be copied, replicated, or done by anyone else no matter how hard someone might try.
No one else is you.
Elementary?
Yeah, maybe.
Your marketing superpower?
100%
If your marketing strategy is to lean into the social trends that everyone else is doing, then you’re not marketing through your superpower.
If your marketing strategy is to look like, sound like, and be like everyone else you follow in the industry, then you’re missing out on your most powerful marketing superpower.
Your client experience
Your wording
Your ideas
Your creative mind
Your unique flair
That’s how you market effectively while creating and establishing the main thing you need in order to be a successful marketer – TRUST.
HOW TO MARKET WELL & BOOK YOUR DREAM CLIENTS
So, here’s 3 things you can do to market well and book your dream clients:
1. Give Your Client Experience All You Got!
Start with just being a kind person and you’ll already be leaps and bounds ahead of others. I’m serious. More times than not we’ve found that people just need someone to see them as the person they are, hear them for their desires, needs, goals, and dreams that they have, and to feel appreciated. If you can do that, then you’ll already be crushing the marketing game.
- Appreciate your clients: welcome letters, handwritten thank-you notes, maybe a little client gift
- Don’t leave clients hanging: clearly communicate every step of the way
- Build their confidence and cement your trust: show back of camera peeks during their session; it’s that easy!
- Always have fun: turn on some upbeat tunes in the background and watch how much your clients relax, settle in, and ease into the fun that photoshoots should be
- Deepen your trust: follow through on every commitment you make; even better, over deliver on commitments you make
- Add the flair that only you can: only YOU knows what this is because it’s unique to you and it’s the thing(s) that will set you apart from the rest
2. Leverage Your Network
Fun fact: we got the Chicago White Sox as a client all because we had another photographer friend who we brought on the journey with us when we pivoted from wedding photography into brand photography. When her friend (who works for the White Sox organization) asked her if she knew anyone who could do a photoshoot for them during spring training – she sent him to us because we had told her all about what we were doing in our photography business and based on that, she knew that we would be able to serve them well.
Don’t keep it all to yourself!
You have people around you who care about you and want to support you, but you gotta let them know how they can do that.
Here’s an easy way of doing this:
- Draft up a message in the notes section of your phone
- Communicate what you’re doing in your brand photography business
- Briefly explain how you go about serving businesses and brands
- Ask to be considered as a trusted referral for any business owner or person who makes the marketing decisions for a business
- Send it to your closest community of friends and family who want to see you succeed
3. Social Media
Here’s the thing – if you show up representing yourself and your business like everyone else does on social media, then you’ll blend in and get lost. And not like a ‘Where’s Waldo?’ kinda lost. Like a ‘no one will be able to find you’ kind of lost.
If you try to reach the masses, you’ll reach no one.
What was it that they said in elementary school?… Dare to be different…?
Pull that one liner out of your picture covered binder and Jansport backpack, and put it into practice.
Do what no one else is doing.
We’re brand photographers and brand photography educators but behind closed doors, I LOVE to scare Jon.
So I’ve let people get a peek behind those doors and guess what?
Marketing agencies, like the one for Soft Scrub and Snuggle, said that we looked like fun people to work with, and they booked us for two massive branding sessions.
Be you and show your personality online.
That’s when you become relatable to others, you attract or repel (either of which should be happening if you’re marketing well), and land the dream clients that you’re meant to work with.
CONCLUSION
Those are the top 3 strategies we would recommend for you to implement immediately when it comes to marketing your brand photography business.
YOU are the dream photographer for so many clients who are out there looking for you.
And since you know that they’re out there looking, it’s time to refine your marketing strategy, attract your dream clients, and book them!
Now, get out there and go get ‘em!
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