Tips for Marketing Your Photography Business Inexpensively

For many photographers, getting clients is a major challenge. Many have the technical skill, but lack marketing and business skills. Others don’t have the money to spend on conventional methods of promoting their business. However, there are many ways you can market your business without having to spend much.

The following are some strategies you can use to promote your photography business inexpensively. Some of these strategies can be applied immediately, while others might need more time to implement.

1. Networking

Networking is an ideal strategy for creating awareness about your business and connecting with other related businesses. This could eventually result in referral business or even partnerships. Before networking, you need to decide what exactly you would like to achieve. Once this is settled, look for places where you can network such as online forums, communities or social media channels. Share with people your knowledge and be ready to help them when necessary. When people start trusting you, they will be willing to do business with you.

2. Cross marketing

Cross marketing is where you help market another business, while they in return market your business. For instance, you could approach a restaurant and offer to take photos for their website. In return, you could ask them to promote you by displaying your work on their walls. Cross marketing will require you to think of creative ways of reaching your audience. However, there is need for patience since not everyone will be receptive of your ideas.

3. Blogging

A blog is a very effective way for informing your customers what you offer and who you are. You can use a blog to share some details about your personal life, showcase products, express creative ideas, share images and educate customers. A blog is dynamic and enables you to stay in touch with people, as opposed to a site which is static.      

4. SEO

Having a blog is not enough. You need to think of how to optimize it for search engines. One of the best ways of doing this is by including relevant keywords in images, tags and text. This will help users who are searching online to find you. For instance, you could write a few posts about various kinds of photography services to help prospective clients find you when looking for those particular services. When naming images, remember to use keywords. Instead of 34359.jpg, rename to ‘Utah Fashion Photography’. This way, users looking online for fashion photos in Utah will find you. Once you get a hang of it, you will find it very easy to incorporate SEO in your blogging activities.

5. Referral gifts

One of the best ways of getting referrals is through past clients. To encourage referrals, you could offer a gift. This could be a product or service that has customers would find valuable, but is relatively expensive. Therefore, don’t hesitate to ask all your satisfied customers for referrals.

6. Contests

This is another great strategy for generating excitement and interest in your business. Contests will encourage people to spread the word, and thus attract many potential clients. However, you need to ensure that the contest does not violate any terms of the medium you are using.

7. Get published

Getting published in reputable online and offline publications is one of the best ways of building credibility and trust. You can use your published work to promote yourself and your business to potential clients.

As you explore the suggestions above, you need to realize that success in marketing does not come overnight. It will take time to build your profile and get a reliable customer base.