5 proven marketing strategies for bridal photography studios
Successful branding and marketing of a photography business can be quite challenging. Even if you have an amazing portfolio, it can be difficult to stand out in such a competitive industry. Most bridal photography studios make the mistake of not focusing enough on their marketing and hence, losing opportunities to earn new clients and expand their business.
To help you in effectively marketing your bridal photography studio, here are 5 proven strategies that you can use:
Publish a free client guide on your website
A client guide helps you put your knowledge and experience on display for that extra wow factor. The goal is that you should create a go-to-guide for anyone that is looking to get married. Since you are already in the industry, you will have connections in your network that the average couple will not, so you can take advantage of this to build the client guide.
This guide should include everything someone needs to know about planning the perfect wedding photoshoot. You should include venue options, packages and price ranges, and relevant information about other vendors such as wedding planners and decorators. You can even include examples of what to wear, who to contact for catering, etc.
For most brides and grooms, figuring out all of the nuts and bolts that go into a perfect wedding can be quite difficult and stressful. Therefore, offering them a guide will help them not just better organize their own wedding, but will also help build up their trust towards you.
Preparing such a guide will not just be useful to potential clients but to you, as well:
Once you put all the information together, it will help you save time in answering similar questions over and over again. You can just present prospects with a client guide and they will have all the information they need and much more.
You can use the guide as a cross-promotion opportunity with other vendors in the industry. When you recommend a vendor in your client guide, reach out and let them know. Most vendors will be happy to return the favor and give recommendations for your services, too.
The guide can be in the form of an e-magazine, a printed booklet, or a page on your website. In case of a soft copy, you can publish it directly on your website and market it on social media or share it within your network for distribution.
To share an example: here is the welcome page from a wedding guide template shared by Kiely Photography, who offers a customizable template that you can use to build your very own wedding client guide.
Be active on the social media
Social networks such as Instagram or Facebook are great platforms for marketing your business. Instagram, particularly, is well-suited for photographers since you can showcase your portfolio and let the photographs do the talking for you.
Here are some effective tips on how you can use social media to market your bridal photography studio:
Post the best pictures from recent wedding photoshoots (remember to ask the wedding couple for permission) and tag people in their respective pictures. This not just highlights your best shots, but also helps you link your previous customers to your page. Once they share the pictures with their friends and family, that automatically builds an audience for you. It also allows potential clients to get in touch directly with your past customers to ask for reviews.
Share your studio’s posts on your personal account to showcase your talent. Sometimes a simple nudge such as this can help your friends and family to keep you in mind when looking for a photographer.
Make use of social media ads (e.g. Facebook Ads) to target audiences that are looking for wedding photographers (or getting married soon). You can finetune this as you go along, but it can help you expand your reach significantly.
Here is an example of a social media post highlighting a wedding photoshoot from the photographer, Lindsay Murphy:
Partner with influencers on Instagram and TikTok
Influencers have a huge number of followers or subscribers on social media, and some of them may be looking for the services you offer. This is why partnering with influencers is an excellent strategy for building trust and reaching out to audiences within your niche.
For this, the first step is to find influencers in the wedding industry on TikTok or Instagram. You can do this by looking for people who have a large fan following and who often complement other artists or have mentioned a wedding photographer (or other services) in the past.
Once you find them, you can offer them complementary services (such as a free photoshoot) in exchange for a mention to your social page or website. Influencers can help you gain a lot of exposure so even a single share or mention from them can boost your audience size.
It is also important that you do not just work with a single influencer but instead try to build a network of reputable influencers. One is great, but a dozen influencers can help your business stand out like no other.
An example of an influencer in the wedding niche is Inside Weddings who has a huge following and often links back to businesses and services in the industry (such as photographers).
Share customer testimonials and reviews
Nothing builds trust with new customers than having a clientele that testifies to the great services that you offer. Sharing customer testimonials is one of the best ways to impress and convert potential clients. Whenever a new lead comes across your business, the first thing they want to see and read about the experiences of previous customers.
For this, you should share testimonials and reviews on your social media as well as build a testimonial page or section on your website. This can help clear up a lot of doubts in the minds of visitors that want to learn more about you or want to opt for your services.
However, when you do manage customer reviews and testimonials, it is good to keep the following tips in mind:
When you list reviews on social media or your website, make sure that you include one or more pictures of the customers (from their wedding photoshoot). Doing this not just makes the review look more genuine, but also showcases your photography in a different and meaningful way.
Promote positive reviews from customers on your website as well as on your social media. You can even use these in your ad campaigns and marketing material to help improve conversion.
If and when you receive a bad review from one of your customers, don’t ignore it. Apologize and address the issue at hand, clear the air, and wherever applicable, offer to make it up with complementary services (or a discount) to compensate for the bad experience they had.
A great example of this is from Weddings by Kara, who has a testimonials page on your website (with pictures of the couples to add genuineness to the reviews).
List complete information on your website and social media profiles
Some businesses often make the mistake of not listing complete information on their social media or website which can hurt their chances of attracting new customers. When someone wants to opt for your services, you need to provide them with as much valuable information as you can.
In particular, other than information about your wedding studio, you need to have pricing and packages listings on your website and social media so prospective customers have an easy time assessing your studio.
The good part here is that you do not need to design or build graphics for your pricing or packages from scratch. You can make use of price list templates such as the ones available at PosterMyWall to build and customize your own graphics in no time. PosterMyWall has a vast library of wedding price templates available that you can choose from and customize as per your preferences.
Once you have made your own customized pricing and packages listing, share it on your social media and add it to your website so that new customers can get all the details they need about your bridal photography studio from the get-go.
Try something new
Photography marketing can seem like an overwhelming challenge, especially if you have little or no experience with it. But if you carve out the time and follow the strategies we have listed here (adjusting and fine-tuning as necessary), you will start seeing the fruits of your labor very soon.
