5 great tips to effectively marketing your photography studio

One topic that comes up a lot on the CMforums is marketing.  What strategies are most effective?  How to best market yourself?  How do I market on a slim budget?  Our friend Emily Potts from Moms With Cameras is guest blogging for us today with 5 quick and easy tips to help effectively market your studio.  Thanks, Emily!!

5 great tips to effectively marketing your photography studio

I remember desperately waiting to hear my phone ring when I started my business. I knew I needed to market my studio to make that happen, but my budget was small…well, almost non-existent! Today, some of my favorite marketing activities are still the ones I used back at the beginning of my career. While low-cost, they are incredibly effective, and they’re how I built my business! Here are five of my sure-fire ways to get clients in the door, without spending a lot of money.

1. Go grass-roots

Let’s face it, in business it is far more about who you know than what you know. This principle applies to photography studios too! Have a set of pretty press-printed notecards made and send a note to twenty-five people in your market area that you know and that you’d like to photograph. Offer them a complimentary session with no obligation to make a purchase. Simply explain that you’d love to work with their family and you’re building your portfolio. If they choose to order images, wonderful…if not, no hard feelings. Once you’ve photographed them, be sure to get a signed model release, and blog and Facebook about their sessions. This is sure to draw traffic to your site and get your phone ringing, pronto!

2. Begin a referral system.

Every client that walks through your doors should receive a pretty and easy way to tell their friends about you! Set up a referral system that rewards your current clients for sending new ones. In my business, my clients receive a set of cards they can pass out to friends. When a client books a session using one of their cards, my previous client receives a $100 credit towards a new session, and the new client receives $50 credit towards her order. (Hint: this would be a great practice to implement in conjunction with the first marketing technique.)

3. Offer to help someone that can then help you.

Let’s say that you’re a wedding photographer who would really love to photograph more weddings. I would suggest to you that you call up your favorite local wedding planner and offer to photograph anything she’d like (tablescapes, wedding details, and so on) at her next event and create an album showcasing her beautiful talent…all as a complimentary service for her. Let her know that you are in the wedding market and that you’d like to work more closely with her. Tell her that you first want to give her this gift so she can try out your services and see the quality of your work with absolutely no risk. Do a good job for her, and I guarantee she’ll send couples your way!

4. Work with charities.

Offer to photograph couples at a local charity dinner, and to send attendees a complimentary 5×7-sized digital file (with your logo on it!) of their image. Choose a charity that you love and explain to the board that you want to do something to benefit those that are so generously giving to a cause you support. Create a gallery of those images on your site so that the couples attending the event will have the opportunity to see your work on the way to claiming their digital image. When you send the couples their images, also make sure to include a gift certificate for them to come enjoy a session with you!

5. Ask a friend to host a portrait party for you.

Request that your friend allow you to come to her home and photograph some of her friends’ families in fifteen or thirty-minute intervals. Give your friend print credit based off of the number of friends who attend, as well as the total sales. This will encourage her to invite a lot of friends, especially those who will invest in your portraits! You will have the opportunity to work for multiple families in a very short period of time. Be sure to blog and Facebook these images and give them all referral cards so they’ll tell more of their friends about you!

Marketing your business doesn’t require a big budget. Just think creatively about how you can get your work in front of others and how you can foster great relationships with current and prospective clients! These efforts are sure to make a big impact in your business!

Emily Potts owns a boutique home studio that specializes in photographing sweet newborns, happy families and high-fashion seniors in Bartlesville, OK. She is also the creator of and writer for Moms With Cameras – a resource dedicated to mothers who are professional photographers and are serious about their business. Emily will be teaching a Master Class at WPPI 2012, entitled, “HomeWork | How to have big-studio success in your home-based business”. She promises that attendees will learn how to run a studio that averages sales in the four digits every time…even when run from a modest home. Attendees will have fun, but should prepare for a major hand-cramp! (Light hand-stretching prior to the class is recommended!)