For Professional Photographers, Marketing has historically been a challenge. If you asked a room full of photographers about Marketing, here’s what you might hear:
“I know having a great website is critical, but I never seem to have the time to update it on a regular basis”
“I do well with Facebook and Instagram, but do I really need to be on Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, Google + and LinkedIn?”
“I feel like I spend more time and more $ on Marketing today than I did 5 years ago, yet the return on investment keeps dropping”
Sound familiar?
It’s not only true for Pro Photographers, but applies to ANY small business. Email marketing was the “magic pill” years ago, but with the overuse of email and the fact that everything seems to go to spam, it’s less effective than ever. SEO has become a costly necessary evil. If you don’t pay attention to this often, your rankings can drop overnight.
So what is a Pro Photographer to do in order to generate more clients? Simple. Treat every client like they can refer you 5 new clients… because they can. After your final “deliverable” has been delivered, ask if they were satisfied with the work you did for them, and if they were, ask if they have any friends that might be interested in your services.
In a world of increasing Marketing channels, over-flowing inboxes, and declining Return on Investments, the best way to “market” in a digital economy is to do a great job for each client and to ask them for referrals. This is a whole lot easier than trying to figure out Google’s SEO algorithm!