“It’s not what you sell that matters as much as how you sell it!” — Brian Halligan, CEO & Co-Founder, HubSpot

To become relevant in a market, the traditional ways of promoting oneself lay back in the dust. Now, it is all about digital marketing. In marketing, popularity comes hand in hand with advertising, that is the key. Digital advertising is all about blogs and websites. 

So, you are a photographer, or just a newcomer in this business trying to create prospects. If you are new, your focus would be getting your first lead. If already in the business, you need to aim at boosting your sales.

You need to have strategies on how to reach the perfect people. The plan is to attract the right group of visitors to your website, impress them and turn them into your customers. 

So, here are some strategies of digital marketing for photographers:

• Targeted marketing or niche marketing: 

For smaller businesses like yours, the key is micromarketing! Niche marketing is promoting your business to a specific segment of the audience. This will let you understand your audience and what they need, or what specifically attracts them.

It is easier to understand smaller segments with more efficiency. If you are a wedding photographer, not everybody is getting married, so concentrate specifically on attracting that age group. 

1.  Targeted digital marketing is cost-effective, on the contrary, you can charge more for having specialized skills and low competitors.

• Targeted Audience:

Your audience will determine your action. Focus on their needs and problems. Provide your services accordingly. It is a basic human instinct to like somebody who understands even before a declaration. Research and understand what problems the audience is facing, solve them. 

1.  For instance, you take child portraits, but the child is not your target, their parents are. They might be thinking of what to make their child wear, or how to make them not get distracted during the shoot. Get your ideas ready that would solve these issues.

• Taking the lead on social media:

1. your work on social media is common, everybody does that. You need to stand out to be hired. When on Facebook, only your work won’t do the charm. Facebook is all about stories. You need a post that is thought-provoking, that make people stop and read. If your photograph is scenic, probably a forest, however beautiful it might be, it won’t make people stop, stare and stay. Add an inspiring quote along with it about traveling, it will attract the audience and make them visualize.
2. Instagram, show your best photograph there because the people in there are for photographs, they are there to get inspired. Research and find out more such social platforms related to photography and gather followers. Not many people opt for this, but Pinterest is quite a platform to gather a versatile audience. 

• Understanding the Sales Cycle:

1. Now that you have targeted your audience via the website and social media. Your next objective is to deliver the right content at the right time. Be aware of what your prospects are searching for, suppose they are searching for ‘pre-wedding photographer’. Those are your keywords, get a hold of that. Create content focusing on those words so that your prospects are aware that you are meeting their needs. 
2. When that is done, consider social proof, that is, when these customers are going through your website before they search anything, they jump to reviews. Make sure your reviews are up to the mark. Ask your previous customers to review your work and upload their reviews with shots authenticating their pleasure; ask them to like your posts in social media and share as much as possible.
3. When the customers are ready to buy, they would be thinking of your rate card. Make sure you have your pricing uploaded on your website. Be transparent and professional when dealing with money. To boost up sales, give discounts and time-limited offers. Place inquiry forms for better communication with customers.
4. Keeping a loyal relationship with previous customers proves beneficial. Word-of-mouth is the fastest and most strategic marketing technique. Customers who got good service and are impressed with your cordial behavior will always promote you. Make sure you have them in good terms.

• Content optimization:

Search engine optimization (SEO) provides relevant content to users. Several factors would make your website rank up in Google – like keyword, backlinks, content length and quality, and load speed. Keyword research will help you write content that would rank up your website. 

Use CTA (call-to-action) buttons on your website to direct your customers to more indulging topics related to your website. For instance, ‘Take a tour’ that would redirect your audience to an intriguing series of your previous work. When that is over, add another CTA ‘Request a Call’ – that way the audience would reach you and become a customer.

Local SEO also brings a lot of audiences. Promote your business locally, make sure you are in your local business listings so that every time somebody searches for ‘photographers near me’, you become a part of their search.

• Lead catch:

Once you have got your audience, try and get their email. Email engagement has a higher ROI for digital marketing. According to ExactTarget, checking emails is the foremost thing 71% of people do in the morning. Take that opportunity, send them offers. Send them personalized emails related to their needs. Email engagement is inexpensive compared to social engagement, but the investment return is higher. 

• Keep track

Keep an eye on how your site is doing. Use Google Analytics to track the number of impressions of your site and which pages attract more clicks. Is it on a positive scale? if yes, then good, make sure to note down which aspect is helping its growth. If negative, keep your bounce rate under check, analyze your keyword data, set alerts so that you never miss an important client. Make sure you keep your website updated. No customer prefers a website that was last updated years ago and even Google rewards the latest content in its search results.

Digital marketing is the golden key to business. I hope these steps help your business growth strategically. 

Several digital marketing management companies would help you through this process. However, they mostly provide a generic digital marketing strategy. For tailored digital marketing management, specifically for photography, consult Jayesh Kataria