5 Essential Marketing Strategies Every Photographer Should Be Aware Of

As photographers, we all recognize the significance of marketing. It can make or break your business, while effective promotion can help set yourself apart. We may have all wondered how some photographers have amassed hundreds of thousands of followers while others struggle just to reach triple digits.

When discussing SEO and page rank, networking, Instagram versus portfolio websites and more, it can be easy to become overwhelmed. How are you supposed to select where to begin?

Darina Kopcok is a commercial food photographer and educator, recently sharing with us her five pillars of marketing that have proven successful for her. These tips apply across industries; whether exploring commercial opportunities, editorial work or something entirely different these tips should prove useful in improving or shifting marketing priorities. Take a look below for inspiration!

Marketing requires patience. There’s no quick solution; there is always going to be trial-and-error involved! But there are tools and approaches that do work, so give those a go and see what unfolds!

Pillar 1: Online Portfolio
Let us be clear: Instagram alone isn’t enough.

As Darina noted, putting together an outstanding portfolio that appeals to your target audience is the first step toward getting hired. Working with a photo consultant is extremely helpful as many photographers develop an emotional attachment to certain images – often having great stories behind each shot taken – but their viewer or hiring manager might not know. Therefore if an image fails to evoke an emotion or communicate your skills effectively within its frame it should be removed from your portfolio altogether.

No portfolio should be enough. A good rule of thumb is to update your site every six months or so; this helps with SEO as well as informing repeat clients of what has happened with you and keeping them informed about any developments.

Think carefully about who your portfolio is designed for and make sure they can easily see this from your homepage. Ask friends or family, photographers included, for honest opinions so you can adapt accordingly.

Pillar 2: Research
The next step to effective marketing is identifying your target market and creating a database to track leads and your marketing activities. While SEO is great, that alone doesn’t ensure that potential clients visit your site – this part must still be managed on your own!

So when sending out introduction or promotional materials to new contacts or making new acquaintances, it’s essential that this interaction be documented somewhere. While photographers typically rely on Excel or Google Sheets as platforms for recording information about each relationship they make – Airtable can also serve this function admirably. “It’s Excel on steroids,” according to Darina – Airtable offers both free and paid options as a powerful solution.

Researching spam laws requires diligence! Keep in mind, however, that conflicting information may exist.

Pillar 3: Email Promotion

Email promotions come in various forms. Creating and sending out email campaigns targeting all past, current and potential future clients provides an excellent opportunity to remind everyone you exist and are available for business.

As your first task, create a one-pager (like a postcard) that you can attach to an email and embed. A bio, some images, and your contact info should suffice – plus many photo editors and hiring teams keep emails like this in a special folder so they can reach out when a suitable project comes along.

Darina suggests sending out quarterly blanket email promotions with images curated to suit a theme and title – no attachments here; seasonal promotions provide an easy way of staying in contact, showing clients your work and reminding everyone who might need you that you exist.

Also, vary your promotions! Take different approaches. Formal at times and informal the next. They should be customized or specific to each client (for instance if it’s a yogurt company, show they have seen your photos of yogurt) or more general overview of your work – and feel free to showcase any newly created content that excites you! The goal should be for clients to view you as flexible and quick on your feet photographer so using marketing as a vehicle to demonstrate this can help establish this perception among potential clients.

Hunter is an effective tool for gathering emails that Darina recommends. After signing up for an account, you’ll get 25 searches each month at no additional charge; more searching may be added on as needed.