Who doesn’t have five minutes to help get the word out for their photography business? Here are five quick tips that will help you get a lot of promotional opportunity out of your daily routine.
1. Get More Out of Your Email
What you did:
Wrote an email to friends trying to explain why you didn’t call last Sunday (well, that may take more than five minutes)
What you should have done instead:
Use Wisestamp for your email and embed your business website, your Facebook fan page, et cetera into your email automatically so that anyone you email knows about your business (yes, your mom, and the thousands of other people you email every year). It works seamlessly with Gmail and Yahoo Mail, and it seriously takes three minutes to install.
Promote Your Photography Business in Every Email You Send
2. Get the Word Out on Facebook
What you did:
Wrote on your BFF’s wall about your latest photo shoot
What you should have done instead:
Create a Facebook Page for your business. Suggest it to friends (and tell them to suggest to their friends!). Bonus to get traction: add an original profile picture or take photos for a local charity and invite participants to tag themselves in the photos you upload to your page’s wall.
Also make sure that you add a friendly message when you ask friends, like “Hey, come write something on my newly created Facebook page!” So… if you like these tips, come and write something on the Sphynge Photography Facebook page!
Create a Facebook Page for Your Photography Business
3. Add Marketing Activities to Your Daily Routine
What you did:
Waited in line for you latte (5 minutes is a short line!)
What you should have done instead:
Think of the number of other people waiting in line for their lattes! Ask your local coffee shop if they’ll let you offer a free photo shoot—add a fish bowl for people to drop their business card into, and voila! You’ve got yourself a winner to try your services and tell their friends—along with new customer list of people to whom you can send photo tips.
Offer a Free Photo Shoot as a Promotion
4. Give More Than Your Business Card
What you did:
Spent five hours working on your business card, only to give it to a guy in the coffee shop line, who then tossed it with his cup
What you should have done instead:
While most photographers think of putting their latest photo on their business card, few think about the back of the business card. How about putting three tips to look better in photographs on the back of your card? That will help you be remembered and lessen the chance your card gets tossed away.
Enhance Your Photography Business Card
5. Give Your Laptop a Makeover
What you did:
Spent five minutes scratching off the old promotional stickers from your laptop (damn those things are resilient!)
What you should have done instead:
Make your very own promotional tool! Create a unique branded laptop cover. Uploading your photo with the name of your business and website only takes five minutes.… and think of the number of times you’re working at that coffee shop with that laptop!
Create a Custom Branded Laptop Skin
About the Author:
Caroline Andreolle is a San Francisco Bay Area photographer shooting photojournalism, modern photography and lifestyle portraits. Find her work at sphynge.com.
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Great tips. I like the enhancing business cards ideas
Great tips! Many professionals and business owners fail to make use of their email signatures, which is a shame since it can be a powerful marketing opportunity.
And thanks for including WiseStamp ;)
I’m an atlanta photographer and looking to expand my business and promote it through various sources, Please let me know some good tips on inexpensive ways to get great leads. Thanks
Great Tips!
If you don’t mind me adding something that have worked for me too!
1- I use Mailchimp for my newsletter! its brilliant and free up to 2000 email address
2- I Aim to post one photo/comment/video a day on my Facebook page to increase engagement and exposure
Hope you guys find this useful
Thanks for the tips! Photography services seem like they need a very detailed marketing plan to make people more aware of their services in order to get business. I liked your tip to use social media as a platform to get the word out about your business. That will allow your friends to see that you’ve started your own photography service and share your best work with your followers online. Then they can share that information with all of their friends and family to spread the word and attract more business.
I like all the tips thank you so much,i am going to use it right away.
Thank you so much for the tips, I found them very useful and inspiring. I tweeted this article and also gave it a thumbs up thru SU.