Are you overwhelmed trying to market your business? In today’s episode, I’m sharing 5 key marketing strategies for photographers. From brainstorming an unlimited amount of social media ideas to embodying the role of the business owner, these strategies will leave you feeling inspired and ready to tackle your marketing.
The Shoot It Straight Podcast is brought to you by Sabrina Gebhardt, photographer and educator. Join us each week as we discuss what it’s like to be a female creative entrepreneur while balancing entrepreneurship and motherhood. If you’re trying to find balance in this exciting place you’re in, yet willing to talk about the hard stuff too, Shoot It Straight Podcast is here to share practical and tangible takeaways to help you shoot it straight.
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This episode is brought to you by The Round Table, a community built for female photographers who want to continue growing their business while forging industry friendships along the way! In this group, you will learn practical ways to move your business forward, while finding community and accountability with like-minded photographers. Come join us and get access to the content and private Facebook community!
Review the Show Notes:
Social media (3:19)
Email marketing (11:44)
Collaboration (17:43)
Word of mouth (23:58)
Embody being the business owner (28:00)
Episode Links:
Review the Transcript:
Welcome to the shoot it straight podcast. I’m your host, Sabrina Gebhardt. Here, I will share an honest take on what it’s like to be a female creative entrepreneur while balancing business, motherhood, and life. Myself, along with my guests, will get vulnerable through honest conversations and relatable stories because we’re willing to go there.
If you’re trying to find balance in this exciting place you’re in, yet willing to talk about the hard stuff too, then The shoot it straight podcast is here to share practical and tangible takeaways to help you shoot it straight.
Welcome back to the shoot straight podcast. My friends, I get asked about marketing on a fairly regular basis. And I get it as business owners. We have to do a lot of marketing specifically in the photography space. You didn’t sign up to be a marketing director. You started this business because you wanted to take photos.
You love the art. Of capturing a moment. Maybe you love the editing side of it, creating a beautiful final product. That’s the part you signed up for. And little did you know that in addition to being a business owner and a photographer, you have to be a marketing director and a content creator, right? We tend to get really overwhelmed by quote unquote, marketing our business.
We just think, I don’t know, I need to be showing up. I need to be putting myself out there, but it feels like a lot. I don’t know how to do, or the other thing that I really do see is people putting all their eggs in one basket and then wondering, Why things are quiet? Where have their inquiries gone? Why is nothing changing or growing or whatever?
And so today I want to share with you the same thing that I share all of the women I coach, whether it’s in one on one coaching or in my mastermind or in my course or in my membership, there are five CoachingBadminton. com Great ways to market for your business organically. Organically just means you’re not paying for ads.
Okay. These are things that you can do on your own for free. Yes. They’re going to take time and effort and energy, but you’re not paying for them. Okay. Five marketing strategies that really work well for photographers. And there’s actually more than five. I’ve lumped them into five categories, I should say.
So I just want to kind of talk through these five. And my hope is that you’re going to be inspired. I also hope that you’re going to get some ideas. I’m hoping that you’re going to hear this episode and you’re going to think, Oh my gosh, I didn’t think about that. Or I didn’t think about that. Or I’ve been doing that, but haven’t been doing it in that way.
Right? My hope is that you’re going to finish listening to this episode and you’re going to walk away and think, okay, I am jazzed. I am energized. I am ready to tackle marketing. I’ve got some fresh ideas. So I’m just going to kind of run through these general, these five categories, give you some ideas.
This is a very loose episode. Okay. I’m just going to kind of riff on these different marketing strategies. And again, hopefully you will walk away with some new ideas and be excited for ways that you can market your business. Number one, I’m going to start with the one that you either love or hate, and that is social media.
Social media is a fantastic organic marketing strategy for photographers. We hate it. We love it. It’s there. It’s free. You should absolutely be using this for your business. Here’s the thing though. Social media gets a bad rap because of the algorithm, right? Sometimes we love the algorithm because something we put out there goes viral.
Uh, we get a bunch of new followers. whatever. Sometimes we hate the algorithm because we feel like we get no views and no engagement and nobody’s seeing what we’re talking about. Okay. And it does, we go through seasons of up and ups and downs where it feels like the algorithms on our side. And then it feels like it doesn’t, but here’s a couple of things.
Pointers that I have for you when you’re considering how to use social media. These are things that I do myself, but again, I’m also coaching women on, okay. What I see in the photography space in general, I’m not necessarily talking to you because I don’t know how you are using social media in your business, but generally what I see.
is photographers are sharing their work in their feed posts, right? So they just photographed a session recently and they are sharing sneak peeks stuff from their, from their session. They’re sharing images in their feed with maybe a cute little caption about, you know, what the session was like or whatever.
Okay. And then in stories, They are most frequently hopping on and sharing their availability or they’re sharing about their particular offers. So that looks like, you know, a post in their feed of images, you know, 10 images from a recent session and then getting on stories that day and saying, Hey, my current availability for family sessions is X, Y, Z, or Hey, I’m going to be opening the doors to my next round of mini sessions on this date.
Okay. That’s what I see the most. And I see photographers doing that on repeat. And maybe once in a while, they’ll throw something else in to their stories, something a little personal, but most of the time, that’s it. And when you think about your photography business on social media. I get it. That’s totally what you think.
I need to be sharing my work and I need to be sharing my availability. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with those two things, but that should not be your marketing plan, okay? That should be sprinkled in to doing other things on social media, right? I don’t want that to be the only way that you’re using social media.
So what do I mean by that? I don’t just want you talking about your offers. I don’t just want you talking about your availability. I want you using social media as a place to connect with people. If you are brand new to the podcast, maybe you have never heard me say this before, but if you’ve been listening for a while, I promise you have heard me say something like this.
before, and I will continue to scream it from the rooftops because it is absolutely so important. Use social media to connect with people. That means sharing about things that are completely unrelated to your business. that are related to you, the human being, not you, the photographer. Okay. So talking about your hobbies, talking about your upcoming vacation, talking about the awesome parenting moments you had talking about what you’re making for dinner.
Okay. Fill in the blank. No, I’m not asking you to be a full time influencer where you need to share every moment of every day all the time, but pick some highlights, pick some moments, pick some things. If it’s something that you would have a text conversation with your best friend about, why can’t you share that on Instagram?
If you’ve got something awesome in your Amazon haul this week, or found something really fantastic at Target, or had a funny story from your kid, or have a question about how to take care of your plants, whatever, Share about that stuff. Let people connect with you. Not only does that help the algorithm, because here’s the thing, when you share personal stuff, you will always get better engagement.
Period. End of story. You will always have higher views, more responses, more people participating and engaging with you when you are talking about personal things than business things. It is what it is. So the more you can increase that engagement on a daily and weekly basis, you’re helping the algorithm by teaching it.
People like to engage with my account. And therefore, when I do share business y things, Pete, more people will engage with my account, right? The other thing is talking about your offers and your business and your services in ways that may not feel as obvious to you. So when you’re a photographer, instead of just sharing about, Hey, my availability for family sessions is X, Y, Z.
How else can you talk about photography, the experience, the final product, the impact. How else can you talk about it without sharing your availability? Right? Like how can you talk around the subject? Maybe that looks like sharing images from a family session of your own family. Maybe that means sharing photos of the gallery wall in your home and how you love to look over those, you know, on a daily basis.
Maybe it’s going through an album that’s on your own coffee table. Maybe it’s. Going through photos at your parents home of your own childhood. Maybe if you’ve recently lost a grandparent or a parent talking about the value of photos when people are gone. All of those things are related to family photography without actually saying, Hey, my availability for sessions is right.
That’s another great way to use social media and talking about your business. Another thing you can do is share behind the scenes. Okay. It is so valuable to show you at work. And not only is it valuable, people love that stuff. And I want you to stop and think about when you are using social media, when you are scrolling through your stories or see reels, what are the ones that you stop and Pay attention to where you hold your thumb down and read the text where you stop and think to reply to the person.
A lot of times it’s the behind the scenes stuff. We are nosy human beings. We like to see what everybody else is doing. The other thing about behind the scenes is oftentimes it feels less curated than when we’re intentionally showing a beautiful photo of the lunch we made ourselves today, right? Behind the scenes footage feels a little messy.
And people love to see that. So that’s another really easy, simple thing that you can do on social media. So using social media, yes. Share your offers. Yes. Share your availability. Yes. Share your recent work, but go beyond that. Connecting with your audience, sharing about your business and your offers without talking about them directly.
And also sharing behind the scenes. These are all great things that are going to increase your engagement And will lead to having relationships on social media where when people are ready to hire a photographer, they think of you because they love you. Because they’ve been following your account for a long time when you use social media in this way This is when you’re gonna get the DMS that say I’ve been following you for years.
I’m finally pregnant I cannot wait to hire you as our newborn photographer. That’s where those people are gonna come in This is where you’re going to find the people that they’re ready to hire you Immediately because they’ve been ready to hire you for years This is when you have the, uh, like they’re already loyal.
They’re already obsessed with you and your work. And you haven’t even taken their photos yet. So use social media to build those relationships. Okay. The second, uh, great organic marketing strategy for photographers, this is super obvious, but email marketing, email marketing is where you are going to make your money.
It is where you are going to make your money. And I want you to use it in the same way that I just described using social media. I want you to stop using it as only a feature to sell. Yes, of course. I want you to sell in your email. I want you to share about special offers and your availability and yes, a hundred percent.
Relationship building connection. You want people to open your email. You want people to be excited about what you have to say. You want people to read your emails and be excited about working with you soon or in the future, or sharing your name with a friend email, just like social media is a place to build a relationship and have people fall in love with you.
So just like I said, on social media, sharing things outside of your business, Take it to email. If you are a plant person, can you have a section in every email that you send that talks about plants? Maybe it’s plant tips or your current favorite plants or plant rehabilitation or plant sales at local nurseries.
If you are a book reader, same thing. Can you have a category about book recommendations in every email? If you love hilarious cat videos on Tik TOK, can you have a section in your email every time with your most recent favorite cat Tik TOK videos? Okay. How can you connect with people in a way that goes beyond, Hey, I have three available spots for sessions next month.
Do you see what I mean? Again, when I told you about social media, I told you to think about the accounts that you engage with the most. I want you to do the same thing with email. What are the emails that you open? Not the ones that you immediately delete. Or flag as spam. What are the accounts that you see the email come through in your inbox and you actually open?
They are probably from people who are telling stories, who are sharing recommendations outside of their industry. Right? There are people who are doing exactly this. I know that’s true for me. The emails that I open on a regular basis have exactly what I just told you. They have this formula of, Hey, let me tell you a story.
Hey, let me tell you about what’s happening in my business or upcoming opportunities to work with me. And then, Hey, let me share some fun things I have found around the internet and around the world lately. And you know what? I click on those links every single time. So think beyond your business. Think about your email as a cocktail party where you are mingling and meeting new people.
What would you talk about with people? What would you share about? What would you connect over? Okay, that’s the kind of stuff I want you to be sharing about an email. And while we’re on the subject of email, if you are currently a, Oh, I sent three or four emails a year, I’m going to encourage you to send at minimum once a month.
Okay, for photographers, I think once a month is a great minimum. I think twice a month is ideal. If you are in the education space or the coaching space, sending a weekly email or maybe even two or three a week is better for you. But when you have a local small business where you can only serve a very small number of people every year, I think once a month or twice a month is fine.
But I want you to connect with people in that email, go beyond just selling and let it be something where you connect with them. Today’s episode is brought to you by the round table, a community built for female photographers who want to continue growing their business while forging industry friendships along the way.
In this group, you will learn practical ways to move your business forward while finding community and accountability with like minded photographers. The round table consists of three main parts, new live trainings that drop every month, a growing vault of all of the past trainings, and of course the community.
Are you curious how it works? Every month you will get access to three new pieces of content over a broad variety of topics like pricing, editing, goal setting, website reviews, social media, and videos of me behind the scenes at real sessions. Members also have the opportunity to learn from incredible guests.
Speakers and industry leaders on a huge variety of topics. I pride myself in giving you just enough education every month to keep you growing and moving forward while not overwhelming you with content. The membership vault is such a valuable resource that is honestly more than worth the cost of enrollment on its own.
As of today, it has. It’s close to a hundred trainings and only continues to grow. It literally holds every training from the very beginning of the membership and not to name drop, but the guest experts that come teach inside this group are industry leaders like Amanda Warfield of Chasing Simple, Maddie Pichon, Coley James, Jade Boyd, and Dawn Richardson of Tech Savvy Creative.
Just to name a few. So yeah, the education is great, but you can’t ignore the community. It is an absolutely incredible group of women just like you. In fact, I’m pretty sure that anyone in the group will tell you that the community is the best part. Consider it your space to ask all the things, get all the support and make real life business besties.
If you’re ready to join us, you can head over to sabrinagebhart. com backslash membership and enroll today. Now back to the episode, the number three, a great organic strategy, organic marketing strategy for photographers is collaborating. Remember, you are a local business. You serve the local area. Okay.
Yes, there are some photographers that do nationwide that travel and all of that. But for the vast majority, we are a local business group. How can you connect and collaborate with other local businesses, especially locally? Bonus points. If you can think of local businesses that you and your ideal client have in common, how can you connect and collaborate them?
Because remember they are a small business too. Okay. Collaborating is most of the time free, and it is a great way to get in front of somebody else’s audience and to get their business in front of your audience. It is a win win situation. Okay. I don’t want you to ever collaborate with a business or a brand that Is not in alignment with you.
Okay. It needs to make sense for your business and it needs to be someone that you genuinely do support that you genuinely do connect with. That makes sense. Okay. I don’t want you to, Oh, feel, I don’t know. It feels a little gross. If you think about like, I’m going to connect with every business regardless of who they are and what they’re about and who they serve and all of that, that doesn’t feel good.
I want you to really intentionally seek out these businesses, but I promise you there are a lot out there that would make sense. So I’m going to go back to the newborn photographer example. If you are a newborn photographer, let’s consider places that sell maternity clothes, places that sell, um, baby clothes.
Places that you can, uh, like doulas, OB GYN offices, you see where I’m going with this? Like where are places that new parents would be spending their time and money? Okay. And go beyond that too. If there’s a local coffee shop or a hot new restaurant in a neighborhood that has a lot of young families, okay, that works too.
Really get outside of the box here and think about places that new parents would be spending their time. Can you collaborate with them? I promise you in your area, there’s a lot of options that you just came up with. Who would it make sense? And, and don’t just pick one, like absolutely multiple would be great.
Okay. Here’s different ways that you can collaborate. Could you do a giveaway with them? Okay, maybe it’s something from you, something from them, and it gets mashed together in a giveaway, and then you’re both increasing your following list, uh, for people to enter in for the giveaway, right? Could you swap newsletters?
You write a newsletter to their list about something that they would want to hear. They write a newsletter to your list. Okay. Again, it’s putting your business in front of a whole other businesses list of subscribers. Okay. Maybe it’s something as simple as leaving business cards on their counter. Can you, if there’s a local baby boutique, can you go in and have a conversation with the owner and leave some business cards on the counter or maybe give them business cards or a coupon or something to stick in the next hundred bags?
When people are checking out, can you put your work on display somewhere? Can you put your work on display in their shop or in their office? Can you do an Instagram feature swap where you feature their business or maybe you go live on Instagram with them and you have a conversation so their audience is watching as well.
Could you do some sort of goodie bag swap again going back to the boutique? Could you put something in their checkout bags and then could they give you something to put in your bags for your clients? Can you do an exclusive offer with their audience? Maybe you do a pop up portrait, like a pop up five minute portrait session in their studio for their shoppers one Saturday.
Um, and then again, the discount thing, could you give their customers, maybe if their customers spend a hundred dollars, they get a certain amount of discount on a session with you. See what I mean? The, the idea, possibilities here. It’s literally endless. That was just a handful of things, but there are so many ways that you can collaborate with other local businesses to help get your name out there.
Not only does it get your name out there, but it’s like a referral. Okay. Because going back to the newborn example, Jane Smith is a longtime client of this, this local baby boutique. Let’s say she’s pregnant with her third child. She has always shopped at this baby boutique, um, for her new babies. She knows the store owner.
She’s a regular there. And If she’s looking for a photographer this time, maybe her old photographer, maybe she’s never had a photographer or maybe her old photographer is not in business or whatever. And she’s in the store and she’s checking out with her most recent purchase and she sees your business cards on the counter.
She’s going to ask the store owner who she has a relationship with, what’s this about? And then the store owner can talk about you. It’s literally like getting a referral from a friend. She is more likely to take the next step and to reach out to you and contact you about your services than if, you know, she just randomly found you on Instagram.
So collaborating with other local businesses is such a great way to grow your visibility for your business and to market yourself. So just don’t write that off. It does take a little bit of effort. You do have to have conversations with people. You do have to reach out to them. You are going to have to get out of your house and go meet people, but let it be fun because Hey, if you’ve never done this before, small business owners love other small business owners.
Okay, best case scenario. They say, absolutely. Let’s collaborate. That’s a great idea. Worst case scenario. They enjoy meeting you, but they don’t want to collaborate and that’s fine. That’s fine. You’ve met another local business owner. No harm, no foul. Number four, organic marketing strategies for photographers.
word of mouth. This seems really obvious word of mouth, right? When you can get your past clients to share about you, it’s, that’s literally the best way to get new clients. Okay. What does that look like? Obviously asking them to tell your friends about you is Awesome. Right. If they are young moms and they have a bunch of friends that are still having babies, telling their friends, you know, that you’re the best and they need to hire you is great.
Like that’s what we all want, right? That’s just the perfect situation. But other things that count as word of mouth, Google reviews and testimonials, Google reviews. Obviously they help because. Two things. Number one, the more Google reviews you have, it helps your SEO, right? We want to feed the Google beast and make it happy.
Google reviews do that. So making sure that you are always asking for a review when you are finished with a client and then following up if they don’t submit one. Um, you want to make it really easy for them to fill out the review, literally send them the link to your review form. Don’t just say, can you fill out a review on Google and make them go find it.
You want to make it super easy. Another thing that makes it really, really easy for them is not only send them the link to the review, but also ask them a question. So say, Hey, if you wouldn’t mind spending two minutes writing a Google review, here’s the link and simply answer this question. Okay. And then give them a question to ask.
Maybe it’s, if you were to describe working with me to your best friend, what would you say? How was the experience working with my business or what were your fears before and how were those addressed? Like there’s so many, you can, you can Google this. questions to ask to get a great testimonial, but ask them a question so that they’re not even having to stop and like, think about the words you have given them the prompt, right?
Like you’ve given them the writing prompt and the link. All they have to go do now is answer the question on Google. The other great thing about Google reviews is you can screenshot them. You can screenshot them and you can share them on social media. You can share them on your website. Once somebody has given you a Google review, you can use that language anywhere.
Yes, you can copy the text and put it in like a pretty, you know, quote box on your website, but screenshots are incredibly valuable because they feel more authentic. They feel more real. Right? Technically, you could write whatever you want on your website, but a screenshot means that it’s That’s actually true.
The other thing for word of mouth is just testimonials. Of course, I would love all of your testimonials to come from Google reviews because then you’re also getting the SEO benefit. But we all know that clients love to text us and also email, like respond to the gallery delivery email. Okay. Both of those also count as great.
opportunities to screenshot and to share. You definitely want to be sharing your testimonials on social media. You also want to save them as a highlight bubble on Instagram. Okay. So that somebody new can land on your Instagram feed and see all of these great testimonials. And then again, you want to use them and sprinkle them on your website when new ones come in.
Okay. Word of mouth is so important. And if, if you are not, If somebody is not hearing from you actually from their best friend, the second best thing that counts for word of mouth is them seeing the social proof of testimonials of these screenshots from Google. Okay. So word of mouth, the last category I have for organic marketing strategies for photographers And this is a little bit different.
So hear me out is to embody being the business owner. This is something that works really well on social media. You could also do it in blogs and a newsletter, but I wanted it to have its own category. Okay? Because this is something that I don’t see being done very often, but I think is extremely valuable.
What am I talking about when I say embody the business owner? This is where earlier when I talked about social media sharing behind the scenes, that’s part of this. Okay. When you think about who I am as a photographer, what does that include? Well, it’s way more than taking the photos. You know that. And I know that, but the general audience doesn’t, they know that, but they don’t maybe realize it.
So how can you embody being a professional? What does that include? That includes sitting at your computer, updating your website. Sitting with a notebook and a piece of and a pen out on your porch, coming up with as many ideas for blog posts as possible. It includes culling your images. It includes packing your camera bag.
It includes hopping on a zoom call to prep. Your client for the session next week. It includes updating your prep guides. It includes going out and meeting with small business owners to set up collaborations. It includes packaging orders before you are going to hand deliver them. It includes setting up mini session events.
Do you see where I’m going with this? There is so much more involved in what we do than just taking the photo. And so any opportunity you have to create awareness and content around the fact that you are, you are the business owner, you are the professional, you are doing all of these things. It just, it helps People to see you as such.
they start to realize, wow, she does so much for her business. Wow. Look how much time, effort, care, and energy is put into the things she does. Wow. I never realized how much goes into being a photographer. Wow. Right? Like it, it brings this really impressive awareness to you and your business and you’re pouring yourself into your business.
And it makes people appreciate and be really impressed with the things that you’re doing. And I don’t mean impressed in like, uh, like I, I don’t mean to sound cocky in that way, but It shows you doing the job. It shows you working. It shows you putting in your effort. And so this is something that’s really great to do when you feel like you’re not working enough.
Like if your business feels really slow right now, if inquiries feel slow right now, if you’re not doing it as many sessions as normally, this is a great thing to fill in with because You and I both know that you’re still working behind the scenes. You’re still doing all of the things. You still have a lot of things in motion for your business, even though you’re not doing a ton of sessions.
Because so much more goes into it. So share about that. Share about today’s list includes, I’m working on my website. I’m emailing about a new collaboration. I’m scouting out a new location. And then maybe the next day, today I’m cleaning out my office so I can sit down and call as many images as possible without being distracted and like have a video of you doing that thing.
There’s so many ways that you can embody being the professional, being the business owner that people will really enjoy paying attention to. Because again, like I said earlier, people are nosy. They like to see what everybody’s doing in their business and in their day. But it also gives a level of authority to you that your competition’s probably not doing.
So I would love to see you try this strategy if you haven’t done it already and how you can apply this to blogging and your newsletters is the same thing. It’s just longer form. So on social media, maybe you’re sharing about the things you’re doing in your business this day or behind the scenes videos of X, Y, Z, or you’re getting on and sharing a story about a meeting you just had or whatever.
But on your blog or in your newsletter, you’re just taking that same thing and talking about it in a longer form. Maybe in a newsletter, you’re talking about an, an upcoming collaboration and how you met with X, Y, Z business owner and how you’re super excited about the opportunity or how you’re scouting out new locations for summer and you can’t wait to share them right.
And in a newsletter, same thing. It’s just longer form writing about those things. So to recap, five organic marketing strategies for photographers, number one, using social media as a way to connect with your audience. Think going beyond the selling and the availability stuff. Number two, using email again as a connection point as a way to connect with your audience.
Number three, collaborating with other local small businesses. Number four, word of mouth, really trying to pull in the Google reviews and the testimonials and making sure that you’re sharing them. And number five. Embodying the business owner. Think about all of the things you are doing as a business owner that you can share about on a day to day basis.
So that’s all I have for you today. I’m really excited to hear how this goes for you. And if you have any fresh ideas, if you’re excited about marketing for your business, so come find me on Instagram at Sabrina Gephardt photography, send me a DM and let me know what your light bulb moments are and what you’re most excited about.
Okay. That’s it for today, my friends. We’ll see you next week. Thanks so much for listening to the shoot it straight podcast. You can find all the full show notes and details from today’s episode at SabrinaGebhart. com backslash podcast. Come find me and connect over on the gram at Sabrina Gebhart photography.
If you’re loving the podcast, I’d be honored if you hit that subscribe button and leave me a review until next time, my friends shoot it straight.
