More inquiries means more clients, and more clients mean a rockin’ biz. Here are 5 tips to help increase your inquiries, and if you have any others be sure to leave them in the comments section!
1. Instagram
Using Instagram goes beyond posting pretty photos and stories of what you ate for lunch. Be intentional with your content and the aesthetic of your feed. Imagine being a bride and searching for a photographer, what phrases would you search into google and then use those as your hashtags. If you’re trying to market a specific location, put the location in your name on your bio – For example, instead of having my handle be @megbradyhouse as well as my name underneath ‘Meg Bradyhouse’, I have my name as ‘Meg – Kauai Photographer’. That way when people go to Instagram and type in “Kauai Photographer” I’m one of the first profiles to pop up on the list, and they can see my full name from my handle. One of my favorite apps I use to plan out the aesthetic of my feed is “Planoly”, so you can see what color and type of shot you need for your next post to keep things consistent. Pay special attention to your most recent 9 photographs on your Instagram and ask yourself, if you just met your dream client, is this the first thing you want them to see? If it is, perfect. If it isn’t, make sure it is:).
2. Two Bright Lights
If the work is good and consistent, the more people who see your work the more traffic you’re going to get and the more inquiries you’re going to see. Two Bright Lights is a great platform to submit your galleries to publications that will extend your reach and increase exposure. You don’t need to be featured on Green Wedding Shoes to generate inquiries from publications, there are a ton of great blogs and social accounts both exclusive and non-exclusive that have a ton of reach to a specific type of client. Find which ones are a good fit for you and submit!
3. Vendor relationships
Get to know the vendors you like working with on a personal level. Don’t just “treat” them like your friend, actually go and be their friend. Invite them out for a drink or a coffee to get to know each other and find out ways you can help one another. Seek out vendors you connect with and find ways you can serve them and be of help to their business. After you work together, be sure to send them your Cloudspot gallery so they can use your photographs for marketing!
4. Photography Communities
When I first moved to Hawaii, almost all of my initial inquiries came from referrals from other photographers. I reached out to every single photographer I could find on the island to introduce myself, I offered to second shoot if needed, I took family photographs for them as a thank-you in advance and I initiated meetups to get to know each of them better and on a personal level. Not only have I made some amazing friends, but we are all now able to confidently refer work to one another since we personally know each other, have worked with each other, and want to help each other’s businesses succeed.
5. Consistent Content
If you are looking to increase your elopement inquiries, stop posting new-born photographs. If you’re looking to increase your lifestyle inquiries, don’t blog about weddings. Being consistent and intentional about the content you share with the world is key. Show what you want to shoot. When I decided to specialize in elopements, I had never shot an elopement in my life. I started off with creating my own content by setting up shoots in locations that fit my brand with the style I was looking for in my ideal client, and I started posting those. That year, each time I shot a large wedding or non-elopement, I began to only post photographs of the couple alone so it still fit within my elopement brand. In my first year of shooting elopements I photographed 30 couples, and although I was still shooting families and big weddings to pay the bills, I only posted something if it looked like it could have been an elopement. In my second year, I was able to shoot 90 elopements. Show what you want to shoot. If you build it, they will come 😉
Did you find this helpful? Share this post on Pinterest!
Facebook Comments