Starting a Wedding Photography Business - The Marketing Plan

Marketing Yourself

You've got your portfolio online via either SmugMug, Zenfolio, PhotBlog or a combination of those and your waiting for your first call or email and nothing. Where do you go from here? Have no fear, Google is here. Without a well defined marketing plan you will not see many returns from your online portfolio. There are many pitfalls along the way to a good marketing plan including wasted time, money, and increased frustration. It's taken me a while to figure it out but I've learned a lot about how to get the most from Google. As an example if you type into a Google, "Pensacola wedding photography" my website will pop up in two different areas, within organic search results and paid for results. I'm on the first page in my local area in several searches.

When it comes to marketing, as the new photographer stay away from print. What I mean to say is stay away from marketing off of the internet. It has very low returns in the beginning unless you are in a rural area where internet usage is at a minimum. The two primary areas of online marketing are paid for advertising and bum marketing. They work well separately and together. I use both for my wedding photography business. Both also require good SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Big Bad SEO

So here is the lowdown on SEO, it means making your website easier to find for search engines. It also means making sure that it is pulled up under searches that are relevant. You wouldn't want someone searching for horse tranquilizers to come across your wedding photography site. There is lots to SEO, but here are some basics.

Use of keyword phrases is the primary way you'll want to use to be SEO compliant. Basically, you'll want to include keyword phrases in your html code and throughout the text in your site to get the full benefit of the keywords. There are thousands of sites out there that teach you the ins and outs of keywords and how to place them. I joined a site for a couple of months for $40 a month and studied hard until I gleaned everything I could from it. Then I cancelled my membership. I suggest checking out affiliate marketing sites. They are geared toward making money online, but to be honest they have lots of good info on how to get your site up to snuff with regards to SEO.

Here are some of the basics. First, think like a customer. What do they search for? Then think about the buying process. A customer searching for "wedding photographer" is not ready to get a photographer yet; they are just looking at examples. So don't waste your time using these keywords. A customer searching for "Pensacola wedding photographer" is ready to look at local examples so that they can find the one they like. They might also search for "Pensacola wedding photography" so you'll need to consider that when you think of keywords, variations. You'll want to include your keywords in your title, header, and throughout your site. Take a look at my wedding photography site as an example. Once on the site in your browser, got to view, then view source code. You'll notice I've included lots of keywords. I use these keywords in my paid for advertising and in my bum marketing.

Paid For Advertising

Paid for advertising gets your website out to the searching populace without delay, but it does cost money. When it comes to paid for advertising for the wedding photography business, the primary players in the game are Google, Yahoo, and Bing. To be completely honest, Google is the only one you should worry about right now. Google's market share of the online searches comprises over 75% of the entire market. Yahoo, Bing and several others make up the remaining difference. I've tried advertising with Yahoo and Bing and to be honest can't say I was impressed with the results or the advertising methods.

Your keywords are going to be important here as well. You'll use them for your advertising and in creating a campaign. You'll set a daily budget that you don't want to go over. Just be careful, 5 dollars a day doesn't sound like much, but it quickly adds up. Never spend more than you can afford and remember this is no guarantee that you'll get clients, it just puts your link in front of their face. There are plenty of sites detailing how to setup your advertising. The affiliate marketing sites are good places to go to learn the ins and outs of advertising with Google.

Bum Marketing

Bum marketing is the poor man's advertising. It doesn't cost any money but takes time to get your site in front of people searching. Basically you will use a strategy of writing articles, blogs, and on forums to get more links going back to your site. If you do this correctly it will increase your ranking within Google's organic search results.

A note of caution, if you live in a major metropolitan area such as New York, or San Francisco you may not benefit from doing this due to the high level of competition. Then again, if you have nothing but time to write articles all day long it may work well for you no matter where you are. It depends on how specific your keywords are and how well you've defined your niche market. You can find out information about it by doing searches or once again by using the affiliate sites found on the internet.

Most importantly before you start there are a couple of key things to know. First, you can't just post in any forum. It has to be highly relevant to your subject matter. Wedding forums are good, photography forums work as well. Second, don't just post gibberish. Post meaningful content that helps people out. Just make sure to include your keywords within the content. You can usually include a link back to your site within your signature or within your text. If you are allowed to post a link within your text back to your site don't just use a link like "here" use your keywords like "Pensacola wedding photography". It matters to the search engines doing the indexing. Lastly, don't quite. I've been doing bum marketing along with paid for marketing for years and I never stop. If you want to stay on top you have to be vigilant.

Read On

Don't miss my other articles in the series. They cover other equally important aspects of starting your own wedding photography business and shouldn't be missed. Remember they shouldn't be your sole reference, but should help to get you thinking about a plan.