Here at ShootDotEdit, not only do we provide photo editing services, we also connect with industry pros to bring you valuable information that can benefit your photography business. Since marketing for photographers is an essential part of finding and booking clients, we reached out to wedding photographer, Mark Condon of Shotkit, to find out his suggestions for the best marketing ideas for photographers you can use for your wedding photography business to attract and book new clients. Keep reading to learn more.
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Marketing for Photographers
Lead magnets are an online marketing photography tool to attract leads, i.e. to incentivize a website visitor to provide their email address. Whilst lead magnets can be a somewhat aggressive technique to quickly grow email lists, they can be used in a more delicate way to attract your next wedding photography client.
Image by Mark Condon of Gold Hat Photography
The basic idea of a lead magnet is that you’re providing something useful and free to a website visitor in exchange for their email address. The visitor needs to enter their email address to gain access to whatever material it is that you’re promising. Online marketers discovered that simply saying “sign up for our newsletter” was no longer working, and realized that now they needed to give away something of value.
In terms of what you as a wedding photographer can give away, access More Brides: Modern Techniques to Make More Money as a Wedding Photographer (find the link in the opening paragraph). Some of the examples of lead magnets can be posts such as “10 tips to planning your wedding”; “10 things you need to ask your wedding photographer”; “5 tips to look your best in a photo”, etc., etc. Anything you think a bride-to-be would find useful and interesting.
Note: If you can’t write the content yourself, just outsource it to a company that assists photographers with writing.
So now you have the actual “lead magnet” prepared, how do you go about “advertising” it? There are many other online photography marketing ideas to try and get the user’s attention – pop-ups, pop-unders, scroll boxes, scroll mats, welcome mats, ribbons, content lockers, sidebar widgets, etc., etc.
They range from passive (sidebar widgets) to aggressive (pop-ups), and used tastefully they all can have a place on your wedding photography website to attract your next bride. The key here is to not go overboard and to test, test, and test again. To save you some time, here are my recommendations if you’d like to dip your toe into “online lead generation.”
Related: 5 Ways to Market Your Wedding Photography Business – read them here!
1. Ribbon
These are horizontal bars that sit at the top or bottom of your webpage, often “stuck” in place as the user scrolls. You may want a ribbon that asks for the user’s email address in exchange for your lead magnet, or you may want one that simply shows a message, linking the user to your contact form. A good one for wedding photographers to use is something like “X many dates remaining. Get in touch to reserve your wedding.”
If you use colors and fonts that match your branding, Ribbons can be unobtrusive but attention catching enough to be effective at directing your visitor’s attention. Thankfully, there are several free options to create your own Ribbon quickly and easily, including Sumo Me (who calls it a ‘Smart Bar’) and Hello Bar. I also use the paid WordPress plugin Thrive Leads which offers way more options and some good analytics too.
Related: Print Media Marketing for Photographers: Will it Bring You Bookings?
2. Multi-Step Opt-In
A multi-step opt-in means the user is encouraged to click a button or a link, which in turn opens a pop-up window incentivizing them to enter their email address. There are studies to show that adding this extra step to the process actually increases conversions.
Multi-step opt-ins can be used well in the text content of your wedding-related blog posts. Rather than having an ugly opt in box in the middle of your blog post content, you can simply have one line saying something like “If you’d like to learn more about this wedding venue and 11 other of my favorites in Sydney, click here.” When the user clicks the link, a pop up is launched which contains the opt-in form, i.e. Name and Email Address.
Free options for creating multi-step opt-ins are unfortunately few and far between, so you’ll need to purchase a plugin such as Thrive Leads for this.
Related: How can you use social media in your photography marketing plan?
3. Timed Pop Up
People have a love/hate relationship with pop-ups. Users hate them since they’re obtrusive and annoying. Website owners love them since they convert well (i.e. they’re effective in getting users to enter their email addresses).
Getting this balance right is difficult, but there are many wedding photographers using them effectively to book their next bride. I’ve seen them used in conjunction with lead magnets, and sometimes merely saying something along the lines of “Enter your email address to receive my latest blog posts.”
I guarantee the lead magnet route is more effective, but either way, if you want to try your luck with pop-ups, there are many free options out there to create your first pop up, including Sumo Me. I prefer using Thrive Leads for pop-ups and all other lead generation activities since it allows you to display whatever opt-in form you choose, only to users who haven’t already subscribed to your list (i.e. only users who haven’t given you their email address will see the pop-up, for example). Functions like this are perhaps only relevant to sites with high traffic, but it’s something to keep in mind nevertheless.
As for the timing of the pop-up, it pays to experiment a little here. The best conversions I’ve found is by using a zero second delay (the pop up shows as soon as the webpage loads). Some believe that triggering the pop up to appear later can be more annoying, since the user is already engaged in your content, and the pop up becomes an interruption.
Related: Are you using content marketing to attract photography clients to your website?
4. Scroll Box
Similar to the Ribbon, this is another somewhat unobtrusive opt-in form that can be effective. The scroll box appears depending on how far the user has scrolled down your webpage, so usually attracts the user’s attention effectively. Incidentally, the ribbon can also be set to appear after a certain time too. Sumo Me offers a free way for you to experiment with a Scroll Box, and it works nicely on mobile too.
Whatever method you choose to try and gain your website visitor’s email address, be sure to limit your efforts to one method at a time. Also, I can’t stress enough how important it is to keep the opt-in form in line with your branding. Nothing will turn your bride away quicker than a red flashing bar asking her to enter her email address. Wedding photography is usually an emotional decision after all, so use the techniques above with care.
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Marketing ideas for photographers, like the ones mentioned above, help you entice ideal clients to learn more about you on your photography website. Which lead magnet for wedding photographers do you think will work best for your business? Let us know in the comments!
For additional marketing photography business techniques, download our Guide to Marketing for Photographers. Click the banner below to download it today and learn tips and tricks from industry leaders, all aimed toward finding, attracting, and booking your ideal clients!
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