News

As a wedding photography business owner, you spend months working side-by-side with your clients and providing them with great service leading up to the wedding day. Once wedding is over, your work is still not over! In fact, when it comes to providing your couples with a great experience and turning them into raving fans of your business, the work is just beginning.

By ensuring that your current customers are delighted and thrilled by you and your services, you increase the chances that they will continuously rave about you to their friends and family. This can lead to referrals and more bookings for your business. Here’s how to create raving fans from current customers.

Surpass Expectations

Leading up to the wedding day, you know the importance of responding quickly to emails and constantly helping your couples out whenever possible. After the wedding, it is crucial that you keep that same mindset and work ethic with your clients.

When it comes to delivering their images to them, continuously keep them updated on the status of their photos. More importantly, under-promise and over-deliver on your turnaround time! A common question for clients to ask is, “How long does it take for you to deliver the images to us?” When this is asked, be sure to give a realistic deadline, and then surpass it. An easy way for you to accomplish this is to send your images to a photo editing company, such as ShootDotEdit.

Wedding Photographer Kevin Jairaj continuously returns photos within half of the projected time. By managing his couples’ expectations and then surpassing them, he is thrilling his clients and turning them into raving fans of his business. In addition to this, he looks like a hero to the couples! By doing this, you’ll be able to build your reputation as someone that works faster than average and still manages to produce quality photos. This can lead your clients to recommend you to their friends and family as someone who works quickly and exceeds expectations.

Related: Why you need to relate to your clients to form lasting relationships

Tip: To effectively create raving fans, you need to constantly surpass their expectations. The more consistent you are with this, the more credible you and your business become!

Find Ways to Delight Clients

To gain the loyalty of your customers, you must continuously engage, nurture, and delight them. As you spend time getting to know them throughout the pre-wedding process and the wedding day, keep track of the personal facts and insights they shared about themselves. Once the wedding is over, use that information to your advantage to continue earning their loyalty. Here are a few ways to delight your couples:

Surprise them with small gifts: Pay attention to the small details you learn about your couples. If you find out they are moving into a new home after the wedding, send them a small house-warming gift. Even if it is something as simple as homemade chocolate chip cookies, it will thrill your clients. Remember, the gifts that you give your clients do not have to be expensive (or even photo related). By giving them something, it shows that you are interested in connecting with them on a personal level and see them as more than just clients.

Related: Justin and Mary Marantz have 5 marketing tips to help you attract ideal clients

Host a viewing party: Once your images are completed and you have added your Signature Style to them, invite your couple over for an image viewing party. Rather than instantly uploading the images to an online gallery and sharing the link with them through email, a viewing party is a great way to personalize the experience for how couples first see their wedding photos. Allow your couple to invite a few of their family members and close friends to highlight that this viewing party is catered towards them. This can also make your couple even more excited when they see their images, since their family and friends will naturally share their excitement as they see the photos.

Learn what your customers want

The customers that you book should be your ideal clients, so make it a goal to be in-tune with their wants and needs. While you are working to deliver images to your clients after the wedding, ask them if there is anything else you can help them with or provide to them. During the initial booking process, the couple may not have thought about ordering a certain product. Always give them an opportunity after the wedding to have a chance to add on additional items (without making them feel pressured to purchase more). Also, ask them if there is something they wished they could order that you do not currently offer. This is a great way to learn what your ideal clients are truly interested and what you can start offering to provide a better experience for your clients. By listening to their wants and taking action on it, your couples will feel valued and become bigger fans of your business.

Creating raving fans out of your current customers is one of the keys to a successful wedding photography business. Not only will they be impressed with their experience with you, but it is one step closer in converting them into lifelong clients for your business. For additional ways to increase the number of fans you have, download our Guide to Marketing for the Wedding Photographers!