With over 2.6 million weddings occurring in the U.S. each year, there is no shortage of couples for you to photograph. With an abundance of weddings happening each year, you have the luxury of determining who your ideal clients are and focusing on shooting those weddings. Once you determine this though, how do you properly market to them?
When it comes to your marketing efforts, 80% of it should focus on couples who are engaged. Glowing with happiness, these newly engaged couples are soon going to be planning every aspect of their wedding, from the color scheme to the music selection, to the photographer. They will have several photography options, so it is important that you stand out! It is crucial to continuously give to your target market that is recently engaged. Provide content that is relevant and helpful, and prove to them that they can trust you. Here are a few ways to use your content to attract engaged couples to your photography business.
Solve their problems
As a wedding photographer, you are an expert in all things relating to the big day. Because of this, you should create useful content that will help assist engaged couples in their journey to the wedding day. To determine the topics you should focus on, do some homework – what are some subjects that your past clients wished they had known during their engagement process? Are there problems that you can help them overcome or tips you can share that will make certain processes simpler?
Create content that answers their questions before they even need to ask them. You already have the images and the expert knowledge – all you need to do is organize it and share it with them. Remember, you are connecting with engaged couples at a time when they need help (even if they don’t realize they do!).
Related: Reinvent your brand with inspiration from one of photography’s biggest influencers, Joe Buissink!
Generate the Content
Once you determine a few problems that you can help engaged couples solve, you then need to figure out the best way to deliver the content to them. This can be done through several channels, such as newsletters, blog posts, or guides. All of these mediums are great ways to share content with engaged couples, because you can include images and make them personable.
Newsletters
On your website, give contacts the opportunity to receive newsletters from you. In order to ensure that you are giving your contacts relevant content, as they sign up to receive your newsletter, ask a question that helps you know which stage of the wedding process they are in. For example, you want to provide different content to an engaged couple that is looking for a photographer than to a couple that has already had their wedding photographed by you. In your newsletter, provide weekly tips that help couples make it through the stressful planning phase. Include your favorite vendors to work with, along with how to pick out the perfect engagement shoot location.
Blog Posts
Blog posts are a great way to curate several short posts that can help solve problems for engaged couples. Is there a common question you always receive from couples during consultations? Create a blog post about this, and include some of your images in the post as well! Along with using blog posts to provide tips to couples, this is a great resource for them to view your recent work. Ensure that your blog is updated to showcase your best images from recent weddings and engagements.
Within each blog post, include keywords that your ideal couples might be searching for. To determine keywords that your couples may be using when searching for a photographer, use an Incognito browser window and type in your search term. For example, if you specialize in barn weddings, begin typing in that search term. While you are typing, the phrases that pop up are automatic suggestions that Google thinks are popular, based on what others have searched. This is a great way for you to learn some of the best keywords to include in your posts and attract your ideal clients to your site!
Guides
Similar to blog posts, select a topic and create a mini guide around it. For example, couples who are engaged will be looking for a venue to have their wedding at. Create a guide on how to select the perfect wedding venue. Since you already have a collection of images from venues represent your target market, this is a simple yet effective guide to create. Share this on Facebook and target couples who are recently engaged – this way, the content is in front of the right group of people. Remember to boost the post to gain more traction!
Tip: Free up your time so that you can spend it working on your content by partnering with a wedding photo editing company – your images will look their best and you can feature them in all of your relevant content!
Create Contests
A great way to entice couples that are on the hunt for a photographer is through contests that encourage interaction. When you use contests that promote sharing your images, you are expanding your reach. Engaged couples that do not follow your page may see your contest shared throughout social media by their friends and family, resulting in the engaged couples clicking through to see what else you have to offer. There are several social platforms that you can use to help spread the reach of your contest, so take time to analyze the various ones you can use.
Remember, newly engaged couples are stressed out and overwhelmed, and you have the opportunity to help them. Sometimes, it only takes one blog post, one guide, or one moment that resonates with an engaged couple for them to book you. You have to be consistent and create content that directly applies to your target market. If you do not have a targeted marketing plan to reach clients, it is possible you are missing out on additional bookings. Find out how you can book those extra weddings and more with our Guide, Marketing for Wedding Photographers!
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