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Photography clients are really hard to come by these days, which is why it is so important to learn how to communicate with photography clients in order to retain the ones you already have.
If your business is in a good place, but you just need some help learning how to retain more photography clients, then this article is for you.
But, I’ve seen my fair share of brave souls who just started a photography business this year and wanted to make sure that they get something out of this article as well. So, I’m also going to walk you through how to get more photography clients, too.
Besides, nobody should be saying no to more photography clients anyways!
Make Your Portfolio Work For You
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Photography clients are attracted to photographers who can make anything look good, which is why your portfolio is such a great resource to you.
The first way to make your portfolio work for your business is to make sure that your portfolio showcases a wide range of photography clients. Photography clients want to know that you’re an inclusive photographer, so if your portfolio currently only showcases young white women, it won’t appeal to a wide array of people.
The second way to make your portfolio work for you is to make sure that it is cohesive. If you’re trying to do too many things with your portfolio, then people may get bored clicking through photos that don’t pertain to them and go to somebody else’s site. If you do both family and newborn photography, for example, create two different portfolios filled with each subject so that your potential photography clients can find exactly what they’re looking for.
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One final way to make your portfolio work for you is to create a blog that links to it. Your blog should be filled with helpful resources that your clients may want to learn about, i.e., how to photograph their own children or how to use a Photoshop preset. If you have a blog that links to your portfolio, more potential photography clients will see it.
Do the Same With Your Social Media Accounts
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I’ve found that photographers often don’t pay enough attention to either their portfolios or their social media accounts, but your social media accounts play a huge role in gaining photography clients.
You should be posting to each one of your social media accounts on a daily basis (Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram). I understand how overwhelming this can be, which is why I suggest that you create a social media calendar at the beginning of each month. It will take a few hours and can be really draining if social media isn’t your thing, but it saves you a ton of time creating posts over the duration of the month.
Make sure the content you are posting is something people are actually wanting to see because if every single one of your posts just looks like a money grab, people won’t keep following you.
If you want to make your life a whole lot easier, you can also create a portfolio that updates with the images you post on your social media accounts.
Learn More:
Create a Facebook Ad Campaign
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Whether you love Facebook or hate it, the fact of the matter is that most of your photography clients are likely using it.
Facebook ad campaigns are incredibly cheap, too, which means you can reach people in your area without spending a ton of money upfront. In fact, you only have to spend $1 to get started.
Facebook ads allow you to target people in specific areas of your town. Conversely, you can target people by gender or age. If you want to get really specific with it, you can also target people based on their interests. So, if you’re a wedding photographer, then you could target your ads toward people who are following wedding brands.
Plus, since Facebook has been around so long, they understand how to make things really user friendly, so even if you’ve never created an ad campaign before, the process is simple.
Text Your Clients
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This is likely one of the most important photography business tools I’ve ever purchased for my business and will be one of yours if you implement it.
One-to-one business texting is a way for you to conveniently talk to your photography clients in order to retain them in the long term.
Think about it. The last time you were on a website and needed to ask a question of a customer service representative, were you more likely to call them or more likely to use a text box if one was available? I know the answer for me. I’d rather not wait on the phone if I didn’t have to.
One-to-one business texting is the same idea. It allows you to text your clients to remind them about upcoming photoshoots, to send them their invoices, or to ask them for feedback about their experience.
photo by COMiCZ via iStock
One-to-one business texting helps you retain clients because you can keep building a relationship with your client, but on their time and on their schedule. Unlike that website chat box I talked about above, one-to-one business texting allows your photography clients to feel like they’re talking to a real person.
It’s also a great way for people to ask you questions that they may otherwise forget about. Instead of trying to remember a question they wanted to ask you about their photoshoot or about one of their deliverables, they can ask you immediately even if it’s in the middle of the night. So, your clients end up happier with their end product.
But, unlike a lot of other marketing tools that can feel really formal, one-to-one business texting prioritizes a conversational style. It allows your clients to learn more of your personality and feels more like a face to face conversation than anything else. This not only helps you to retain clients but it helps you to have a better relationship with those clients because people are less willing to be rude to someone they feel like they know.
You do have options for picking a one-to-one business texting platform, but I think that Podium is far above their competition.
Not only does the Podium platform host business texting, but it actually pulls every single conversation you have on any other platform and puts it in one place so you never forget about a client. With Podium, you never have to open Gmail, Facebook Messenger, or Yelp again.
Plus, Podium has a free trial so that you can start implementing one-to-one business texting into your business before you pay for anything out of pocket.