There are so many ways to advertise and market your business and this article looks at all the offline methods you can use to really get your business out there.
wedding parties
There are plenty of wedding fairs out there – don’t necessarily pick the cheapest ones, pick the ones that appeal to your target market.
When you get inquiries at wedding shows, try to get the email address of interested people so you can send them additional literature or a follow-up email at a slightly later date. Any interested party visiting your booth might be tempted to give up their name and email address in exchange for a free report emailed to them afterwards. The future bride and groom will crowd around numerous stalls and yours will be one more. If you don’t follow up with an email, your data tends to get lost among all the other literature they collect and they’ll forget about it.
Contests and editorials
There are so many photo contests nowadays. Try to participate in as many competitions as you can. The more you earn, the more prestigious you will be seen and therefore help sell your services. Also try to get as much editorial content as possible in local publications. This isn’t always easy, as people and companies who want publishers like you are also bombing editorial staff. If you think of an interesting article with a good twist and provide lots of photos, try contacting all the local magazines and newspapers to see if they will print it. If they have some free space on the page and you’ve done the hard work for them in terms of wording and image preparation, they may post it for you. It might be a good idea to contact local charities and offer to photograph their events for free which could be worthy of a newspaper article. Or, for example, offer to shoot for a local radio station for free on-air advertising.
shop windows
A great way to advertise is by using the store window space. This could be at a hair salon or beauty salon, for example, somewhere brides-to-be frequent. You may have to pay for it, or some stores offer their window space if you are an existing customer, since you change the face of your window for a few weeks. You can also offer a commission for each wedding booked through them.
Affiliations with other wedding vendors
Contact other good wedding service providers (local wedding venues, car vendors, florists, wedding dress shops) in your chosen area and exchange details so they can recommend you if you recommend them. As an added incentive, you could provide them with free photos of your cars, flowers, or dresses that you’ve photographed at a wedding shoot. Bridal shops always need wedding photos and if you know a bride has bought her dress there, send some stunning photos of the bride and dress on a CD to the bridal shop and then give them permission to use the shots with marketing purposes (as long as they accredit you and pass your data on to potential customers). Then try hanging your framed photos in your stores for all to see. I have known photographers who have established themselves in major stores where they have a Wedding Services Department and have their marketing literature within their department. These stores sometimes participate in wedding fairs and if you’re already affiliated with them, it’s a good idea to do so with them and get their big name associated with you in this public domain.
Some wedding venues like to give information packs to potential clients, so provide them with an A5 or A4 brochure of your photos and services to include in this pack. This can be a good way to do business in those particular places. However, you may find that they are already affiliated with another photographer and like to stay loyal, but again, perseverance is the key and you may find a few who are willing to include you in their packages.
Once you are well established in a place it is a good idea to leave a wedding album to display in your premises and this album should show photographs of that particular place.
your own brand
Make sure you create your own identity that people crave. Market that brand with your logo in any publication you might be in (even if your name is only credited on one photo). Also establish a partnership with a well-known vendor (perhaps an elite venue) within your local area. Together they can run a newspaper/magazine competition and it’s amazing the response you’ll get when you have a well-known logo attached to and associated with yours.