Marketing for Weddings

lakewebd

Hi All,
I shoot mostly Equestrian Activites or Pet Portraits, in 2007 I covered two weddings in the same weekend then had no time to market. Again I have a full summer of horse shows but still have some weekends open for weddings.

I have updated my weddings page, but am having trouble know where to market for weddings.

http://www.lakewebdesign.com/LoveStoryWeddings.html

Above is my weddings page link. I had a call last weekend for a potential wedding but without having an album to show them it kind of fell apart. I since have added links to Bay Photos Generic Online Albums.

I would be willing to do 2nd photographer just for the experience. Should I just call wedding photographers and let them know I'm available or should I contact wedding planners? How did you get started?

jeffreaux2

My grandmother always said "keep your house in order". I was reminded of this last weekend while watching Zack Arias perform a critque of another photographer's website. Ill link that video later in this post.

What I got from the critiques he did was basically that I have too much stuff in my portfolio....and what's there hardly represents my best work. I have a lot of work to do to fix that, but it needs to be done and will be a great summer project.

With his critiques still fresh on my mind I visited your website. There it seems you are selling web design, equestrian photography, wedding pho tography, dog or cat photography, family...children...and senior portraits. Thats quite a resume, but I found little for samples as part of a portfolio for much of the work advertised.

My suggestion would be to have more than one website separating web design from photography. Three sites.....to separate your "people" photography from pets and horse events may not be an altogether bad idea either.

...and so my advice is to "get your house (website) in order.

As for marketing, bridal shows, local publications, and word of mouth works. Our city is blessed(?) to have at least a dozen "society" type publications...monthlies...and bi-monthlies that circulate. I do not advertise, but imagine that's where I would do it if I were so inclined.

Here is a link to the series of videos I referred to......I think we can each find something of our own in these....
http://www.zarias.com/?cat=82



The idea of this is to simplify in one site what you are trying to sell yourself as. Just for fun, imagine searching for a florist....and stumbling onto a site where someone is advertising for floral arrangments, selling fresh produce, and...I dont know....diesel repair. All of these could be related, but your first inclination might be "this guy probably isn't very good at any of the three". That assumption could be wrong, but you are looking to spend your money with a specialist...and so you exit the site...and mouse down to the next one "justflowersdotcom" and make your purchase. Theres a 50/50 chance the second site is better at arrangments than the first, but you are happy either way.

Matt S

I have to second the Zack Arias videos. I have been watching them the past few days as well. Yesterday I did a major reorganization of my site, and today I cut about half the shots in my portrait portfolio. The other ones were not as bloated, but could still use some work.

While what Zack says is certainly not gospel, it does provide some good food for thought. He is really big on the "focus on one thing" view for a photographer. I myself disagree, I enjoy and do well in two major areas (people, natural history). Should I have two sites? Perhaps, but I have had many clients say they enjoyed the diversity shown by my site.

As to advertising, I throw out the occasional craigslist ad. And mostly it generates bad leads. However it has landed some very good commercial work, go figure. It also has landed a couple of nice weddings. For weddings my best has come from working with word of mouth, networking, and making friends with wedding planners. Word of mouth being the best by far!!! I had someone show up with a faded wrinkled old business card I had printed on my home printer when I first went into business. Their friend had dug it out of their wallet and recommended me. You never know when that referral will come back around. Other people have found great success doing the wedding fairs. I am trying to limit my weddings to no more than 2 a month, in order to concentrate on other work, so I skipped them this time.

BTW: your price on the budget wedding seems low for what you deliver. In fact the major difference is the albums. The other differences I would consider to fall into the "perk" category. I don't know that as a customer I could see doubling or trebling the price in order to get an album and some various other goodies. Many people are skipping the albums or doing it themselves. If I were a customer on any sort of budget I would choose your low end package and use the digital files to create my own album. While you and I know the quality is not the same, they may not. A 4x6 at high res actually blows up bigger than we would like, especially in something like a blurb book.

It's your baby, so please don't take any of this the wrong way. In the end your setup could be just right. These were just my first impressions.

Were it me, I would consider dropping the digital images from the low end package or limiting the number of those images delivered to something like 50. The other option would be to raise the price, bringing it closer to the higher end packages and increasing the chance that customers will want to bump up to get all those goodies.

lakewebd

Matt & Zack,

Thank you so much for the feedback.

I have thought about making a site just for weddings as I know exactly what you mean about the specialist concept.
The other conflict with having everything on one site is pricing, especially between pet and equestrian photography.

I had my budget package listed at $1195 last year but thought with the economy I would drop it to get people in. I like the idea of offering a limit of 4x6 images, 50 sounds good.

Word of mouth sounds like the best place to put my energy. I have tried putting ads in Craiglist but never received any response for weddings. I did a Christmas Card special there for Pets that worked well.

I will look at the link.

Snowgirl

lakewebd wrote:

Matt & Zack,

Thank you so much for the feedback.

I have thought about making a site just for weddings as I know exactly what you mean about the specialist concept.
The other conflict with having everything on one site is pricing, especially between pet and equestrian photography.

I had my budget package listed at $1195 last year but thought with the economy I would drop it to get people in. I like the idea of offering a limit of 4x6 images, 50 sounds good.

Word of mouth sounds like the best place to put my energy. I have tried putting ads in Craiglist but never received any response for weddings. I did a Christmas Card special there for Pets that worked well.

I will look at the link.

I tried a Kijiji ad and the only response I got was from another photographer in my area who was fishing for prices. Had she simply called and asked what prices i charged, i'd have told her - but instead she went through this elaborate ruse about getting a quote for her own family and wedding photos. I guess she didn't think I'd google her name to find out who she was. Wrong.

Snowgirl

Diversity on websites
On another note, a friend of mine on this list does horse shows, portraits and weddings and her site has albums and portfolios for all three - as well as a fine art album. She does beautiful work in all of these genres and I don't think the diversity destroys her credibility at all. (Yay Chrissy!)

lakewebd

I think I will work on a separate Wedding site, but keep all the options on my site. I have been looking at other wedding sites, and I can see they display a lot of sample images where as I link back to my Smugmug site.

I have been dragging my feet about contacting wedding planners, feeling insecure I guess.

I would really like to do a few as a second shooter. I studied and read a lot before doing my two weddings and think I got a nice range of shots. It was pretty intense, both were out of town, the second one was 1 1/2 hours from the first and required an overnight stay.

They both loved the photos.

So many wedding photographers list prices, it's weird that person went to such pains to get your prices. You must have been in their area.

zoomer

I have an add on the internet where I get about 40 percent of my weddings from 10 percent from the local wedding contractors book and 50 percent from word of mouth.
If your work is good and people like working with you the word will get out quickly.
Don't be afraid to do some free/inexpensive weddings at first just to get your name out there.

Snowgirl

lakewebd wrote:

So many wedding photographers list prices, it's weird that person went to such pains to get your prices. You must have been in their area.

Precisely. And I really wouldn't have minded telling her. My prices are what I need to charge - she can always underbid me - no problem. I'm just no longer willing to work for poverty wages. I went through the exercises in J. Harrington's book "Best Business Practices for Photographers" and set my prices accordingly. No big secret.

I just wish people would STOP trying to sell professional photography services on price alone. It screws the market for everyone and devalues the product completely.

JDrake

I think if you have strong images in your portfolio and that it is well organized, then you will be able to show your clients that you are versatile and have a good eye for photography. I do not think having multiple sepcialties hurts as long as your portfolio is strong. I have many specialties that I do in my business... mainly because I love them all. I love animals and I LOVE equestrian photography. My husband has a strong skill with nature and natural subjects. I also enjoy the challenge of capturing emotions at weddings etc.

I actually landed a corporate event this week from someone looking for a photographer in my area. The reason they called me and not one of the others they came across was because my portfolio had more than just ONe subject and I appeared that I would be open to shooting what they needed and not just weddings etc. So... a varied portfolio can help land jobs and separate you from your competition.. just make sure it's a strong porfolio and well organized to make sense on your website.

As far as advertising goes for weddings... I am still trying to figure that out myself. Craigslist is good for picking up some low budget weddings to build up a portfolio... I booked 2 from there last year. This year I have 100% referrals... none of the paid advertising I have done so far has yeilded any bookings for weddings... but at least I am getting my name out there for potential future brides who might remember me.

joshhuntnm

I have gotten quite a few gigs from Google -- Google local, I think. If you search for my city wedding photographer, I show up #2 in Google local. I am not exactly sure why that is (Does anyone really know the secrets of google?)
but a could of things that contribute, I think, are getting people to recommend you and external links.

the idea has crossed my mind if we could get, say 20 people on there to all agree to put each other's websites as links from ours it might help all of us in the rankings.

Art Scott

joshhuntnm wrote:

I have gotten quite a few gigs from Google -- Google local, I think. If you search for my city wedding photographer, I show up #2 in Google local. I am not exactly sure why that is (Does anyone really know the secrets of google?)
but a could of things that contribute, I think, are getting people to recommend you and external links.

the idea has crossed my mind if we could get, say 20 people on there to all agree to put each other's websites as links from ours it might help all of us in the rankings.

Josh,
I just did a GOOGLE search for wedding Photographer / wedding photographers Las Cruces NM and the first 2 listings are sponsored links : paid for thru adwords....the more you pay the higher the ranking.....so Shane Thomas is paying more than Screaming Lights Studio for the ranking......you are number 2 next to the Las Cruces NM Google Map and in balloon "B".......but in actual placement you are number 6......

yes a reciprocal links page would help.....I am will to trade links with anyone on here and also at the blog level also,I just need to get my site finished, but i can't decide on the home page look.....too many ideas litteraly shooting thru my mind at warp speed X 25.

joshhuntnm

Art Scott wrote:

Josh,
I just did a GOOGLE search for wedding Photographer / wedding photographers Las Cruces NM and the first 2 listings are sponsored links : paid for thru adwords....the more you pay the higher the ranking.....so Shane Thomas is paying more than Screaming Lights Studio for the ranking......you are number 2 next to the Las Cruces NM Google Map and in balloon "B".......but in actual placement you are number 6......

yes a reciprocal links page would help.....I am will to trade links with anyone on here and also at the blog level also,I just need to get my site finished, but i can't decide on the home page look.....too many ideas litteraly shooting thru my mind at warp speed X 25.

right; I wasn't counting the paid ads

mmmatt

zoomer wrote:

I have an add on the internet where I get about 40 percent of my weddings from 10 percent from the local wedding contractors book and 50 percent from word of mouth.
If your work is good and people like working with you the word will get out quickly.
Don't be afraid to do some free/inexpensive weddings at first just to get your name out there.

who is this internet add through zoomer? Also... so many wedding photogs say it is a really bad idea to start out with cheap/free weddings for fear you may get labled that way and never break out of it. I think we all have to do a few like that but don't fill your calander with them maybe. I think part of that may, understandably, be based on more experienced photogs not wanting to get undersold, but who knows. I hear it more often than not as a big no-no.

Matt

zoomer

Hi Matt,
I can only speak from my own experience.
My first year I did 3 free weddings.
My second year I die 5 weddings for $250. and 1 free one.
My third year I did 11 weddings for an average of $800. and turned away 6 weddings cause they wanted already booked dates.
This year I have already booked 16 weddings for $2000-$2500. and turned away another 15 because they wanted to book already booked dates.

So in my experience the internet propoganda you speak of has not been true. I have had no trouble increasing prices as my quality has increased.
Next year we play to jump prices again.

I will send you a PM on the internet add.
If you look up "boise wedding photographer" on google you will see it, right there on the top.

mmmatt wrote:

who is this internet add through zoomer? Also... so many wedding photogs say it is a really bad idea to start out with cheap/free weddings for fear you may get labled that way and never break out of it. I think we all have to do a few like that but don't fill your calander with them maybe. I think part of that may, understandably, be based on more experienced photogs not wanting to get undersold, but who knows. I hear it more often than not as a big no-no.

Matt

mmmatt

Thanks zoomer. That is good to know. I've been booking a few at what I feel is a fair price, but I have to admit that I would prefer to be shooting every weekend. Oh well. Hopefully I don't end up taking a step back next year to book more. last year I started shooting through other studios and didn't like that for the most part. I want to do things my way, and I want a more personal relationship with the client. I'm still taking some subcontracted bookings but trying to get the bulk on my own.

Thanks again!

matt

zoomer wrote:

Hi Matt,
I can only speak from my own experience.
My first year I did 3 free weddings.
My second year I die 5 weddings for $250. and 1 free one.
My third year I did 11 weddings for an average of $800. and turned away 6 weddings cause they wanted already booked dates.
This year I have already booked 16 weddings for $2000-$2500. and turned away another 15 because they wanted to book already booked dates.

So in my experience the internet propoganda you speak of has not been true. I have had no trouble increasing prices as my quality has increased.
Next year we play to jump prices again.

I will send you a PM on the internet add.
If you look up "boise wedding photographer" on google you will see it, right there on the top.