Old Fashioned Marketing Still Works in Wedding Photography

abril 20, 2020

Old Fashioned Marketing Still Works in Wedding Photography

The Internet has been brilliant for building a platform, but it is only one pillar… Did you know that ninety percent of small businesses fail within the first two years? With very few exceptions, having one way of marketing is the quickest way to join the 90%.

I want to share a little “relationship marketing” tip that helped me get the edge. Marketing is one of those things that I hear people in the photography world say all the time…

“Today, I have to do some marketing.”

“This week is all about marketing.”

“Oh, you know, I need to do some of that marketing stuff as things have gone a bit quiet.”

Truth is, marketing is a constant effort. It takes planning, consistency, creativity, hard work, and did I mention consistency?

One of the things I was taught early on when studying marketing was about the most dangerous number to any business — it’s always the number 1.

Why?

Because having only one stream of income is dangerous — what if that stream stops? Because having only one pillar of marketing is dangerous — what happens if you can no longer market in that way?

This is why one of my marketing pillars for the wedding side of my business is this: snail mail.

Do any of you like receiving something in the post? Do you ever order something off of Amazon, forget what it was, then get excited when something turns up at your door?

Clients are exactly the same. Having an email with 20% off doesn’t stand for anything really nowadays — people are bombarded with dozens of emails from everyone with free delivery, 20% off, buy now pay later, etc. The list goes on.

One thing that landed me around a dozen extra wedding booking in the last six months was a simple gift box:

Once a potential client gets in touch, several things begin to happen, one of which is they get delivered a little box (small enough to go through a letterbox without needing anyone to be home). Within that box are some recommended wedding suppliers with a personal note about each, some love hearts, branded pens, and a physical voucher towards an engagement session (if booking is secured).

Feedback so far has been that for some couples, it showed that if I was willing to go through that effort before their wedding day, I would be the right person for their wedding day as other people contacted simply sent a link to their pricing page with a “let me know if you have any questions” email.

Just something to keep in mind for the future!

About the author: Daniel Adams is a wedding and portrait photographer based in the UK. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. You can find more of Adams’ work on his website, Facebook, and Instagram. This article was also published here.

Image credits: Header image based on illustration by Tumisu.