Photography Business Marketing Guide

2 Photography business branding and design

Branding your photography business is like taking the perfect photo - you need to put strategic effort into developing your image for maximum visual impact. The following details what you need to do to brand your photography business for success.

Importance of a branded image

Your brand image visually represents what you do, how you do it better, who you do it for, and your company’s mission and values. Cultivating a powerful brand goes beyond creating a logo; it’s practicing what you preach to establish your expertise and demonstrate to customers why you’re the best photographer for the job.

How to identify your branded image

Define your niche

Do you take sports photos for news publication? Celebrity photos at the
Oscars? Wedding photos? Family portraits? Define exactly what you do
so you can identify your target audience.

Describe your benefits

What is unique about your photography business, and how does that benefit your customers?
Your unique selling proposition should tell customers what’s in it for them.

Know your customers

List your top customers and identify shared traits to create an ideal customer profile. What are their desires? Fears? Dreams? Problems? Your brand should cater to these.

State your mission

Where does your business stand today? Where do you want it to be in five years or ten years? Your mission should include who you are and where you're going.

Sum it all up

Identify common themes in your answers to develop a tagline that succinctly defines your photography business. A tagline can be clever and memorable, so long as it also suggests the unique benefits you offer.

Once you’ve identified your brand, you can bring it to life through design. Your logo, colors, font choices, and style guide work to visually represent your photography business. When prospects see your logo and other visual assets and instantly recognize what company they represent, you’ve developed a strong brand.

3 Photography business marketing tools

Land your first customers or grow your established photography business with proven marketing tools for photographers.

Print business cards to hand to potential customers, place in direct-mailers, and leave with partners such as bridal shops and wedding planners. Showcase your photography on your business cards, and consider ultra business card printing – featuring an attractive and attention-getting stripe of edge color – for the ultimate visual impact.

Make your own business card online fast and with our free arts and entertainment business card templates.

Try the free design tool

Print custom flyers to place in locations your customers frequent, as well as partner locations and on public bulletin boards.

Distributing free calendars to potential customers is the perfect way to showcase your photography skills. Feature your best shots each month in a themed calendar your audience is likely to appreciate. What better way to put your talents on display 365 days per year?

If you want to take photos for advertising, business, and other corporate accounts, you should print a corporate identity kit that includes a personalized letter on company letterhead, your business cards, your brochure, a flyer, and prints of your work, all in a well-branded pocket folder.

Send postcards to a targeted mailing list. Include a coupon or coupon code to influence response; for example, a portrait photographer might offer a time-limited discount on family photos. Consider the timing of your direct-mail postcards. Wedding photographers, for example, might fare well during wedding season. Command attention at the mail box with colored-edge ultra postcard printing.

Use our free arts and entertainment templates and online design tool to create your own photography postcards in a flash!

View templates

Banners are cost-effective marketing tools that put your business in front of hundreds or even thousands of potential customers daily. Print banners to promote specials at your photography studio or to draw attention to your home studio.

Print booklets that showcase your best work, and hand your portfolio to potential customers to make it easy for them to decide to hire you.

Print car door magnets to market your photography business on the go, wherever you go. Print refrigerator magnets featuring shots that will resonate with your audience to brand your studio every time they get a glass of milk.

List the benefits of your photography service in a brochure that showcases your best work. Print brochures to hand to prospects, send via direct-mail, leave in racks at partner locations, and to leave behind anywhere your audience is likely to find them.

Print bumper stickers or stickers to place in the window of your car. Create sheet stickers or roll stickers to brand your photography studio anywhere. If you’re located in a busy area, you can print custom window clings to promote your exclusive offers. Or, print large-format wall graphics to demonstrate your skillful artwork to the masses.

Design your own photography stickers with free sticker templates and our online sticker maker.

View templates

Place your photography portfolio on your website, post images on your Facebook and Pinterest pages, email exclusive offers to past customers, and upload your best shots to photography portfolio repositories.

4 Photography business marketing: copywriting

A picture can be worth a thousand words, but you'll need more than beautiful photography to attract customers. Professional copywriting is essential to the success of any marketing campaign. Copywriting complements your photography because it tells customers how to feel and motivates them to take the next step in the purchasing process.

Four steps for writing winning photographer business copy

5 Photography business marketing: distribution

Your marketing materials won't do any good if you don’t distribute them. The following details potential distribution strategies for your photographer marketing campaigns.

Direct mail is proven to be one of the best ways to put your promotions in front of an audience that’s likely to respond. Before you begin, understand the 40/40/20 rule of direct marketing.

Repetition is key to direct-mail; it not only increases your brand recognition, it increases the likelihood your promotions will reach the right people at the perfect time.

Banners, posters, and flyers can be placed in outdoor areas as well as outdoor and indoor public spaces: bulletin boards, high-traffic intersections, strip mall entrances, and shopping center walls. You can partner with non-competing businesses that share your customer base and hand out one another’s marketing tools. Car door magnets, stickers, wall graphics, and window clings make big statements your audience can’t ignore.

You can take out ads in targeted publications, local newspapers, on social media, and on local or targeted blogs and websites.

Incorporate tracking mechanisms into your marketing tools whenever possible. Coupons, coupon codes, special numbers, unique URLs, and other devices make it easy to measure success.