Marketing for Photographers: 6 Digital Marketing Tips To Get Started

Marketing for photographers has some challenges and although not expensive, it can be difficult at times to target the right people and businesses. But using digital marketing tools, this is simplified and ensures that you can reach your audiences easily and affordably.

Whether you’re a corporate, advertising, or wedding photographer, you can get started easily. There are tools that can help you launch your digital strategy and start promoting your photography services today.

I’ve listed here some good digital marketing tips to help you get started. And you can reach out to me below if you have any questions or visit my marketing for photographers page to learn more.

 

1. Invest in Google Ads

Google Ads marketing is an effective way for photographers to get started online. Using tools in this platform you can set up campaigns and target people that are searching for your services.

With it’s cost per click (CPC) model, you only pay for clicks and nothing else. So, it’s a performance based model and means you can save your budget and achieve a good return on ad spend.

 

2. Review your landing pages

Your website and the landing pages you create for your advertising campaigns are important. You should make sure they are fully optimised for visitors on all devices including desktop, mobile and tablet.

Use the PageSpeed insights tool to see how optimised they are and check the speed and make the recommended changes.

A fast loading page especially on Smartphones is important. People will leave quickly if this is not so and you’ll lose customers and still have to pay the advertising charges.

Also, check how engaged visitors are. And a good metric that helps you with this is Bounce Rate. This shows you how many people arrive and leave without visiting other pages on your website. Improve this to less than 50% by updating your content and making sure it speaks directly to your visitors. And check that your pages load quickly.

 

3. Conduct market and competitor research online

There are tools online that you can use to research your target markets and also competitors. To research the audiences you want to reach, you can use the Keyword Planner tool in your Google Ads account to see how many people are searching for photographers in your locations.

This shows you the potential of the market and helps you decide on a budget. This will be based on the average cost per click for the keywords that you find.

For competitor research, to see what advertising strategies other photographers are doing and the keywords they are using, use the SERanking platform. It has a competitor research tool that helps you see how much they spend per month on their Google Ads and what keywords and ads they have.

 

4. Target people who are searching

An effective marketing strategy for photographers is to target people who are actively searching for their photography services. As mentioned above you can set up a Google Ads account and create a Search campaign with keywords that you can bid on.

This means you should avoid setting up other campaigns like Display or Video because they’re unlikely to bring returns anywhere near those of Search ads.

That’s because people on Display and Video sites and apps, which are part of the Google Display network, are not actively searching. It’s more likely that they are browsing other content and not necessarily searching for a photographer at that point.

So, if you have a limited budget, which many advertisers do, especially at the beginning, focus on highly qualified people who are in the market for your services.

 

5. Track your enquiries or leads

Effective marketing for photographers should include tracking enquiries and leads. This includes people contacting directly from the ads or when they arrive at your website.

If you’re running Google Ads campaigns, you can set up this tracking in Conversions under Tools & Settings. You can track any form submissions on your website and also when people call the number on your website because you’ll be using a Google forwarding number.

And you can also set up call conversions to track when people call directly from your ads. This too uses a Google forwarding number. And you can use the lead form extensions to track when people contact you from the lead form in your ad.

However, for your website tracking, you should consider setting up goal tracking in Google Analytics. This will track all your traffic sources and not just Google Ads traffic. And you can use the templates in your Analytics account and import the goals into your Google Ads account.

 

6. Hire a PPC expert

If you decide to invest in Google Ads advertising, then you should also consider the support you’ll need to set up and manage your campaigns. One route you can take is to hire a pay per click (PPC) expert to help promote your photography business.

But check that they have experience working with other photographers. You should look at their case studies if they have any and check their reviews to see if they offer a good service.

And if they are a Google Ads specialist check that they are a Google Partner.

 

Case Study

Blink Imaging is a commercial and advertising photography business located in Glasgow with over 20 years experience. They contacted me to set up new campaigns. I created two new Search campaigns which led to a 20% increase in traffic and the click through rate increased above 10%. Read the full case study.

 

Get in Touch

Digital marketing for photographers through platforms like Google Ads helps to target people who are actively searching online. I’m happy to help create an effective marketing strategy for you and you can contact me below.