4 Simple Wedding Photography Marketing Steps

Running a wedding photography business is about a lot more than shooting photos. You need to know everything from photography to accounting to website design. And perhaps most important is the topic of Wedding photography marketing.

We’re going to lay out some steps to grow your wedding photography business without spending a lot of money. Some of the best wedding photography marketing tips and tools are free and require more hustle than they do capital. We suggest you find which tools resonate with you, your brand, and your personality.

Download the printable marketing companion worksheet here for more marketing photography ideas.

Let’s discover how to market your photography business! And then head back and read about business for photography.

wedding photography marketing

If you’re familiar with our wedding photography tips for beginners or any of our tips for wedding photographers, you know that anytime we give advice we try to get you to think the right way first. It’s the same with your wedding photography marketing plan.

The question of how to market wedding photography is complex, there is no one size fits all wedding photography marketing strategy. You might have to try a few things and see what works for you and what fits your style and values. For us, referrals are huge and treating our clients well has always led to more clients.

There are numerous marketing ideas from getting published in wedding blogs, blogging, SEO (search engine optimization), pinterest, instagram, facebook, photographer listings, bridal shows, paid advertising, and more. I suggest starting with things that are free and beware of guaranteed “hacks” and people selling “quick fix” solutions. The following wedding photography marketing tips will get you started and feel free to reach out if you want a deeper dive into any of them.

1. finding and serving your wedding photography clients

If you’ve read anything about wedding photography marketing, you’ll come across this idea of finding the perfect client. Who is your ideal client and what is your target audience? It’s important not to skip this step because when you find the right clients, serving them will become something you’re passionate about.

Additionally, the right prospective clients will not only love what you do, they’ll be invested in your success. Our best clients come from our best clients. Our favorite days and our best work come from our favorite clients.

When a couple is a right fit, creativity flows and stress disappears. When a couple is a right fit, there is a sense of mutual respect and gratitude. And when a couple is a right fit there are fewer compromises in terms of price, post-production, style, and joy.

the right fit

There’s probably a good Venn diagram here of the photography style fit, the personality fit, and the budget fit. The ideal client will be someone who loves your specific style of photography, connects with your personality, and values your work at the price you need to charge.

Once you find a couple that’s the right fit, your goal is to serve them by creating an amazing experience as well as breathtaking photography. While client experience doesn’t seem like marketing, it absolutely is. If your clients have a blast, they’re going to spread the word and it’s going to help you get future work.

Additionally, if you create a great experience for your couples then you’ll benefit from the earned trust and respect. The more fun they’re having, the more fun you’re having, and the better your work is.

Here’s the fact:

Serving your clients well will serve you well.

You will love what you do.
You will get referrals and reviews.

What does a good client experience look like? And how do you find the right clients? It’s all about your brand, so we’ll talk about that next.

2. developing your wedding photography brand

Branding, branding, branding. This is a term we get tired of hearing but that’s super important in wedding photography marketing. The stronger your brand is, the more targeted your audience is, the more likely you’re going to attract the right clients.

Take some of our friends:

J La Plant Photo: The moment you step onto their website you see their unique branding, they’re not your typical wedding photographer. You don’t see light, airy, flowery photos on their website. Instead, their website is covered with dramatic lighting and talk about things like ALT sessions.

Compare that to our friends at Gillespie Photography who talk about the moments of your wedding day. You don’t see photos of wedding cakes and flowers, but you do see more classic photography with bright vibrant colors and most importantly, all the emotion.

Versus if you look at our website, it’s pretty clear that we’re adventurers. We specialize in mountain weddings and adventurous couples. Moments are important to us too and we do some dramatic lighting in low light conditions but the most notable thing you see is our “love. adventurously.” brand.

styles and personality

When you cruise around looking at different wedding photographers you’ll see that there are a few different themes that various photographers fall into. Be sure to check out our post on understanding wedding photography styles. Wedding photography styles vary even more these days in terms of branding, photographer personality, they way we work, the types of photos we shoot, and how we post-process the photos.

The post-processing style typically reflects the brand, personality, or way a photographer works. For example, a dramatic brand is going to edit their photos with some extra drama. A trendy brand is going to use some trendy presents.

Branding, therefore, is the language you use as well as the photos your show. It’s everything you do to show who you are as a person and a photographer and why someone is the right fit for you.

on diversification

It’s a balance, sometimes a tricky one, the more you niche yourself down the more you limit yourself. However, the more you find your niche, the more you will love what you do. It’s important to build both a sustainable business as well as one you love.

There’s definitely a lot of people that encourage you to specialize, specialize, specialize. However, unless you’re sure you can make a living only shooting Star Wars themed weddings, you might want to leave a little breathing room. For example, photographers that specialize in elopements probably did amazing in 2020 whereas photographers that specialize in big weddings didn’t.

3. driving traffic through effective wedding photography marketing

Once you have a solid brand, you have to get traffic to your business. The old saying of “if you build it they will come” doesn’t apply to the brand. You have to do more work and build some traffic wedding photography marketing.

The good news is that you can easily promote your wedding photography business online. And not all wedding photography advertising costs money. This is where SEO, blogging, social media, photographer listings, and paid advertising comes in.

Think about how a bride goes about searching for a wedding photographer. Maybe they just google, “wedding photographer near me.” Then they click around and realize they don’t like anyone they’ve found.

search engine optimization

Their next step is to google, “timeless wedding photographer” or any other number of adjectives. You want to be found either when they perform their initial search or when they start to narrow it down. This is where SEO comes in.

You’ll want to do SEO to optimize your site for keywords that a potential bride is searching for. My favorite tool is Ubersuggest, it helps you research keywords and find the best topics to target.

Once you optimize your site, SEO doesn’t end there. You want to grow the authority of your site and one great way to do that is blogging and doing keyword research for each blog post. Once your web pages and blog post start to rank for SEO, you’ll grow the amount of traffic you’re getting to your website.

listings, social media, and more

Other ways to get traffic to your website include social media and photographer listings. Some couples search listings such as The Knot for all of their wedding vendors. If you’re listed there, that’s one more place for couples to find you and it’s kind of like a marketing agency for wedding photographers but you need to track the ROI to see if it’s worth it.

Not to mention, it also provides a backlink to your website that can help increase your domain authority. Trello is a helpful app for creating a blog calendar or tracking your marketing plan.

paid wedding photography advertisements

Lastly, you can research how to advertise wedding photography through paid advertisements.
If you plan to advertise wedding photography on google ads or social media ads, make sure you track what works and monitor your ROI.

4. converting traffic is the goal of wedding photography marketing

The next step for your wedding photography marketing is to convert traffic into leads. How are you going to take someone that finds your website and turn them into someone that hires you?

Somewhere on your website, preferably a lot of places, you need to show couples how to contact you. We use a contact form that integrates with our client management software Tave. The Client Management software allows us to track leads so that we can follow up, sent quotes, and track statistics such as where couples find us and why they don’t hire us.

It’s good to have a plan for what you’re going to do with an inquiry. Will you reply with an e-mail or a phone call? What will you say and how will you say it?

from inquiry to conversion

They’re shopping pricing, photography styles, photographer personalities, professionalism, responsiveness, and more. Make sure you carry out your brand into this communication too.

One example is that we love to have meetings with potential clients. It’s a great way for them to meet us, get to know us, see our work, and ask us any questions that they have. Often, a meeting can confirm their decision or calm any hesitation they have.

On the other hand, some couples are quick to make decisions and they don’t want to spend time on a bunch of back and forth. They reach out ready to book and the harder I make it for them to say yes, the more likely they’ll change their mind.

Therefore, I think it’s good to build an e-mail that you plan to use for inquiries but I also think you should customize it for each couple. Show the superior personalized service that you’re offering.

build your wedding photography marketing strategy

Lastly, you need to build your wedding photography marketing strategy for continual marketing. How often are you going to post on the blog or social media? How often are you going to do some maintenance on your website for SEO?

You can add in other things like running ads and going to bridal shows or posting flyers around. Another great idea is to network with venues, planners, and other wedding vendors. Don’t discount wedding photographers, it’s not always a competition and it can be a win-win.

There are only so many Saturdays for weddings so if I’m already booked but my friends aren’t I can pass them leads and vic versa until we’re all booked up.

Regardless of what techniques you use, wedding photography marketing requires maintenance. Even if it’s just remembering to treat your clients well, it’s something to be doing rather than something that’s done.

4 Wedding Photography Marketing Steps to Grow Your Business

Hopefully these tips helped you discover how to promote wedding photography business.

Find and serve your clients.
Build your brand
Drive traffic to your business
Convert that traffic

To walk through these steps with us, download the printable marketing worksheet here.

Next, make sure to get our free Build Your Life e-guide. And you might enjoy checking out this ND filter guide or our recommended reading list.

Recent Building a Life and Tips for Wedding Photographers you might enjoy are below.

stay in touch with more tips

We are Marc and Brenda Bergreen, a husband and wife photography team specializing in outdoor weddings and other adventures. Capturing people in nature and the mountain lifestyle is a passion that became a dream that became a life.

We don’t link to a lot of things but when there are books or gear we love we’ll share it and links to Amazon are affiliate links.

Based in Evergreen, CO we travel throughout the state as Colorado wedding photographers. Don’t hesitate to contact us and let us know how we can help! Be sure to follow us (weddings instagram & adventures instagram) and/or like us (facebook) to stay tuned.

In the meantime, remember to…

4 Simple Wedding Photography Marketing Steps to Grow Your Business

wedding photography marketing