Weddings: Getting your name out there / Advertising

8utters

8utters

Messages
1,449
Edit My Images
Yes
Just a quick question about wedding photography.

Apart from word of mouth networking, are there any other useful ways to advertise yourself as a wedding photographer? Is it worth advertising in Yell? What about bridal magazines and shops?

Everything is set up and ready (website, price structure, portfolio etc), just need to sort out some advertising.
 
Get yourself on google local business, I get a lot of visits through that from searches for wedding photographer area/region/postcode/etc.

Bridal shops, hairdressers, etc. are also a good source for referrals too. :thumbs:
 
Yeah did think of bridal shops. Will get in touch with some local ones.

Are bridal magazines worth advertising in?
 
I gave up on paid advertising a couple of years ago, I don't even bother with wedding fairs. I just rely on word of mouth/referrals plus traffic from search engines. But I only do about 10 weddings a year and it's not an area I heavily promote so maybe I'm not best placed to answer on bridal mags - but in my experience advertising has never covered the cost so I found better ways to find and keep clients/work.
 
I'm in a similar position to pxl8 with the number of weddings per year. The cost of advertising in a Nationwide bridal magazine would be prohibitively expensive for me. I think you're better off concentrating on your local market to start with.
 
Magazine advertising is very costly and a mistake (in my opinion) I made when I first set out. Have your car signwritten (tastefully :)) its not that expensive and its the best advertising you'll ever do. Google all the free business listings and fill them in. A good one I get a lot of work from is www.freeindex.co.uk.
Get a website up and running because in my opinion this is the first thing people look for.
Because I am well established now I agree with the others most work comes from the reputation you create.
 
Karen said:
Magazine advertising is very costly and a mistake (in my opinion) I made when I first set out. Have your car sign written (tastefully :)) its not that expensive and its the best advertising you'll ever do. Google all the free business listings and fill them in. A good one I get a lot of work from is www.freeindex.co.uk.
Get a website up and running because in my opinion this is the first thing people look for.
Because I am well established now I agree with the others most work comes from the reputation you create.
Click to expand...


you could place an add in a local church mag , very cheap . i get all my work from word of mouth . weddings / portraits .

as for getting the car done .good idea but don`t get the car painted , when you come to sell it who will want to buy it unless you go to the expense of having it resprayed .

so i would check out vista print for car magnetics`s , just had some done . not tried em yet , but for the cost it is worth a try .

also get some flyers printed . these again can cost alot so we had an idea .

we are using 5 photo`s 3 from weddings and two from portraits . with some advertising on them . we are using photo box .

the idea is we will do one side off a street with one photo flyer's and the other side with a different one . we want to see if one add brings in more than the other .
but again not at great cost . for 1500 From £0.10 each. Just £0.05 when you buy any 500 or more.
we only do a small # of weddings a year and the same in portraits . it all depends on how much work you want each year .

Rog :thumbs:
 
we have the magnetic door signs on both our cars.suprising how many people ask you about it when you get out of the car.

leaflet drops in a local biz mag have worked for us too.
although ours are double sided .studio one side, weddings the other.
we tried yell.com for a year. what a wste of dosh that was.
ALWAYS carry cards with you.
i often get into conversations with people and mention Rainbow(thats us) and give them a card.
get yourself known around other wedding suppliers . cars/cakes/deresses etc.
we hold cards in our studio for a load of other service suppliers, and they do the same for us.
recomendation form suppliers goes a long way.
oh , vista print did our car magnetics too.
just remember to take em off on the motorway. we lost one a couple of weeks ago.

mark.
 
Hmmm yeah car advertising is a good idea, hadn't thought of that.

I had thought of flyers actually, originally had a plan to put them through the letterboxes in the richer areas of Manchester, might be able to get some business out of that.

Oh and website is sorted, already designed it and built it. Just waiting for the domain to be added onto my account.

I'l defo add to the free index site, looks good.

Thanks for the help guys :)

Oh and here's our site, tell me what you think of it:

http://www.noahgoodrich.co.uk/north

(Domain will change when it's been processed in about 24 hours ish. The porfolio section isn't finished aswel, going to change some of the images, will be adding some more today hopefully).
 
A couple of notes re the website :

First page is text, you're a photographer, the first thing clients should see is images, make a strong first impression.

Your 'online photo album' is an add-on, or included in the gold package - why ? You should include this as a matter of course - not for the clients, but for you. It's an online world, you should be doing everything to make it as easy as possible for the widest available audience to see and purchase your work.
 
Yeah i'm gonna be changing the start page, those images are just kinda placeholders. Will put better, bigger ones on there today or tomorrow.

With regards to the photo album - I hadn't intended it to be a place for the people who buy the gold package to purchase prints, but more of a way to have their wedding photos online for friends and family to see.

I have discussed an online print purchase system thing with my other photographer, we will probably have that too.
 
8utters said:
but more of a way to have their wedding photos online for friends and family to see.
Click to expand...

Exactly - everyone at a wedding, and all their friends and family are potential clients. Your photos are your best form of advertising, take every opportunity to show them to people. Stop thinking of it as a service to clients, as much of what you do as possible should be online.

You may shoot an awesome wedding for someone that didn't book a gold package, and if it's not online it's likely that a much smaller subset of people will ever get to see the end result. Some of my online galleries receive hundreds of visitors in the first few days after posting them - it's easy for people to email / facebook their friends the link, it may take months for them to get round to showing the prints / albums around.
 
vista print did our car magnetics too. just remember to take em off on the motorway. we lost one a couple of weeks ago. mark.[/QUOTE said:
:lol: i would be funny if someone phoned and said " i saw your advert in the fast lane of the motorway and would like to book your services :woot:

Rog
Click to expand...
 
8utters said:
Hmmm yeah car advertising is a good idea, hadn't thought of that.

I had thought of flyers actually, originally had a plan to put them through the letterboxes in the richer areas of Manchester, might be able to get some business out of that.

Oh and website is sorted, already designed it and built it. Just waiting for the domain to be added onto my account.

I'l defo add to the free index site, looks good.

Thanks for the help guys :)

Oh and here's our site, tell me what you think of it:

http://www.noahgoodrich.co.uk/north

(Domain will change when it's been processed in about 24 hours ish. The porfolio section isn't finished aswel, going to change some of the images, will be adding some more today hopefully).
Click to expand...


i would get some more images on there more wedding and some portraits from studio .
but looking good other wise .

goodluck :thumbs:
 
santana007 said:
:lol: i would be funny if someone phoned and said " i saw your advert in the fast lane of the motorway and would like to book your services :woot:

Rog
Click to expand...

At least that's better than...

"I saw your advert as it passed through my windscreen, narrowly missing my wife's ear and ending up imbedded in my shocked mother-in-law's gaping mouth!!!"

:eek::eek::eek:

DD
 
WeddingHack said:
Exactly - everyone at a wedding, and all their friends and family are potential clients. Your photos are your best form of advertising, take every opportunity to show them to people. Stop thinking of it as a service to clients, as much of what you do as possible should be online.

You may shoot an awesome wedding for someone that didn't book a gold package, and if it's not online it's likely that a much smaller subset of people will ever get to see the end result. Some of my online galleries receive hundreds of visitors in the first few days after posting them - it's easy for people to email / facebook their friends the link, it may take months for them to get round to showing the prints / albums around.
Click to expand...

Yep good point. Ok online albums for everyone! :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top