Photographers, the Best Marketing Strategy You’re NOT Using

Wouldn’t it be great, photographers, if you could get other people to promote your work for free? Wouldn’t it be great if you sold more digital images from weddings?

Best of all, wouldn’t it be great if all you had to do to get this was send an email?

All of the most successful photographers that I work with at weddings seem to have one thing in common (besides being talented)…they all email me a link to the wedding photo gallery after the wedding.

I’m talking about the photographers with all the “As seen on Style Me Pretty” badges everywhere, who charge a small fortune, and who have gorgeous, professional websites that are up to date—like Wedding Superhero Edna Eudave.

The email I usually receive with these gallery links encourages me to use any and all the photos I like on my blog or on my online profiles (The Knot, Wedding Wire).

Some of the smartest photographers create a separate “vendor gallery” for each wedding where all of the images are watermarked. AND the true geniuses make “digital downloads” of the images available (some only offer prints, in which case I might have to take screenshots of the images I want since prints are useless to me).

After those offering digital downloads make an extra $5-$10 off me, I will upload your images to my blog, post them on Facebook, use them on my business card, print ads, and on bridal show brochures, as well as uploading them to my image gallery on The Knot (maybe even making it my profile picture).

Basically, I’m going to spread your work all over our local wedding market for you.

The last time I wanted new headshots, who do you think I reached out to? Yep, the last two photographers who had shared their image galleries and therefore made friends with me.

The last time I submitted an article to “Wedding Planner Magazine” (an international publication from the Association of Bridal Consultants), guess who I reached out to for some images to submit along with my article?

Now adding “As seen in ‘Wedding Planner Magazine’” to your website isn’t too shabby for simply emailing me a link to a wedding photo gallery…is it?

BONUS TIP: Actually take pictures of your fellow wedding vendors!

Take a few shots of the DJ behind the wheels of steel, the videographer behind the camera, or the coordinator with his or her clipboard.

We don’t have too many good pictures of us doing our thing at an actual wedding, so the chance of us buying an image or using an image like this all over the internet is very high.

Plus, we’ll like you and remember you because you stood out from the pack and scratched our backs!

If you can believe it, I only have photographers emailing me galleries about 3 times a year!!!

So, photographers, you all need to get on top of this crazy effective, simple, and completely free marketing masterpiece ASAP!

I’d love to hear about your results with this! Photographers, leave me your feedback in the comments below.