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Tired of throwing time and money at marketing and getting nowhere? This week, Sam delivers five and a half practical, low cost marketing strategies for photographers that any UK photographer can implement right now to bring in higher paying commercial photography clients and grow their business.
This episode is packed with useful content, but we’ve pulled out the three essential takeaways that will most quickly boost your commercial photography business. Stop relying on luck; start implementing a clear plan that converts prospects into paying customers.
Listen to discover:
Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode
- The Hidden Database on Your Hard Drive: Discover the simple, overlooked source of paying clients you already possess, and learn the UK-specific GDPR rule that allows you to contact them immediately, turning old inquiries into new sales.
- How to Break the Ice with Big Decision-Makers: Find out the essential 3-step blueprint for warming up leads on LinkedIn before you send a connection request, ensuring that key marketing staff are ready to see the value in your commercial photography.
- The Low-Cost Client Funnel You Need: Master the technique of the “discounted offer” (like a simple headshot) and, more importantly, the crucial plan to successfully move those first-time buyers onto your premium, high-value brand shoots.
Grab a cuppa and listen now—your next big client is waiting.
“Show Transcription”
well hello there sam how you doing very good marcus and you i am terrific
excellent that’s good um so tell me sam what are you going to be talking about on this show
that is just what i’m doing one second but i left my water outside give me one second
i’m the computer guy i’m confused yes
i left my water outside ah
so yes on this week’s show i’m going to give you five and a half things for your small business
marketing toolkit so five and a half low cost marketing strategies for uk photographers that
they can take away implement right away brilliant brilliant so i’m get go markets have a guess what
number one is going to be i think you’re going to get them oh god okay it could be a lot of
thing email marketing he’s got their number one email marketing is it really oh my lord sam okay
go for it so number one email marketing important one number one email marketing so
low cost you’d need to pay a subscription to a marketing email marketing company but they
read you know this is pretty low cost we’re talking 10 15 quid a month probably as like you know if
you’ve got a list of 10 000 it’s going to cost you a bit more but you should be getting the income
from that but yeah for most of us you know people will generally have a few hundred up to a thousand
yellow that it’s kind of low cost so two things you need to be doing one is growing your list
and two is using your list okay we talked about these in lots of other shows so much more detail
but this is kind of a five thing so this is just kind of a quick summary so yes how can you grow
your email marketing list one put all your clients into it you’re perfectly allowed to talk to them
and market to them and people who’ve already bought from you are much more likely to buy from
you again than anyone else because they already know like and trust you brilliant put all your
leads in from at least the last three years a bit beyond that’s a bit more iffy but under gdpr rules
you are perfectly entitled to put all of your leads into your email marketing list and to email them
okay because they’ve already made an inquiry they’ve already shown interest in your product
so you’re perfectly entitled to um email them you don’t need to get them to tick a box to be on the
list you can just put them on the list that is perfectly allowed you know if it was 10 years ago
it’s a bit of you but you know if they recently acquired and you’re still running the same business
so if you used to have a car wash business and you download doing photography you can’t do that but
as long as it was the inquiry about photography and you’re still doing photography that’s great
they can go on your list okay and then the third one is i was going to say you can go to linkedin
and you can actually download your client list from there as a csv file and sometimes they’ve
got their emails on what do you mean your client do you mean your contacts contact list you mean
your contact you mean your connections you can’t just put your connections in there markers that’s
not allowed okay no just because they were just because they’ve said they connect with you doesn’t
mean they’re interested in your product you can market to them you have to get permission to add
them yeah don’t do that um so yes leads are different because they’ve contacted you and
said specifically hello i am interested in photography while the people you connect in
linkedin have just connected yeah that’s quite different um the other thing is ways to then grow
your list apart from that things like lead magnets you know free downloads or giveaways most people who
download on your website where people fill in their name and email you get their details they get the
free download your mailing list grows everybody’s happy so once you’ve got this list what do you do
with it um one send email newsletters okay and if you’re sending email newsletters they need to be
engaging and valuable and targeted to your to your ideal audience yeah people need to want to read
them so they’ve got to be full of really useful stuff that’s interesting to them okay there are
too many out there where people are talking about where they went on holiday what they did last week
the fact the sales aren’t quite as good as they should be and maybe their dog needs to go to the
vet nobody cares this year i say nobody cares a lot don’t have rights on this show nobody cares
yeah who are your target audience you know are they small businesses in wiltshire what’s on the
minds of small business owners in wiltshire and what are you going to help them with maybe you’re
helping them with about the way they can put themselves forward on linkedin visually because
you’re a photographer yeah maybe you spoke to an accountant recently they gave you a really good
tip and you’re going to share that with them but it’s stuff that’s ideal for your target audience
think about them not yourself i guess we so leave them finding interesting and wanting more i know
we did a show on this sam but i guess you could say your email should be about you as opposed to
i yes exactly it needs to be about them and what’s useful to them and what’s interesting
them not about yeah not about yourself that’s dead right okay and the other thing as well as
kind of newsletters like that is do as well send out promotional emails offers tell them what you
buy and you’ve got to balance that you want to send out more useful ones where you’re educating
and making people want more than you do with the sales ones but you do want to sell so do also from
time to time you know i’ve got this offer at the moment or did you know that i do this and that’s
perfectly fine that’s what the list is there for so that’s our first low cost marketing strategy is
email marketing they did i do that concisely enough markers do you think yep sure of course as sam
did say uh we have done quite a few shows on email marketing so please refer back to those well
actually when i looked we don’t i just mentioned it in lots of shows we’ve done a couple of shows
have we not yeah we’ve done a few yeah yeah but over the years it’s actually a relatively small
number but i do mention it a lot so number two i’m going to talk about is linkedin outreach okay so
that’s engaging and connecting with relevant people so that doesn’t mean you just go who can
i connect with tick tick tick tick tick connect connect connect connect and the random people
all over the place yeah because that is not a very very good strategy so before you start you stop and
think who are my ideal clients and for most photographers obviously some work all over the
country but the vast majority you’re instantly looking in a geographical area um how wide that
is very from photographer photographer and then you’re usually also looking at a specific genre
you know if you’re a head shop photographer working with corporates you’re looking at the
corporate businesses in the area and the people in them if you’re um if you’re a brand photographer
working with accountants you’re looking for the accountants in the area so you’re really narrowing
down who you want to connect with thinking who would be my ideal target audience and then you’re
starting to think about connecting with those and then the best thing to do is find the people on
linkedin and first of all don’t just connect start with things like like some of their posts
and start to comment on some of their posts a little bit of a in or maybe connect first it’s
kind of up to you which you do but kind of don’t just jump in with a connection and then when you
do the connection i always recommend with a connection message and give a clear reason um
not a sales message you know not hi i’m sam would you like some headshots you know more just you know
something about why you’re connecting you know i’m you know i’m sam or i’m let’s say marcus because
you are a photographer you know i’m marcus i’m i’m trying to connect with business coaches in bristol
it’d be lovely to connect you know just something honest and simple so they know who you are and
then you’ve thought about it if that makes sense um and then start a conversation but i think the
really key is um you know that’s planning first who do you want to connect with who would you ideally
like to be your clients and then that instead of just diving in with a connection start to build
you know build a little bit first like some post comment on some posts reply to some of their
comments so before they when they do get that invite who do you know who you are because you’ve
kind of had a bit of a banter on a couple of posts and a bit of a chat and it needs a bit of planning
and thought um because you’ve got to kind of play you know maybe keep a list so each you know every
couple of days you get back and oh okay i’ll make another comment with this guy and i make another
comment on that woman’s post but you know you just have to work on it and gradually get to know people
and get connected with them and then the key is also what do you think about what you’re going to
do next once you’re connected with them once they’re seeing your posts think about how you’re
going to move them to the next stage be that being on your email newsletter them buying something
simple whatever it is so that’s my next one is yeah linked in outreach now they’re making it less
and less cheap on foot you linked in so you can do some outreach on free linkedin but they do limit
the number of invites you can send where you write something and they do limit the number of invites
you can send where you don’t write something too but it’s bigger than the number of ones where you
do write something in the connection yeah they always change the parameters just just going back
when you’re saying something there is a you can there’s a drop down menu at the drop down menu
at the top the linkedin page where you can basically do it in different categories different jobs
different areas and so and so yeah that’s it so you can really well oh definitely you can yeah you can
do loads and loads of filtering there too you’re right marcus to get exactly what you want by
geography by job by all sorts of things so you can get the people you want and for some photographers
that would be quite a big list and it’s kind of quite a big job while for others it would be kind
of a smaller list that you need to really work on more carefully depending on who you’re you know
it might be that you’ve got two really big companies nearby that you desperately want to
work with so you’re going to work really hard on a few people or it might be you’ve got kind of a
list of 100 accountants and you just kind of get through them you know yeah well for those larger
firms i would definitely be looking for the marketing team within the uh those companies
those are the people i’ll be contacting as opposed to the ceos or whatever if the marketing teams
that you want to contract contact that’s it they will be the one with the decision-making power
on getting photographers in in the marketing work name yeah and hopefully will be the ones to
understand the power of the photography as well yeah yeah yeah i would do a lot of marketing
companies that’s it excellent so that’s the next one is the linked in outreach um okay so number
three is the webinar ah yes so webinars are um i mean they’re basically free to do you can do
a webinar easily easily free you can use um you do need something like zoom there are free versions
um you can use things like google meets they all work well you can do webinar booking through
linkedin you can do it’s the easiest way to do it which is free is eventbrite so i think we all know
eventbrite and if you set up an event on eventbrite where you don’t charge eventbrite don’t charge you
so it works well they keep a list for you who’s coming you can look at any time and export it’s
not like they hold the data and don’t let you have it and they also you can put the zoom link in and
they send that out to everybody and send reminders so they do all of that stuff automatically which
is really great so eventbrite really does a really great job for that just like go with it um nice and
simple but we did a webinar back in the in the early part of the year didn’t we did a webinar
um that’s it we must do another one actually we should do another one so that was really good fun
we will um so yeah so why do a webinar then obviously so we talked about the how why do a
webinar there’s a few things it shows you’re an expert so if somebody’s listening to you for
half an hour an hour whatever it is you’re kind of demonstrating you’re an expert to them you’re
showing generosity to them because you’re giving time and they’re learning so they’re kind of
yeah i think feeling indebted is a strong word but you know what i mean they’ve seen that you’ve
taken time and you’re and you’re giving things to them um so yeah it and it just is a way of
getting people in again getting their contact details and go on your mailing list and then
the key is you think what do you want people to do next after the webinar and at the end of the
webinar you kind of introduce that so you know at the end of the webinar would you like to dot dot
dot whatever it is join my club of people who are learning how to shoot photographs um you know
whatever it is that you’re trying to do next introduce it on the webinar and try and get them
to make a decision there and then almost on the webinar or you tell them all about it and then
you drop them an email next so they go right you know click here to to purchase a headshot or to
whatever it is you want them to do next but make sure you kind of introduce that on the webinar
while they’re literally in front of you and you’re talking to them um recording the webinar also
works well one thing’s me and Marcus found is lots of people go i’d love to come but i’m busy
at that time so put the recording online but for a limited time otherwise it doesn’t kind of say
you know right it’s on for a week and then you can still at the end of the week come back to those
people with the kind of whatever it is you want them to do next and take them through that so yeah
so the webinar is a really great way you can get lots of people talking you know you can get lots
people in the room so instead of a one-to-one which are great but obviously there’s only one
person in the room so in a week there’s a limited number of one-to-ones you can do while with a
webinar you know you can as long as you can get the audience in um you can talk to an awful lot
of people in one go indeed indeed and there’s a software that i’ve used uh called obs it’s a
free software and it’s just absolutely perfect you want to put on a bit more of a polished approach
to your webinars in order to include slides etc um i really recommend giving that a go it’s really
good fun yep okay it is good fun i find it’s i look at obs and go oh my god it’s the most
complicated thing in the world so it you’re right i think it’s one of those once you’ve got the hang
of it it can do all sorts but i do find it the user interface slightly daunting to say the least
they’ve got some weird like the scene and stuff but it’s not that complicated i mean you can go
deep on it but you can if i can pick it up sam you can certainly do it okay maybe i should try that
again excellent so that was number three uh was the webinar number four is networking um so we have
talked about networking a fair bit um and i think for photographers that we’ve been through since the
podcast started the kind of wave of well we started the podcast after covid obviously podcast has
evolved hasn’t it before 2020 sorry starts again uh networking podcast networking has evolved hasn’t
it so before 2020 every networking meeting give or take beyond very weird ones were in person
2020 to 21 all networking was pretty much online and then there’s a mix now there’s some online
there’s some in person there’s some hybrid now my thought that is photographers you want to go to
the in-person ones 100% first of all there’s a few reasons i mean the main one for me is geography
so most photographers like we said work in a geographical area and online yes there are groups
and we are the norwich meeting and we are the we are the bristol meeting but when they’re online
they’re not they say they’re the bristol meeting but people come from all over and they don’t care
and they say they’re the norwich meeting but there’s somebody from scotland and i’ve dialed
in from mozambique and there’s people all over so they’re not so for photographers where you really
want those local people i recommend the physical networking is better and you do have to turn up
and it does take a lot more time but i think because of the benefits involved specifically
for photographers it’s worth going and doing the physical i totally agree with you sam face to face
is what it really really counts with um with photographers because they’re you know and
refer back to the show that we did about branding if i may say where about how to brand yourself
how to present yourself at these networking meetings so you’re memorable in a good way
that’s it and then yeah and then another thing with that is maybe take along a tablet with a
slideshow on that you can just pop on a table somewhere and that just plays through i used to
do that for websites and it would just play through websites but yeah you know you just you know got
it pre-done and quietly put some networking events specifically have a place for others don’t you so
yeah don’t offend people you know put it in the middle of the room and annoy people but you know
pop that down somewhere where people can see and i think what can work really well and a lot of
people i work with do is the kind of offering headshots once in a while offer headshot sessions
at the end of the networking events once you kind of got to know the people are a little bit and you
know the organizer you go right you know to the organizer could we do a headshot session at the
end of the at the end of the meeting and people can book on um and this is actually going to link
onto what i’m going to talk about next and so you’ve kind of then got a way to get people in
as customers for a kind of a bit of a low pay a bit of a lower you know something simple where
they have to pay that much but you’re kind of going and you can make it part of the networking
what people really love at networking is that sense of membership so you know that i’m doing
this headshot event just for you guys in this group you know special deal gives you all my buddies in
that this group and that really worked do you find marks i find the networking event they love that
community that it’s just for us because we’re in this club and we’re in it together that’s
exclusivity yeah definitely and just you find people respond to that at networking events
totally yeah exclusivity and also to do remember though when you’re talking to people especially
for the first time the 80 20 will you know let them talk for 80 percent of the time and you’re
just going to talk for about 20 percent or something like that definitely listen listen listen i i find
the worst is when you’re with somebody who’s really good at networking and it’s always like
a battle as to who can let the other speak for that’s right i’ve been there you go first no you
go first yeah that’s it uh and they are yeah uh and there are some people who you just they make
they’ve so good you just get to the end you found you’ve spoken a lot but yes marcus is right try
and go in yeah i think going into networking not with the thinking of selling at all you go in
thinking about one helping people i don’t mean by selling them stuff by just you know making
connections giving them advice in a positive way yeah and two listening but i think they’re the
two key things for success at networking aren’t they helping people and listening
then number five which is actually follows exactly on from number four my last well semi-last one
because i’ve got five and a half um number five is the discounted offer so this is effectively
not the final thing you want to sell so let’s say you’re a brand photographer and you really want
to sell sell you know the big brand shoot this is something that people have to part part with some
cash for but it’s relatively low cost and it’s kind of to get them into your world to see who’s
willing to pay and then you want to move them onto the branch it almost leaves them wanting
more so like a headshot you know with a low cost headshot and they kind of you get them when you’re
talking to them and you’re talking about how to use it in linkedin and eventually like i could do
with some more images couldn’t you like yeah and so you then move them on to the move them on to the
the what you really want to sell but they’re kind of a way of they filter out the people who are
never going to pay money because they’ve got to pay something um and that gives them a chance to
see your photographs see i think these can work well you know sell something small you know a
single headshot tell people the real value and the discounted value so it could buy you know my head
stock sessions my head shot let me try that again my head shot sessions are normally whatever it is 500
quid but for today for this discount it’s you know 150 whatever it is but you’re giving them the you
know the proper value and then you’re saying this is today there’s a special offer so you so then
when they do future shoots with you there’s not an expectation that everything’s at a bargain price
you’re telling them the value so then when you go to the the next thing up the branch or everyone
it’s you know it’s also a high price they already know what the headshot was worth so it’s comparable
um you can also you need to make it easy for yourself so you know you don’t want these to
take up loads of time because you’re not actually going to make money from these they’re basically
just as part of your sales thing so something like after a networking event you’re already there you
know 20 minute slots bang bang bang oh yeah you know not going to people’s houses just you know
this will happen for half for half a day i will be at this place and people literally have half
hour slots and they come and go and come and go so you know you can within half a day get through a
load of people um there’s a possibility of upselling too so you know you go you get one
headshot but actually they’ve noticed you’ve taken 10 so they could buy you know there’s the
upsell possibility and you’re leaving people wanting more you know they’ve got the headshot
they use it but as you’re talking they realize that’s really good it’s really improved my
linkedin profile what am i can use on my posts now so that oh yeah i need some more i move on
to the brand shoot um so yes i think that’s my fifth one is that kind of discounted offer but
you’ve got to be really clear what the real value is and you’ve got to have a plan to move them to
the real sale because although they’ve become a customer it’s not what you really want to sell
to them if you know what i mean it’s just part of the journey to get there cool so that’s five but
we do have five and a half so mark is laughing at me at the beginning of having the half so the half
is basically all i’m going to say is have a plan to move between the different parts of your marketing
so it’s all well getting lots of connections on linkedin but if they just stay there they don’t
become customers yeah it’s all very well getting people into that discounted headshot or whatever
you do but if you don’t have a plan to then move them on to do the brand shoot there’s no point so
the key that my half my last one is you’ve got to join the dots you might have these different
areas of marketing but unless you think how you move people from one to the next to the next
and have a really clear plan for that you’re not going to actually end up with customers which is
what you want right there we go okay five and a half low cost uh small business marketing tools
for uk photographers brilliant nicely put sam excellent marcus is disturbingly quiet which means
either he’s gone to sleep or he’s he’s he’s he’s thinking it all through and working it out and
i’m not sure which of the time i’m just a bit conscious of the time that we can quite a lot
so mark is his basic thing shut up sam it’s time to finish the show it is time to finish
right i will see you next week markers okay mate see you next week
