Get more clients for your real estate photography business – online marketing

Video transcript:

What would I do to get more clients for my real estate or architectural photography business? Well, I’d want to develop both an online marketing plan and an offline marketing plan.

Our online marketing plan is going to feature these 4 elements:

• a website
• SEO
• social media
• dream clients, because we need to identify the audience we want to target.

Because when you get this mix right you’ll be building connections with your dream clients, they’ll be seeing great content from you, and your website will be converting visitors to clients.

Sound good?

Alright, then let’s take a look at how these 4 fit together, and how we can optimise each one so you can build your business!

How these 4 elements fit together:

So if I was still actively shooting, how would I get more clients for my photography business? I’d start  with a first-class website.

Now your website is your conversion engine, but it only works if we get people visiting – if  we get traffic to your site.

So how do we get traffic?

One way is to be found in the top 3 spots in a Google search for a photographer in your area. If you rank in that top 3 then you’re going to get more visitors to your website.

Another way is to use your social media channels to share content that your dream clients come across and then continue to follow you as you share more and more awesome content.

Finally, you can also get more traffic to your website  by intentionally building connections with your dream clients, who will eventually visit your website, but only if you build up enough trust with them first.

Ok, so that’s our basic plan, but what’s important to note is that you need to optimise each of these 4 elements of your online marketing system, because if one of them is weak then your marketing is less efficient than it should be.

For example, if you’re doing amazing things on Facebook or Instagram, and you’re building these great connections but your website looks unprofessional, then that can send the wrong message to those prospects.

Or if you have an amazing website, but you’re not sharing much on social media, then you aren’t building that know / like / trust factor with your dream clients and  you aren’t providing an opportunity for other dream clients to find you on your social media channels.

So let’s go through those 4 elements to see what you need to do to get the most out of them.

Website:

First up is your website, and I’d want a website that makes it seem like I should be really expensive. It needs to look really good from a design point of view, so that someone visiting it for the first time can see that, first of all, I’m a very good photographer with a strong sense of design and creativity, and secondly, I would want to be really clear that I can bring them the results they want.

So in designing my site, I wouldn’t just have great photos – I’d also want to include text that very clearly articulates what I do, the type of clients I work with and how I help my clients achieve big things. In other words, I’d focus on the client, not on me.

Now a lot of photography websites look like they were done on the cheap, and there’s a disconnect when that happens. When a client is looking at your website you want them to be really impressed because it could be their first ever impression of you and your company.

If you don’t have the skills to create an amazing website yourself then invest in a professional website designer to help you – it will be worth it.

SEO:

The second element is SEO, because we want people to find us and come to us when they’re looking for a photographer in our area. To rank well on Google you’re going to want to have a lot of content on your website, and that’s going to include written content, which a lot of photographers don’t do and that’s a big problem.

When you have a lot of written content, then you maximize the number of opportunities for Google to display your site in the search results, and one great way to do that is to be doing a lot of blog posts.

Now I know it seems a little old school but don’t neglect your blog, because if I was still shooting then it’s going to give me three big advantages:

1. Extra blog content is going to help with the SEO side of things.
2. It adds more content to my website so visitors stay for longer, and the longer they stay the better the chance of them hiring me.
3. If I’ve created my own blog posts then I’ve got my own content to share on social media.

Now if you need some ideas for blog posts then think of the kind of thing that your potential clients would find fun, interesting or educational. So for example, what questions are your prospects asking when it comes to photography and choosing a photographer, or what questions should they be asking?

You can probably think of 20 or 30 questions pretty easily, so answer those questions in your blog posts, but whatever you do make sure it's done well, because the quality of your content reflects the quality of your service.

Social media:

The third element in this online marketing plan is social media, and I know for sure that if you’re seriously active on social then you will get more photography clients, and by active I mean I’d be sharing content every day where possible, or at least twice a week, on all the channels where I want to have a strong presence.

So what type of content am I talking about? Well, I’d be sharing my best images from photo shoots of course, but I’d also be sharing videos I created where I’m educating my prospects, so not just real estate videos but videos like this one where I’m speaking to my potential clients.

Blog posts are also great to share on social media, quotes also work really well, and you might also include some fun stuff from your personal life.

Dream clients:

The final element in this plan is your dream clients, and your goal here is to build a connection with as many dream clients as possible, and one way to do that is by actively connecting with your dream clients on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and any other places where your dream clients are active.

So when it comes to connecting with people you need to know where your clients are, you need to create the type of content they would want to see from a photographer, and you need to get yourself in front of those clients with that content.

Now Instagram and LinkedIn are great for this kind of thing because you can follow people and send them messages, and that’s all fantastic but just make sure that what you do is helpful and not pushy or salesy, so make sure you get that balance right.

Conclusion:

So that’s what I’d be wanting to do to get clients online, and I think if I had a strong website and if I was consistently sharing great content on social media, and actively connecting with dream clients who are working in the industries I’m targeting and who are capable of hiring me, then if I was doing that every week then I’d be quite confident of getting more photography clients over the next 12 months.

Having said that, the other thing I’d want is to have a strong offline marketing plan so I can connect with even more dream clients, and I’ll go through some ideas for offline marketing in my next video!

My name’s Darryl Stringer. If you liked this video make sure you leave a comment and subscribe or Like this Page, and I’ll see you next time. Bye for now!