My sister has a photography business, how do we market?

Build a website of her work. Any photos she takes, post it up on Instagram. Drive in loads of traffic

Social Media is definitely an option - Instagram and Pinterest are the 2 websites that come to mind when thinking about pictures/photography, but it may be difficult to tap into the local market using these methods.

I recommend going the SEO route, and ranking for keywords her potential customers are searching for. Specifically, think about what type of photography she does. Does she take wedding photos? Family shoots? The list goes on...

Market on classified ad websites like CL and Kijiji.
Word of mouth to family to start the ball rolling
Do some charity work at an event, hand out business cards

Get her out at wedding expo's, have her attend any bazzaar, craft shows, etc. Have her go to real estate offices and offer to take pics for them of homes, and agents for their business cards etc.

What sort of photography work, wedding, corporate, family portraits, boudoir ?

I myself used to have a local construction business selling chicken coops and dog houses. It was very successful due to personal face to face marketing. See if she can go to local business such as drug stores, hardware stores, or local grocery stores to have flyers posted.
If you want this to be web based. Submit her business to local search sites such as google local, yellow pages, and so forth. When you submit her business in those sections, write blogs and make videos showing her work and use keywords on the blog relating to photography and local town names. Google loves it when blogs mention local references.
Gives these pointers a try, good luck.

has your sister claimed her google plus local listing and then linked it to the google plus business page ?

Depends on how local you want to get in terms of the market. If you are targeting the local market then I would say to start with churches, bridal shops, and particularly schools.

We have seen local photographers offer digital photo albums for download (vs independent licensing) and utilize social media to push the pictures given the engagement level when people begin to share the photo's. Just make sure you have documented the freedom to use any photo's for marketing.

Your picture sharing ability will showcase what makes you unique and grow your following quickly.

Hope that helps.

1st build one kind of blog or website related photography then u can also marketing this one..

You probably need to put the pictures out there. Like everybody suggested, do a blog where people can see what she can do (portfolio). That way, you already have a place to redirect people to when you're doing other forms of promotion. Try: Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr

Mea @ OutsourceFactor

Just make her a good website and get her some local exposure through social media

she should get herself up on social media and run a competition to win free wedding photos, if she does a good job she will get many referrals from this, also she should attend as many fairs and expos as she can get the word out there and get as many people as possible to follow her work on social media, photography is a goods one to market as it is a very visual product, once people see the quality of her work they will give her a try

The best place for you is Instagram.

Instagram-
Offline Flyers-
PPC FB-
Craigslist-

Consistency is key in any business -

cheers!,
Guillermo.

Create a facebook page of her business and get people to like it, let her go for events like weddings and give out cards, go on social media sites like twitter and make friends then put up your job and contact info in your bio. Something else you shouldn't forget, word of mouth. It is very important to talk to as many people as you can about the business.

I'd get active on Pinterest - it's made for images and there's a Gifts section (useful if she's selling prints online).

pininterest, instagram and youtube...make a 'video' of her prints...need 'cute' pics of kids and dogs and cats etc...the video will rank quickly if seo is done correctly. You didnt mention where you are located so we couldnt do a real research report for you , so just check out the number 1,2,3 on keyword searches, and copy what they do and then do more...good luck !

You need

1. Website
2. Facebook/Google page
3. Money to market your business

Youtube
Instagram
Facebook
Flyers

At a bare minimum she needs a site and a Google+ page. We use photographers at my 9-5 for product pics. Have you thought of marketing to local businesses at that angle?

Yes, the first thing she should do is to make her own website where she can put all her works. After that she can make a list of wedding/bridal store owners and try to approach them via phone and let them visit her website. To increase her website visibility, she can utilize the benefits of social media.

Start a blog

Build FB fanpage , put your/her best pictures + set some PPC advert to build audience
You can also partner with wedding shops , limo rental companies

Approach people with bad linked in pics with a business photo shoot.

a good market is newborn/baby market. Target pregnant moms early at maternity shops etc...

Fastest way to get business. Create a killer offer/discount and send out a direct mail postcard to your local area using the post offices EDDM program. You can send to about 1k households for about 600 bucks. You get a 1% conversion rate if you have no clue what you're doing. With good copy and a killer offer you can do about 2-3% ... Great copy and offer you can do more.

So on the low end you can get about an extra 10 folks calling you ... then you have to close them so that's a potential 10 clients.

Then make sure to promote the website and have a lead capture on the website offering either information or a good discount for signing up, you can probably capture a few leads you can nurture. Re-invest some of that money into another area or target a specific industry while you build your website portfolio and work on SEO.

Have her connect with her local SCORE office and SBDC (Small Business Development Center related to SBA).

SEO
PPC
Craigslist Ads

This can get you clients in her area today or tommorow. Everything will require a longer time commitment.

Facebook
Google+
Instagram
Pinterest

There are lots of great ideas. I would suggest you also target local theater groups, comedy groups and improv groups. If you can partner with a local acting schools you can get get constant referrals from their classes.

My daughter is a self taught photographer, she joined a photographer group when she shared a studio in a building of photograpers. They all connected on FB and commented on each others photos so multiple people were seeing eachothers work. She then had a free photo session giveaway and they had to friend her and say why they should win, or whatever the contest.
She always posts a couple of photos from each session ( with logo copy- write) as an example of her work and comments on the photo, why she likes it and invites others to do the same. She has one giveaway every season. After she built a following of customers and photographers she did a 2 day 8 hrs a day photo training course ( for $1200) and is sold out every time and still does it about 3 times a year. At first it was for those out of state only as she wanted to be the newborn specialty of the city wide area. I think now it's for those about 200 miles away. People are on waiting lists to get into her training. ( she taught herself photograpy, except for 16hr course for newborns-
so don't be limited by training but excel with your talent) She also included how to do the paperwork and business aspect of running a photography business. Then the comments on FB page flourished even more. All she has to do is post a special for a Saturday photo shoot and fills up within hours. All she does is FB and a blog and she can't keep up sometimes with all the appts. For more info check out http://www.jmphotomn.com

Keep things simple and follow evergreen marketing systems based on written goals she has for her business - You can't improve what you can't or don't measure is what I teach my offline marketing coaching students.

The very first thing she has to do is determine her target market. That's not something anyone else can do for her. You might be able to help her with this since you're into marketing.

I would recommend also that she actually creates a simple marketing plan (as opposed to just trying to do things as she feels included whenever she wants to).

Her marketing plan needs to make her visible to her ideal customer/clients or else she'll be her own best kept secret.

She needs to get her ideal customers interested enough to discuss assignments with her because it's one thing for her to be visible to her ideal customers, but it's a totally different thing altogether for them to be interested in hiring her to provide services.

That's what I'd like to share with you for now as setting her foundation.

In the interim she should get in touch with people that offer complimentary services so she isn't sitting on her hands while building this can't skip foundation.

Best of luck.

BAYO

Can you JV with stock art websites or post some of the great quality photos on pinterest? Can you work with wedding planners and do some weddings photos and get your name out there? I have seen photography people who see people take photos at bars and it ends up on the bars facebook page and probably gets shared on facebook. I personally get a lot of great photos shared on my facebook page.

If you can do all the rest suggestion then your sister business should be in great position now but no matter how smart the suggestion if no effort and determination to actually achieve your goal these suggestions will be useless.

To summarize all the suggestions:
1. Attend Exhibitions Photography Exhibition show
2. Gather a clientele
3. Create a portfolio in different business industries
4. Print ads, business cards, brochures, advertise
5. Lunch a website that will showcase your business
6. Observe SEO guidelines
7. DO an SEO campaign or ask professional to do it
8. Build links
9. Do what you promise to your customers or clients do not over promise.
10. Satisfy your customers or clients.

Your business should grow like mighty google if you articulately enable all of those.

Good luck and best regards


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Happy New Year Everyone - Please Be Careful with My Heart because I don't want it to be broken in pieces again!

Does she have any specialty like Weddings, Families, Graduates or Business Photos?

Focus on local SEO, also she should build an online portfolio to showcase her best work. Use localized keywords to bring in organic traffic for that specialty.

Ryan, here is what your sister needs to do.

1. Advertise a free photo session.

2. Get about 50 - 100 people in and take their photos.

3. Give away a few of the pictures to those same people who got their photos taken, but make sure your sister add her Studio Logo on the picture. This will help with up selling the clients where they have to pay for it to be removed or they can keep it for free while advertising for your sister's company.

4. If they want extras, they pay for the photos.

Advertising a free photo session is an easy way to get a lot of customers. If she sacrifice one day and can pick up 10-20 new paying clients plus more free marketing, that is a win win situation.

Need any extra advice let us know.

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