Effective Marketing Ideas for Photographers

To stand out in a sea of photographers, you're going to need to think outside the box a little. Thankfully, some of the most effective strategies can cost little to no money.

Marketing is one of those necessary things that needs to be done if you want to be a successful photographer. While we would all rather be taking pictures, you really should be dedicating some of your time and money to getting eyeballs on what you do. Before you blindly waste time and energy on the wrong things, it's always well worth checking out what other successful creatives have done to market themselves. This week, the team over at The Futur speak to Johnny Earle of clothing brand Johnny Cupcakes, who shares how he uses non-traditional marketing strategies to great effect.

While many of you may think there is little connection between a company that sells T-shirts and someone who is a photographer, many of the unorthodox marketing techniques that Johnny Cupcakes uses to stand out could easily be transferred over to our industry. What I particularly liked in the video was when Earle talks about how making memories and stories can often be worth more than the price or profit returned. While you can't pay your bills with memories, making positive connections with potential clients who freely tell the world about you will always give a better return on investment than blindly sending out promos in the post, in my opinion.

If you have five minutes to spare and fancy a jolt of marketing inspiration, then I highly recommend checking this video out.

Have you had any luck with any unorthodox marketing techniques or would you rather stick to the more traditional avenues? We'd love to hear from you in the comments below.

Paul Parker's picture

Paul Parker is a commercial and fine art photographer. On the rare occasion he's not doing photography he loves being outdoors, people watching, and writing awkward "About Me" statements on websites...

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2 Comments

Love this portrait, William, thanks for the info! : )

Marketing is an important part of any business. You can read some of what I do here:
https://www.cjpphotos.com/blog/2014/2/Promoting-Your-Business

You can also see my entire marketing columns to read about everything I do:
https://www.cjpphotos.com/blog/keyword?k=Marketing

Even though many artists are naturally introverted, we need to break out and begin showing our art and find a way to promote ourselves. Our business depends on it.