How To Attract Your Ideal Photography Clients

Easy-going, prompt-paying clients are aways the dream.

They’re a delight to work with and will happily make a repeat booking.

But where are these perfect people lurking? How do you attract the kind of clients who make your job a joy and spread the word about your fabulous photography business?

Here we’ll explore how to maximise the chances of finding your ideal clients.

1. Define Your Ideal Client

To attract your ideal client, you need to know exactly what ‘ideal’ means for you and your business.

It’s easy to be vague here and target anyone and everyone who fits a wide set of parameters. But the more you delve into the nuance and nitty-gritty, the easier you’ll find it to tailor your services.

For example, you’re a professional portrait photographer. The perfect project could be a commission from a large corporate to get head shots of a couple of dozen team members. You shoot on-site, use the same approach for each shot and work to a straightforward brief. Everyone poses nicely to camera, the client’s happy, job done.

Or perhaps you prefer to work one-to-one with small business owners, sharing ideas for locations and themes to reflect their personality while booking a hair and make-up squad to come along on the day. Here, the creative scope is broader, the planning is more detailed and the end results more unique.

These types of distinctly different client can become part of your set of audience personas – fictional profiles of who you’d like to work with and who to target in your marketing.

Within these, dig deep not just into who they are but why they might buy from you. Those values, attitudes and personality traits that will make them a perfect fit. Read more about these important psychographics here.

You can also tap into your CRM data. Analyse elements like how often a client rebooks and how quickly they paid to identify what a good fit looks like.

Read back through their feedback surveys – or design and send out a new one – to see what made them choose you in the first place, what they loved about your service and where you could make tweaks to refine it still further.

You can then go forth and track more of these gems down, knowing how you need to communicate with them, both personally and via your marketing, to make them feel understood and curious to find out more.

2. Craft Consistent Brand Messaging

Ideal target clients defined and refined, now it’s time to make sure your brand values fit with theirs. Get these aligned and your words will resonate whether that’s on your website home page, marketing emails or pop-up stand at a show.

To get on the same page, first nail down their pain points and desires when it comes to professional photography.

Perhaps they’re particularly camera-shy and need a gentle guiding hand to reassure and advise. Or maybe they’ve been let down in the past by poor communication during the photoshoot process.

Use these to craft your unique brand proposition: what makes you different? Why should they trust you? What part of your service will leave them feel delighted and willing to rebook?

The knock-on effects of nailing this down are huge as it:

• builds trust and credibility
• shows attention to detail and care
• boosts brand recognition
• creates client loyalty

And then it’s all about message consistency across every marketing channel, embracing the same tone of voice and style on your website, social posts and client communications.

3. Consider Content Marketing to Attract Ideal Clients

Another potential string to your attracting-ideal-clients bow is content creation. Whether that’s via an informative blog on your website, an educational YouTube channel or through fun, inspiring posts on your socials.

Written content, videos, audio, infographics and, naturally, your images can all be added to the mix to show the world what you do and how you do it.

With your audience forefront of mind, share insight and info that will educate, inspire and, ultimately, spark action that gets bookings in your diary.

The phrase ‘content strategy’ may sound daunting but it doesn’t need to be complicated: a short monthly blog article, a weekly tip on Instagram or sharing a testimonial on LinkedIn will all help to reach the right people.

And if you need help, keep in mind there’s a raft of marketing experts out there offering affordable support.

4. Lean on Your Existing Ideal Clients

Another way to attract your ideal clients is right under your nose – your existing ideal clients.

Without the tech (yet) to clone them, they give you the template for who you’re seeking out in the wider world. So take extra good care of them.

Naturally, you’ll be giving them an exceptional photography experience. You personalise every step of the process, making it easy and fun; you communicate with warmth and clarity; you go the extra mile.

Then you nurture that relationship, maintaining connections and encouraging them to book again.

Which will, in turn, spark the kind of customer satisfaction and loyalty that fuels word-of-mouth referrals. Or, if they need a nudge, you can incentivise that referral with a tempting offer for both established and newbie client.

Embracing these strategies will supercharge the chances of attracting the right clients to your photography business.

We can’t promise it’s possible to totally eliminate the dreaded Difficult Client but you can certainly take tangible steps towards working alongside those who share your values and your approach.