The Best Marketing is FREE

The best type of marketing is empowering another person to talk about your services. Word-of-mouth is the largest source of business for me, but that's largely because I give people ways to showcase what I do. This is primarily done when my clients share their wedding photos via social media, but another form of empowerment comes from the various creative teams I work with every weekend.

Let's put it this way: every wedding I photograph, there are at least five industry professionals who can help market my services, simply by showcasing their work with my photos.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard florists/coordinators/venues/etc. tell me they don't receive photos after the wedding…and my reaction is always shock. I mean, besides it being the polite thing to do, sharing images with vendors is the quickest way to maximize exposure. So let's talk how this happens…

    1. Share, Quickly
The day after the wedding, I send a zip file of 15 images to the wedding vendors with sneak peek detail images from the day (overview photo of the ceremony, bouquet photo, reception centerpieces, reception overview, etc.). I want the creative team to quickly share images from the wedding day and the sooner they see them, the more excited they are to share.

    2. Make it Easy
Once the entire wedding edit is done (for me, it's about 2-3 weeks after the wedding), ensure the creative team has access to the viewing gallery to choose their favorites. I use an online photo gallery, so the vendors simply download their selected images easily and it requires no management from me. I email the creative team directions on how to download and also outline how they should attribute photo credit when the images are used, so we're on the same page.
    3. Highlight and Share
My mom always taught me to treat others they way I want to be treated, so I ensure to highlight the creative team whenever I can. On every wedding blog post, I ensure to list the team and link to their websites…and I also leverage social media as a way to shed light on who made the wedding so special. Linking on Twitter and Instagram is a great way to get the team to share your photos. Also, when I upload a folder of images on Facebook after a wedding, I link to the team's business pages to ensure creative credit is paid.

Empowering the creative team to share my images has been one of the most effective ways to garner wedding referrals. I hope this sheds light into a piece of my marketing puzzle and if you have any questions, feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer today!