Are you feeling like your inbox has been empty and you’ve been sitting around waiting for those inquiries to roll in? Here’s how to get more photography clients and have a booming inbox!

How to Get More Photography Clients

Sometimes as a photographer, you can feel like those inquiries are never coming in as often as you’d like them to. I see this a lot in the industry and you are not alone! I see this same problem, that photographers are struggling to get inquiries, so I see a trend! So you can take some of these tips I’m sharing with you and see where it fits, where you can apply to your own business. Tweak and fine tune it to fit you and I’m sure you will see a bump in inquiries!

But here are 3 reasons why you’re not getting inquiries and how to get more photography clients.

You aren’t clearly communicating what you do, who you serve, and how you serve them

It may seem simple but this alone can make a world of difference! 

THIS alone is something that I help all of my students do right when they start our 12 month coaching together. No one has come to me with this clearly done, and this is a huge set back in why you’re not only not getting inquiries, but you’re also not converting them into bookings either.

This should be so dang clear that anyone even outside the industry can look at it and be confident in knowing, “Okay I want to book this person and I know exactly the outcome I’m going to get from working with them.”

You want it to be super clear! You want that instant brand identity, in how you do things, how you serve them, who you serve. You need that to be clear for all of your potential clients. If you can’t do that right now, that will need to be fixed!

Being in a saturated market

This is also why once you know and are confident in this, you won’t feel the heaviness of being in a saturated market because it simply just won’t matter. You’re confident in your brand and the service you provide that none of the rest or the noise will matter because you will be so confident and hyper focused in your own lane.

This helps set you apart. We are all wedding photographers, but we all do things differently. I do things so differently than you do them. You may do them in a way that clicks with someone. 

Clearly communicating this is how a big shift happens. But it’s honestly so much fun and one of my favorite things to help my students with because this is immediately setting you apart from anyone else and giving you instant branding identity – which is exactly what you want!

It’s super easy when you’re starting out and finding your approach, to look to other people. But I encourage you to look outside the industry for inspiration, and also go within. That’s when you will truly find your identity and it will click. 

Your personality, style, approach, messaging, value, and the promise to your clients will come out. If you look inward it will all click. Now is the time to do it to set the foundation, and everything else will come easier. So start here, and make sure it all makes sense to who you are before focusing on other areas in your business.

Now THIS is the place you want to get to in my opinion!

You don’t have a solid marketing funnel

Okay so you’ve been putting all your energy and focus into lead generation but nothing is happening or it leads to dead ends with people not actually booking. That’s when it’s time to take a step back and look at your funnel. Think about having one piece of content. From that one piece of content until booking you, what does that look like? Where are you leading them? What CTAs are you using? 

What info are you giving them? How and when are you communicating with them? What are you saying? You want to make sure that in the process you are providing a quality client experience. You may always be thinking of sales and marketing, but you don’t want to get caught up in thus. 

Client experience directly actually acts as your marketing and sales. That’s such an easy way to look at it as service providers. We love to serve our clients, and give them a good experience. We are more emotional and right brained. 

If you think of marketing and sales as client experience, this will help you focus more on serving your clients. This is why client experience is so important. You’re showcasing it, providing it to other people, they’re referring and vendors are referring. 

Take a step back

Strip it down, take a step back, and know it leads back to client experience and don’t get overwhelmed by marketing and sales.

Make sure you are very intentional with everything you have on social media, every page on your website, the resources that you send to your clients. All of these things lead them into a funnel. Think of it as a workflow. Think about all of the messaging. How are you directing them to your contact form? 

You want them to get to your form to take over the experience and get into your circle. You need to be intentional about having a funnel that serves them to bring them to an inquiry. 

You’re putting all your marketing efforts into social media

Listen, social media is a blessing and a HUGE marketing tool when it’s done right and when you approach it right. That I will not deny. And it’s free! We complain that we don’t have control over it but it can be a helpful tool.

But it shouldn’t be your only lead generator, and I want to challenge you to look at your second biggest lead generator. Let’s work on that and increase that and trickle down the line so you aren’t reliant on social media. 

It’s a huge difference not having all your eggs in one basket and having other referrals and systems when I was on a break. It was stronger than ever. I set things up on the backend with my Inquiry to Income process. 

Once clients are in my inbox I have it down. I just need them in my inbox! If I’m focusing on inquiries and not on clients, it’s less about my client experience. But you can build up on the backend, and that way you can build a solid foundation. Once you’ve done this, then you can switch your focus to lead generation. It’s less stressful than building as you go. 

It can be time-consuming!

But I think you can agree with me that social media is freaking time-consuming and can be very emotionally draining at times too. It can be a full time job in itself! Especially when you are not approaching it right or putting pressure on yourself. 

All you’re thinking about is being present on social media and then not thinking of clients and lead generation. And just hoping that’s your lead generator. But you need to have other ways to get the inquiries too. 

You want to be able to take a break and still get leads. It’s refreshing that I can take a social media break and I can still get inquiries. I have stuff set in place that runs for me, and this helped me to feel at ease in my business. 

You want to be able to approach social media and let it be a fun outlet. Show up as is and less pressure, connect with more people, and it’s much more fun. 

If it’s not, then it leads to taking a social media break or not being as consistent there – which is totally okay. But what happens when you need to do that? Does your business stop and take a hit?

No it should not! Because you should have other marketing strategies set in place that run for you. That way if you want to take a social media break it won’t affect you at all. The beauty in that is you are able to use social media as a fun outlet instead of being stressed about it being your only lead generator.

Final thoughts

If you have felt frustrated that you aren’t the inquiries that you want and need, I get it!! But does it mean you have to sit around waiting for them to come in? Absolutely not! These are just 3 things you can think about to work on in your business, and I hope that you start seeing those inquiries roll into your inbox SOON!

I created a little quiz that I think will help you figure out where you are getting stuck in your inquiry process, so you can make changes and land more of your ideal clients. You can find the quiz here!

Be sure to check out more Gold Biz Podcast episodes here!