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10 Free Marketing Tactics for Photographers – Part 6: Network with Venues and Vendors

 

Hey, Photographers! If you’re struggling to book paid portrait and wedding sessions as a new photographer, then this is the series for you! Welcome back to our “Free Marketing Tactics for Photographers” blog series! Today, we’re going to discuss how both portrait AND wedding photographers can use business-to-business networking in order to build strong (and profitable) connections in their local industry.

 

Last week, we continued our series by talking about how looking at other photographers as your co-workers instead of your competition can boost your business, and your mental health! This week, we’re continuing the networking conversation, but talking about other businesses as well.

 

 

Networking as a Wedding Photographer

Now, even though every single wedding is unique, most couples’ wedding planning journey looks something like this: they get engaged, they celebrate for a little while, then they jump into wedding planning by first booking their wedding venue, typically within 1-6 months of getting engaged. Of course, the venue is almost always the first step, since you can’t book anyone else until you know your date, and the venue will determine the date. Because venues are usually the first person booked, for photographers, a venue is what’s called an “upstream vendor”.

 

But once a venue is booked, couples move on to booking their first tier of vendors. Now, the exact order of who gets booked when is going to depend entirely on what’s most important for each individual couple. After all, if throwing a great party is a top priority, they may book the band and the caterer before they worry about photography. But generally speaking, once a venue is booked, a couple wills start booking their photographer, their wedding planner, their caterer, and their reception entertainment like DJs and bands. That makes planners, caterers, and entertainment what we call “midstream vendors” when compared to photographers.

 

Finally, usually a few months later, couples will book their “downstream vendors”. These are things like their wedding attire, their decorations and rentals, their cake, their florals, and their officiant. Videography is also often in this second tranche of vendors.

 

 

Now, here’s the important part. The key to networking as a wedding photographer is to focus on upstream vendors as your first priority, and midstream vendors as your second priority. While it’s great to know downstream vendors and have people to recommend to your couples, because most of the time you’ll get booked before them, they won’t actually be able to recommend couples to you. And why do you want to focus on upstream and midstream vendors? Because, if a couple books them and doesn’t have a photographer yet, a recommendation or introduction from someone they’ve already booked and who they already trust could send tons of warm and qualified leads into your inbox! So now let’s talk about how to make those connections.

 

 

How to Network with Wedding Venues and Vendors: Serve

Let’s start with how NOT to reach out to a wedding venue or a wedding planner: do NOT send a generic email blast to every venue and planner in town asking to be put on to their preferred vendors list with a link to your portfolio and your pricing. Boooo! That email will get deleted in the blink of an eye. Instead, start by focusing on just one or two venues or planners who are serving clients at a similar price point as you. So, if you charge $1,000 for wedding photography, you’re probably wasting your time reaching out to a $5,000 wedding planner or a $15,000 venue. But the good news is, if you’re just starting out as a photographer, there are also probably new planners and venues in your area who are just starting out as well! And they’d probably be thrilled to already have access to a professional photographer who will be in their corner right from the start.

 

So, instead of just reaching out and asking for something, focus on building a relationship and serving them without expecting anything in return. Start by simply keeping up with them on social media and learning about how they serve their couples. If it’s a venue, perhaps you can eventually reach out to them about doing a portrait session on their property at a time that’s convenient for them, or even just showing up to take some landscape photos to update their website.

 

And if it’s a wedding planning team or a catering business, see if you can take the lead planner out for coffee, or even ask if they need new headshots for their website or a photographer for an upcoming styled shoot.
But whatever you do, don’t approach the situation only hoping to get something in return. A “quid pro quo” (this for that) mentality is a terrible way to build a relationship. Start by serving, and then serve some more. If nothing ever comes from it, except that you gained a reputation as someone always willing to help and serve others, then that’s still a success as far as we’re concerned!

 

There are wedding venues and other vendors here in Charlottesville that have our photos on their website, but who have never referred us a wedding lead. Do we view those relationships as a waste of our time? Of course not! Because we got to use our gifts and time to serve others, and made Charlottesville feel like just a bit more of a community.

 

And Of course, there have been other times where our desire to serve has helped us build a mutually-beneficial relationship, where we get to love and serve their couples with our photography. Whether capturing the natural beauty of a venue or all the hard work of a planner, we know that their business is blessed by our photography, and we’re incredibly grateful because they’ve recommended us to the couples that came to them seeking wisdom.

 

A final word of warning when it comes to this networking strategy: this takes time. You cannot expect to get coffee with a planner or a venue manager, and book 5 weddings with them the following week. Sometimes it takes months or even a year of building a relationship before you finally book a wedding at that venue or with that planner. But if you already have a strong relationship with them, then you shoot that wedding and knock it out of the park by loving and serving their couple well… then you can almost definitely expect the leads to start coming in after that.

 

 

Networking as a Portrait Photographer

Now, portrait photographers, we promised we haven’t forgotten about you guys! While the strategy looks very different than for a wedding photographer, the same basic principle applies: find other companies who you can form a mutually-beneficial relationship with, then find a way to serve them. This is going to take a bit more creativity, but building a small handful of these relationships can keep you busy year-round without spending much money.

 

If you think back to Part 2 of this series, we talked about finding the places where your clients are hanging out online, and joining those groups and serving them. Well, think about that again, but this time: where do they hang out in real life? What other businesses in your town are already serving your clients? Let’s run through a few quick examples to help get the ideas flowing.

 

 

Business-to-Business (B2B) Networking Examples

If you want to fill your calendar with family sessions, ask yourself, “who’s already connected with lots of families?” Think about all the businesses that a family might regularly interact with. What about a dentist office that specializes in children? Maybe a daycare center or a summer camp or an afterschool program for kids? Maybe it’s your local realtor who specializes in residential homes for first time homebuyers.

 

Or maybe you love maternity and newborn sessions, so you’ll focus on the midwives, doulas, and the new-parents classes at your local community center. If you want to shoot high school seniors, it’s the local sports leagues and extra-curricular activities that are designed for older teens.

 

These are just a few examples, but once you’ve identified a list of businesses who serve the same demographic that you want to serve, the key is to reach out to them virtually, or even stop by their place of business and ask if you can talk to a manager or owner. Just like with a wedding venue, you want to be ready to serve them, and see if  you can add value to the experience that they give their clients.

 

 

When we bought our first home, our realtor sent us a gift basket full of snacks and branded merchandise for their brokerage. But the gift box also included a few gift cards to local businesses. What if you were able to include an offer for a half-off family session in there, knowing that once you shoot a family once and deliver them a great session, they’re likely to come back year after year?

 

We also have an apprentice who has a great relationship with a local co-op farm. They have their own community already built, and she just goes in a few times a year and offers mini-sessions for their families at the farm, and shares a small percentage of her profit with the farm. It’s a win for the farm, because they get a bit of extra money, and are shown as being a valuable resource for their members. And our Apprentice didn’t have to do any marketing, since the farm did the advertising for her to the community they already have!

 

There are a thousand different opportunities like this in every community, so start brainstorming ideas, and then start reaching out to people! Just make sure your list starts pretty large, because you may need to reach out to 5 or 10 businesses before you find a good match. And if you want to fill a calendar, the more relationships you have like these the better!

 

 

We’re going to be back ‘atcha next week with a new post and a new marketing hack. But in the meantime, get out there and keep networking!

 

Want More?

 

Click HERE to get your free copy of our eBook: “5 Essential Tips for Turning your Side-Hustle into a Full-Time Photography Business.” You’ll also be subscribed to our newsletter, so our newest content, weekly encouragement, and exclusive offers will be delivered right to your inbox!

 

 

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Check out the other segments in this blog series!

• Part 1: Maintain a Strong Portfolio
• Part 2: Join Local Facebook Groups
• Part 3: Referrals from Past Clients
• Part 4: Begin Your Social Media Presence
• Part 5: Network with Other Photographers
• Part 6: Networking with Venues and Vendors
• Part 7: Win Over Your Personal Network
• Part 8: Our Secret Direct Outreach Method
• Part 9: Four Reasons to Start a Photography Blog
• Part 10: Get More 5-Star Review from Past Clients