How to Grow Your Photography Business

How to Grow Your Photography Business

For most people, “marketing” is a rather icky term, associated with slimy salespeople, annoying ads and stacks of glossy brochures that inevitably end up in the bin.

Even if you don’t have any negative associations with marketing, you may find the idea of having to market your own business overwhelming – or maybe you’ve unsuccessfully tried some marketing strategies in the past and no longer believe in the power of marketing tools.

Personally, I’ve found marketing my photography business extremely challenging for several reasons – first of all, there are so many strategies available that it’s hard to decide which ones to choose.

Second, if you’re a new business, you usually won’t see results for a while – marketing is definitely a long game.

Finally, there is something inherently unnatural and uncomfortable about having to market your own products or business (unless you change your mindset, but more about that later).

However, a photography business without sales is not a business, so I was determined to make it work.

I took countless courses in marketing and experimented for several years with different social media platforms and content types.

The result: I’ve finally found a method that works for me, and I’ve compiled everything I’ve learned in my marketing journey into seven easy “how to grow your photography business” steps outlined below.

Obviously, nothing is guaranteed in business, but if you follow these seven marketing steps for photographers, you will give yourself the very best chance to succeed.

How to Grow Your Photography Business in 7 Steps

1) Get Into the Right Mindset

I think what makes marketing so uncomfortable for most people is that we think of it as cold sales.

You know, like those annoying calls you sometimes get where someone wants to sell you products over the phone that you’ve never heard of, don’t care about and definitely don’t want to buy.

We may also confuse marketing with advertising, wrongly assuming that marketing our art photography business means having to run costly adverts in social or traditional media.

However, you certainly don’t have to make any cold calls, nor do you have to place adverts (even though this can be part of a successful marketing strategy).

Instead, try to change your mindset about marketing.

Forget any associations with selling – all you want to do with your marketing strategies is help people get to know you and keep them up to date about your offerings.

This really doesn’t have to be a negative experience – to the contrary: there are most definitely people out there who will love your products and services, and they will be excited to hear from you.

Think of some brand you REALLY love – like your favourite clothing brand.

Aren’t you actually happy to hear from them about new products they offer?

You may already subscribe to their newsletter to receive news and updates before anyone else, and you’re probably happy to spend a good amount of money on their products.

The same could be true for YOUR products – the “right” people, the ones that will love your photographs/services, will always be happy to hear from you.

If you look at it from this angle, marketing your business really just means giving people a chance to discover you and your products and to buy from you.

Suddenly, “selling” doesn’t feel so icky anymore, right?

I think as long as you stand behind your photography and are proud of your offerings, you don’t need to feel awkward about marketing them to people.

Customers who aren’t interested will go elsewhere, but the ones who like or even love your images will be grateful for the opportunity to buy them from you because they fulfil a need they have, for example, the desire to hang up beautiful art on their walls.

2) Get Your Shopwindow Ready

I think the next step in your marketing strategy for “how to grow your photography business” is imperative; however, a lot of people tend to skip it because it can feel a little tedious.

That step is getting your “storefront” ready, as it were: a professional online and social media presence which should include:

• A website or online portfolio page
• A SEO optimised profile on selected social media channels you decide to focus on
• A fully stocked shop, be it on your own website or on a third-party website
• An artist statement and CV/bio

I would recommend you get all of this in place before seriously tackling your marketing.

First of all, it will make the process so much easier for you – for example, when I apply to photography open calls or art fairs, I just copy/paste my statement and artist bio and send a link to my website.

It will also make you look so much more professional and impress future customers, collaborators, brands etc.

I think it makes sense to get your “shop” ready before you bring in customers, not the other way around.

By the way… just a little interruption to say that if you’re a portrait photographer, you might like my free ebook:

…but now, back to the blog post!

3) Brainstorm Marketing Ideas for “How to Grow Your Photography Business”

Next, sit down and brainstorm all the marketing ideas you can think of. If you’re stuck, here are some ideas:

Digital marketing strategies

• Social media – static posts, e.g. on Instagram
• Social media – short form videos, eg on Tiktok, Youtube Shorts, Instagram Reels, Pinterest Idea Pins
• Long form videos, posted on Youtube
• A podcast
• Writing articles, either on your own blog or on platforms such as Substack, LinkedIn, etc
• Paid ads on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc
• Search engine optimisation generated traffic to your website or blog
• Digital PR, e.g. guest blogging on other third-party websites, reaching out to influencers, etc
• Email marketing (through your newsletter)
• Online events such as webinars

Traditional marketing strategies

• Your own exhibition in a rented space
• Referrals/word of mouth
• Print advertising
• Business cards
• Exhibiting at art fairs, galleries, etc.
• Submitting your work to print publications such as photography and art magazines

4) Pick your “Big Three”

Now you’ve got a good grasp of all the marketing strategies available, it’s time to pick the ones you want to focus on.

This may be a controversial opinion, but I actually think it’s better to do a few things properly and persistently than trying to dabble in everything.

Yes, it’s tempting to throw lots at the wall and see what sticks, but the downside of this approach is that you don’t really master any of the marketing techniques, plus it will take you way longer to see results.

I propose the following strategy: pick your “Big Three” and focus on those until you have built an audience, then diversify your marketing later, if still needed. 

According to the “Big Three” approach, you would pick:

One Evergreen Hero Content Outlet like YouTube Videos, Your Own Blog or a Podcast

On this outlet, you create regular content that stays relevant, positions you as an expert, helps people get to know you, and can potentially be monetised on its own.

As part of this marketing tool, you will create a value-rich freebie that people can download in exchange for their email address.

This could be a beautiful photograph they can use as a screensaver, a short PDF document with photography tips, a document with tips for mounting and framing art photography, etc.

One Platform to Market the Above Evergreen Content

For this purpose, I recommend Pinterest, as the content is evergreen and you will get clicks long after you’ve pinned your pins.

One Platform to Showcase Your Personality

This is where you get to have a bit of fun and show who you are – after all, people like to buy from people, and it helps if they feel like they know you a bit. For this purpose, I like Instagram or Tiktok.

How the Big Three Work in Practice

Your hero content outlet, be it a weekly Youtube video, a blog or a podcast, is your main marketing tool.

Its purpose is to build an audience and, above all, to build an email newsletter.

It works like this:

People find you through your hero content where you advertise your freebie > they download the freebie > you have their email address and can now send them your newsletter

The newsletter is key because email marketing is one of the most effective and powerful tools for converting to sales.

Also, the contacts are yours to keep (unlike followers on a social media platform like Instagram, which could disappear tomorrow, along with all your followers).

The second platform you pick is your tool to market your main content – here, you post as regularly as you can.

I have recommended Pinterest because it’s a visual platform and thus great for photographers, plus the content sticks around for a long time (as opposed to Instagram where posts don’t really stay relevant for longer than a few days).

It’s also a platform people go to to find inspiration for their home or interesting wall art – like your photographs 😊

The third platform is meant to help your audience to get to know you and your business.

I use Instagram for this purpose – I love sharing Instagram Stories with behind the scenes footage of my photo shoots, for example.

Here, you can post less regularly – it’s more about showing who you are, building a connection to your audience and having a bit of fun.

I also use Instagram as a portfolio, posting the finished result of each of my photo shoots.

You can also experiment with posting tutorial style/behind the scenes reels.

What About Traditional Marketing?

You may have noticed that these are digital marketing strategies only.

Hence, to round off your “how to grow your photography business” marketing strategy, I propose you also dedicate a day each month to apply to contests, exhibitions, publications etc.

5) Know Where You’re Going

OK, so you’ve decided on your “Big Three” – now what?

Well, this is actually the perfect moment to create a marketing plan and schedule, because you can’t get to your destination if you don’t know where you’re headed.

If you’ve never written a business plan, this would be a great time to do so – it will really help you get your focus right.

When I decided to write my own business plan, I had no clue how to proceed, so I did this incredible short course by artist Lizzie Snow. It’s inexpensive, but very in depth, and I found it super helpful for planning all my marketing activities.

If that’s too time-consuming for you, no problem.

This step is really just about setting a few achievable goals and then following your plan.

Write it in a pretty journal or type it out in a Word document – the how isn’t important, as long as you take time to think about your strategy.

Refer back to the “Big Three” you identified in the previous step and assign a timeframe for each of those.

For example, your marketing plan could look something like this:

• Youtube: I will publish one long-form video per week – main marketing tool
• Pinterest – I will pin daily. Pins will include Canva graphics referring to my YouTube videos, my photos, idea pins with photography tips, and interesting repins of other beautiful photos. I will pin 10 pins per day (pre-scheduled in the app Tailwind).
• Instagram – I will share stories every weekday, post 2-3 photographs per week, and create 2 behind-the-scenes reels per week
• Freebie: I will create a PDF guide with 50 tips for taking artistic portraits. I will market this in my YouTube video and on Pinterest. Users will have to leave their email address to download it, which I can then add to my newsletter list
• Once I have newsletter subscribers, I will send a weekly brief newsletter with updates, promotions, etc

I know this sounds like a lot, but most of those tasks don’t take up much time – for example, I create and schedule all my Pinterest pins for the week in about one hour.

The main effort should go into your hero content such as your Youtube videos, blog or podcast.

If you’re not sure how to create any of those, it’s worth investing in an online course or further training to learn skills such as video editing or search engine optimisation.

6) Establish Trust

The next step is about establishing trust.

You do this by showing up for your audience and creating valuable content, such as a blog for example.

Establishing trust is absolutely essential for gaining customers or buyers.

As I mentioned above, people buy from people, and it’s true – it’s very rare that someone would just stumble upon your website and, never having heard of you before, put one of your photography prints in their shopping basket.

Instead, it usually takes a few touchpoints until people know and trust you enough to buy from you, which is why you’re putting so much effort into all of these marketing platforms.

By sending your newsletter, sharing personal updates, or even running live events such as webinars or Instagram lives, you build trust and turn people into loyal fans who eventually WANT to buy from you because they’ve gotten to know you.

7) Have Faith

This is 100% the hardest part of your “how to grow your photography business” marketing strategy.

I’ve asked you to do all this work, create content, show up on social media platforms, etc, and hopefully you will create your own marketing plan and follow through.

The challenge with all marketing tools, however, is that it simply takes time, especially if you’re just starting out.

Evergreen content outlets such as YouTube videos, blogs or podcasts are long-term strategies – for example, for a weekly blog with a solid SEO strategy, it could take 6 months or longer to get some organic traffic from search engines.

The same goes for YouTube videos, Pinterest, etc. – 6-12 months is the absolute minimum time period you should commit to without expecting big results.

Hence, you have to have unwavering faith.

You simply have to trust that all these marketing strategies work, as long as you stick to your plan and focus on a few tools only, using them to the best of your ability and expanding your knowledge and skills if necessary to get the most out of them.

Commit to a certain timeframe, say 18 months, and just keep going.

Of course, you can evaluate the intermediate results at regular intervals, but try not to change course or stop and start – in the end, even the most effective marketing tool won’t lead to results without persistence, grit and, most importantly, patience.

I hope you found this post about how to grow your photography business helpful! If you’d like to support my work, you can buy me a coffee below!