The Pro Photo Business Forum

However you decide to get the word out that your services as a wedding photographer are available, at some point, the phone is going to ring. If you are a beginning wedding photographer, you should know by now that your camera is not your most important piece of equipment. Make no mistake, your phone is your most important piece of equipment. Your ability to use it correctly will play a great part in your success or failure as both a business owner and wedding photographer.

If you’re just starting out, then I would suggest that you role play first with someone. Practice how you will greet your callers.

First, make a list of every question you can think of that will be asked of you. Make sure you can answer each of these questions without hesitation. If you hesitate in your answers, you may come across as a novice.

Keep in mind that each time you answer the phone you might be seconds away from making the biggest sale you have ever made. Smile before you pick up the phone. Have a pen and paper at the ready. Write down the caller’s name and use the name throughout the conversation.

Make a phone script and constantly change it to perfect your phone skills. Keep track of how many calls you convert into consultations. Only change one thing in your phone script at a time so you can better identify if the changes you have made are working for you.

Let’s go over some questions that might be asked of you and some suggested responses. When someone calls, for the most part, they will always ask one of the following questions:

• Do you have my date available?
• How much are your packages?

It is important to understand why these two questions are asked more than any other question. The people who call and inquire about your wedding photography services have more than likely never shopped for a wedding photographer before now. This means these are really the only two questions they can think of to ask. While you need to give the person calling you the answers to their questions, keep in mind if you answer with a direct response the conversation will be over.

When someone asks if you have their date available, inform the caller that you are looking up their date. While you are looking up their date, tell them you would love to know how they heard about you. Always ask how the caller heard about you and keep records of this information. This will help you to calculate cost per lead.

If the caller asks about their date first, their second question will be about price. It is important to understand that the caller really does want more information than just your price. They want to be educated as to what they can expect. They want to know all the questions they should ask in order to protect themselves and hire the best photographer they can within their budget.

Divert the conversation slightly. Ask a few questions yourself. Can I get your name? How did you hear about us? Can I tell you a bit about our products and services? Have you thought about what you would like as a final product? These are all great intros into a long passionate conversation.

Your goal, however, is to have a face-to-face conversation. Tell them that they really need to come in and see some of your award winning albums in person in order to get a real understanding of what you are all about.

Ask the caller where their wedding and reception are taking place. Have you photographed at either or both of the facilities? If so, tell a story about the last time you photographed at the facility in question. Inform the Bride-To-Be if she and her fiancé would like to come into your studio to further discuss their needs, you will have a slide show presentation ready of the last wedding you photographed at the facility in question.

Give them two or three times that you are available to meet. If you only offer one time, they will either say yes or no.

As you begin to photograph weddings, and begin to start blogging about your experiences, your online presence will gain momentum. This is not enough. The next step is to have other wedding professionals refer your services. This marketing technique can also be found in my e-book “Actions You Can Take to Promote and Protect Your Studio.”

Since we know that couples book their facilities before they book their photographer, make sure to take very flattering images of every reception facility where you find yourself. Make prints of these images, making sure to tastefully include your company name and contact information on the image itself, and then send the images to the facility free of charge. Include an invoice with the images. Show the value of the images on the invoice, and then show a 100% discount. List the reason for the discount as “professional courtesy”.

If the images are of good enough quality, it is possible the facility manager will use your images as a sales tool to reserve couples for their facility. In essence, the facility manager becomes your agent. When you have made your vendor images, be sure to deliver them in person. Use the opportunity to build a professional relationship and contact. Let them meet you face to face. Let them experience your passion and professionalism.

Now that you have this general idea of vendor prints, put it to good use. Send images to the florist. Who made the cake? Who made the dress? Who sold the wedding bands? Send them all images they can advertise with. I’ll bet they would love to show your images.

Do a search on Google for one of Houston wedding facilities, The Courtyard on St. James Place Houston. You will find that my studio, Solaris Studios, is listed as one of the top 10 listings. This is accomplished by including the wedding facilities name in our blog entries, throughout multiple blog entries.

When writing a blog entry about a specific facility you photographed, make sure to include the name of the facility. With any luck, when someone searches for that facility name on Google, your blog and site will appear in the search results. More than likely anyone searching for that facility is also in need of a wedding photographer. You can take this tactic one step further and include the company name of every vendor that participated in the wedding you photographed. Talk about who made the cake. Talk about where your client got her dress. Talk about where they got their rings. Talk about the florist. This may help your blog show up in search results for other search terms other than your own. If you haven’t photographed at a certain facility, but you want to shoot there, write a blog entry about that desire. Write the entry with the knowledge that once you post the entry, people searching for the name of that wedding facility on Google may now see your blog entry come up in their search result.

There is one more thing that you need to consider when writing a blog entry with the intention of including wedding vendors in the entry with the hopes of having your company name show up in search term results. Couples planning a wedding purchase and reserve the services of the wedding vendors they require in a certain order. Understanding this pecking order will make you more efficient.

The first thing a typical couple will reserve when planning their wedding is the location of their ceremony. The second thing they will reserve is the location of their reception. Sometimes the ceremony location and the reception locations are the same.

With their facilities safely reserved, they can then begin to shop for additional vendors. The reason couples do not begin shopping for vendors first, and locations for their wedding second, is because most wedding vendors require a retainer to reserve their services, and in most cases these retainers are nonrefundable.

Whether they know it or not, next on the couple’s shopping list should be the vendors that can only be at one place at one time. The photographer and the band are normally at the top of this list and I would say for most couples the photography is of course more important.

So what does this information tell us? It tells us when we make our blog entries we should always include the names of the facility where we photographed. Of course, we can include the names of the florist and the cake maker in our blog entries, but when it comes to the pecking order of how our clients shop, we know that they are going to normally purchase the flowers and a cake after they have reserved the services of a photographer. This means that you will get very few referrals from florists and cake makers. Your largest source of referrals is going to come from facility managers and catering directors.

If you know the name of the catering director or facility manager, make sure to include the person’s name in the blog entry and make them aware that you have done so. Let them know you are marketing their services. Simply send an email to the catering director with a link to your blog entry.

Happy blogging.

Magazine ads are expensive! But because you are now tracking all of the inquiries coming into your studio, you can calculate cost per lead. This gives you the information you need to tell you which of your advertising efforts is the weakest. Once you have identified your weakest ad, you can either change the copy, size, and/or layout of the ad in hopes of getting a better return on your advertising dollar.

Here’s a radical idea that might be a better way of spending your advertising dollars. It has worked wonders for my company: Cancel your weakest magazine ad and use those advertising dollars to take the top 15 catering directors and facility managers to lunch. Pick out 15 reception facilities that you would like to photograph on a regular basis. Contact the facility managers and invite them and their team to your studio for a catered lunch. Have a limo pick them up and bring them to you. Chose the limo company you use wisely. Find the most expensive wedding magazine in your area and see which limo companies are advertising there. Explain to the manager of the company you are hiring them to pick up catering directors from wedding facilities the limo company more than likely already services. The limo company just might give you a discount on their service.

When the facility manager arrives at your place of business, make sure to have everything looking as nice as it can so the manager understands this is what people will see should they decide to refer their clients to you. When your guests arrive, send out your assistant to pick up the food. During this time, you show your guests what you have to offer. Show them everything that you would show a prospective client. When the food arrives, you eat and tell wedding stories. When everyone is done eating, hand your guests a stack of 8x10s you have taken of their facility. Invite them to use these images as tools to help book events.

Establishing long lasting personal relationships with facility managers that can refer your services to their clients is much more powerful than purchasing a magazine ad which will some day expire.

Before you place your first ad announcing your photographic services, or even if you are already advertising, you must have in place a system to track the results of your advertising. Advertising can be expensive. You could be throwing your money away and not even know it.

You must be able to calculate the efficiency of your advertising efforts. When wedding photographers say their advertising is working, they generally just know that they are receiving calls and booking weddings. You must know more than this.

You must know if your marketing is efficient or not. The best way to give yourself the answer to this question is through the use of statistics. As a business owner that wants to succeed, you have a responsibility to track the statistics of your business. Through marketing you begin to attract individuals to your business. These individuals are inquiries, and you must ask each inquiry one basic question in order to create the statistics you need:

How did you hear about us?

Keep track of the following after your initial contact with your inquiry:

1. How many of your inquiries did you convert into consultations?
2. How many of these consultations did you convert into paying customers?
3. How many of your paying customers have you converted into repeat customers?

The answers to these questions will show you where you are the least efficient. If you see that you are only converting 10% of the inquiries you receive into consultations and 90% of the consultations you have are converted into paying customers, you know you must change the language used when answering your phone or replying to people inquiring about your services via email.

Tracking each and every inquiry will also tell you where your paid advertising is failing or succeeding. You do not need to focus on the ads that are doing the best until you have addressed the ones that are doing the worst.

You should be able to find out the “cost per lead” for each of the ads you have purchased. For example, if you paid $1000 for an ad somewhere and you received 10 phone calls from that ad, your cost per lead is $100. Think of it this way, when that phone rings, you are spending $100.

Being able to find your cost per lead for each of your paid ads is essential to becoming more efficient. This information will allow you to make educated decisions when the contracts for your ads expire. You will know which ads to keep and which to drop. You may decide to change the language in one ad to see if you can create different results. You may decide to take the money from one ad and use it to increase the size of another ad that is working better. If you do not have a system in place allowing you to track your cost per lead, you are just shooting in the dark, wasting your money and time. That is inefficient.

This next point is important. If you do decide to change an element in your weakest advertisement, make sure you only change one thing at a time. In the long run, this will give you clearer understanding as to whether or not the changes you have made are working. If you change too much all at once, you have no idea what specific alteration created the change, good or bad, and it will be harder for you to repeat the action in the future.

The following tip, and many others, can be found in the free eBook listed on the right column of this site. I hope you find it useful.

In your area there is more than likely a magazine that caters to couples getting married. If there is more than one magazine catering to couples getting married, then select the one that you feel that caters to couples with a larger budget for their wedding.

As you go through the magazine you’ll find it is sectioned off by the different categories of vendors available to the couples. Locate the section that contains the different invitation and stationary designers and pick out your favorite one as you are going to have them make you special a card that can easily fit in your shirt pocket.

When I’m photographing a wedding, I concentrate on maintaining a smile on my face. Inevitably, at some point during the event, I’ll be approached by an individual who will compliment me on my service. When this happens, I hand them a beautifully designed card offering them one free family portrait session. When I offer this card, I will very quickly thank them for their compliment, hand them the card, and then move on.

If you decide try this marketing technique, you must understand that you are not at your customer’s event to advertise your services to their guests. You are there to serve. Because of this, make it a point only to hand out this card out to individuals that approach you and give you a compliment. Quickly give them something nice in return, and then continue with the job at hand.

The following tip, and many others, can be found in the free eBook listed on the right column of this site. I hope you find it useful.

As a wedding or event photographer, make sure to take very flattering images of every reception facility that you find yourself in. Make prints of these images, making sure to tastefully include your company name and contact information on the image itself, and then send the images to the facility free of charge. Include an invoice with the images. Show the value of the images on the invoice, and then show a 100% discount. List the reason as “professional courtesy”.

If the images are of good enough quality, then possibly the facility manager will use your images as a sales tool to reserve couples for their facility. The facility manager in essence becomes your agent. When you have made your vendor images, make sure to deliver them in person. Use the opportunity to build a professional relationship and contact. Let them meet you face to face.

Now that you have this general idea of vendor prints, put it to good use. Send images to the florist. Who made the cake? Who made the dress? Who sold the wedding bands? I’ll bet they would love to show your images.

One last thing to keep in mind with vendor prints is the pecking order in which a wedding is planned. A couple will almost always book their ceremony and reception facility first as this solidifies the wedding date. After their facilities have been reserved, the bride and groom will begin to look at vendors that can only be in one place at one time. These include the band, the officiant, and, of course, the photographer.

What does this tell us? It tells us that the most beneficial people to give vendor prints to are the facility managers and the facility catering directors. For me, referrals from cake makers are few and far between.

While photographing an event, make it a point to find the facility manager and introduce yourself. Ask for their business card. When you make an appointment to drop off the images to the facility, try to schedule your meeting with the manager you met. During your meeting, ask if the facility has a preferred vendors list that they hand out to their perspective clients. When you return to the studio, send a thank you card to the manager, thanking them for their time. Direct them to your website so they can see the quality of your work. This will make them more willing to add your company to their preferred vendors list.

The following tip, and many others, can be found in the free eBook listed on the right column of this site. I hope you find it useful.

Can you imagine the nightmare of double booking the same date? While this is a very obvious problem to avoid, what is important is to understand how this can happen, and more importantly how to avoid it.

Perhaps it’s late because your prospect couldn’t meet until after they got off work. At the conclusion of your consultation your clients reserve the date. You create a contract, collect your retainer and have the contract signed by all parties. You’re tired and fail to place the date as booked in your calendar, or the date gets erased from your calendar.

This can happen for a variety of reasons: human error, a computer crash, a malicious employee, or more.

Another couple comes along inquiring about the same date. You check your calendar and see that the date is still open. The couple comes into the studio and books the date.

This time you successfully place the date into your calendar.

The date of the wedding soon arrives. You show up at the second couple’s wedding and receive a phone call on your cell. It’s the first couple wanting to know where you are! Not only will you more than likely be sued by the first couple, you will be so off your game at the event you are covering, you will probably produce less than professional results.

While this situation is very unlikely to happen, it is your responsibility as the owner of your studio to make sure that it doesn’t happen.

To prevent this disaster, keep all of your open contracts in a safe. Every month, on the first of the month, pull them out and compare them to the booked dates on your calendar. If you come across a contract that has no correlating reserved date on your calendar, you have just prevented yourself from a possible double booking.

Now, do this process in reverse. Check your calendar, and look at each weekend for a booked date. For each booked date you find, make sure you can locate a signed contract that correlates to the date. This will prevent you from booking a wedding and marking down the wrong date in your calendar. It also ensures you have possession of all your active contracts.

Every professional photographer knows the importance of backup gear.  At least two cameras, two flashes, two lenses, etc.  And I submit that most professionals have way more gear than that.   However, the other night as we were preparing for a Wedding a thought came to me.

Let’s set a scenario right quick:  It’s Friday night, 5PM.  You’re getting your equipment together for tomorrow’s Wedding in which you need to arrive at 9AM.   You’ve cleaned your lenses, formatted your CF cards, verified time and location, and are working on charging batteries.   You take the batteries out of your cameras and insert one of them into its charger….. and nothing happens.  You chuckle to yourself as you remember you need to turn on the power-strip that the charger is connected to… except.. it’s already on.   Perplexed, you switch batteries on the charger with no avail. You come to the realization that your battery charger is no longer working.  You do have a back-up, right?

Now.. if you’ve purchased two similar cameras at retail, then you most likely have two identical chargers… regardless of the brand.   I chose not to sell my extra chargers because it made my task of charging all the batteries that much simpler.  But as I was looking at the charging table we have set up at the studio – I thought about how problematic it could be to not be able to charge batteries the night before a wedding or big event.

Fortunately, many cameras that accept battery grips have AA battery attachments that can be used to power the cameras.  But, that assumes that you know where that attachment is.  However, full body professional cameras rely on their brand specific batteries for power with no other (easy) alternatives.

I’ve attached an iPhone photo of my charging station that I’ve temporarily made for our studio.  Since we’re still settling in after a big move – this will be a little more permanent as soon as I find the appropriate place for it.  Until then – you can see the redundancy we have in battery charging, which allows us to recover from a problem should one ever occur.

One final note, we keep our chargers unplugged when not in use.  This saves on the minuscule bits of power they use when not actively charging – and also helps to prevent any stray power surges from wiping out our entire collection of chargers.

It may not seem important at first and I’m sure it doesn’t happen often – but small bits of preventative action can save you loads of stress down the road.