6 Ways to Skyrocket Your Bookings

If you’re still in your first few years of professional photography, then you’ve probably run across this situation before: How do you book the clients you want with the images you currently have? Oftentimes, the images you have now are vastly different from the images you want to create. Arizona-based wedding photographers Amy and Jordan Demos joined ShootDotEdit’s president, Jared Bauman, in a webinar titled “Skyrocket Your Bookings with Just Your Images” to discuss this very topic. Here, the couple shares six tips on how to use today’s images to book tomorrow’s client. For more details, you can access the entire webinar here: bit.ly/1K1rqdj. 

1.  Make a change in how you reach ideal clients.

When we first started shooting, we had difficulty booking ideal weddings. We wanted to shoot those gorgeous weddings with the beautiful details you see in the magazines, but we just weren’t at that level yet. We’d always heard you needed to show what you wanted to attract, but that felt nearly impossible with the types of weddings we were booking. Once we realized we had to earn the right to photograph a high-end wedding, we began to figure out ways to use what we already had to attract those future clients who would bring us to the next level. One of the most fundamental ways we learned to do this was simply through our images. Every time a potential client hits our website or blog, our images are the first thing they see, and that first impression will determine whether they decide to move forward with us or not. 

2.  Become an expert curator.

One of our biggest mistakes early on was that we didn’t have a strategy in place for what images would be on our website and blog. Carefully choosing the right images is a powerful tool, because each image sends a specific message to the viewer about our worth as photographers and what they can expect from us. As a curator, you can take lower-budget weddings and make them look like they’re million-dollar weddings. You can also take a higher-end wedding and make it look more modest. How you shoot—and then how you curate—is what dictates this. Be-coming expert curators was essential for us to be able to attract our ideal clients. We learned that when you strategically curate the right images with the right messages, it can make the difference between booking a few weddings per year and skyrocketing your bookings. 

3.  Include only your best images.

As you curate for your website and blog in a way that highlights your best images, you create a solid impression for potential clients. Once we started showing only our best images on our blog, rather than all of the images from all the parts of a wedding day, we saw viewers become far more engaged and clients became a better match. Less is truly more.

4.  Blog for future clients.

When you’re in the process of choosing images to share, place yourself in a potential client’s position. What would you want to see on a photographer’s website and blog? For most visitors, they want to view images that are relatable to them and how they want their wedding images to turn out. The first image on our website and blog sets the tone for how visitors feel about us as photographers, and done right, keeps them around. We try to include something personal from the wedding that speaks to our next client. The emotion draws them in. With this technique, potential clients can look at our work and envision how their wedding day images may look, and will know whether they want to work with us at that moment. 

5.  Mix up the order of your photos.

As we began to study the top wedding photography inspiration blogs, we started to notice that they were being curated in a different way than ours, and more successfully! The first images of every blog we saw were “wow” shots, and not necessarily in chronological order, but ones that still drew the eye in. We also noticed two images placed together that were vastly different. This technique helps each image become unique, and it also makes each image look more valuable. 

6.  Use the same techniques for every platform.

Using the same techniques on your website and blog shows consistency, and clients will clearly understand who you are as a photographer. When working on your website portfolio, it can be helpful to follow the idea that less is more, just like we talked about on the blog. If you only place 25 images on the website, each image becomes more powerful and meaningful. And, in many cases, potential clients will only give your work a few seconds before they make a decision about working with you. We want our future clients to be able to decide in seconds if we are the right fit for them. 

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