We know how much time and effort you put into establishing your photography business, and how hard it can sometimes be to handle a new client. You can put hours of work into your portfolio and mastering your photography skills, but then break it with one unplanned photo session.

So here we have put together seven proven tips which will help you make a lasting impression on your clients on a photoshoot. You can use these tips as a step-by-step guide to outline your next photo session.

1. Develop a photoshoot concept

The very first and the most important step in a photo shoot is to develop a theme. Don’t think only about cute props or nice location. Think beyond all that – what emotions you are going to cause with these photos?

– How old is your client?

– What is her/his personality?

– What is he or she wearing?

– What story do these images tell?

– What is he or she holding in the hands?

– Should these shots be dark or light?

– What weather conditions are there in your images?

You can ask your client to share photo ideas from the web or even your portfolio. Consider having a clear idea of the client’s needs. It’ll not be superfluous to find photo ideas on Pinterest and prepare poses for the shoot. Create a mood board on Pinterest which you will share for photo ideas, poses, and more.

You can create a checklist of images you want to take. Take a moment to visualize the scene and everything you put into a frame. A client will notice your attention to details and will enjoy working with you.

Make sure you work on improving your photography skills all the time to show the best results every time, here are eight things you can do today to become a better photographer.

2. Find the perfect location

Scouting for the perfect location can be a difficult and time-consuming job. Yet it is worth the effort. Even in a small town or village, no matter where you live, there are lots of beautiful locations. Learn to see them.

Collect the best photogenic locations in your city: it could be a park, forest, place near a pond, garden, rooftop, or cafe. It depends on the type of photo session you are going to realize.

You can acquire perfect locations from local photographers or find them yourself when you go for a walk. In fact, even a simple place with nothing special at first glance may look amazing in a photo.

Turn on the imagination and play with the location and props. If you are going to shoot indoors, you need to have a list of studios with different readymade scenes.

3. Come earlier

Another great way to leave a lasting impression on a photo shoot is to come to the location earlier. Arrive 20 minutes before clients to make sure that everything looks exactly how you expect, prepare pros and accessories, and set up your gear.

You won’t waste clients’ time when they get there. Show them that you respect their time and won’t bill them for the time spent on preparation. A client may not remember that you came earlier, but they will remember if you are late. And this is definitely not the first impression you want to make.

Remember that things will not always go as planned, and if you are to shoot a picnic in a sunny park and it starts to rain, the best option is to reschedule the shoot.

4. Select the props

From color smoke bombs through balloons and ribbons to bubbles, there are many props you can choose. The market is full of unique handcrafted things. You can search for photoshoot accessories on Amazon and Etsy.

However, keep in mind that photo sessions are not about accessories, but about people. So make these props to help you enhance your vision, but don’t overuse them.

Also, think about the colors in your future frames. Think whether the accessories are suitable for a certain concept. Obviously, if you are shooting a couple in the rain, balloons will not be the best props. In this case, an umbrella will be the best fit.

5. Remember styling

The styling of a photo shoot is an essential step that gets skipped on some occasions. Talk to your client about their expectations and what images they want to get.

When you have a concept, props, and location, offer your client suggestions about what to wear and what makeup and hairstyle will be suitable.

Photographers often work with makeup artists and hairstylists. If you have not, give it a try! I have shared the seven must-have contacts of any photographer that will help you create quality photo sessions and impress your clients.

You can easily call a local makeup artist and ask if they are available for selected dates. Offer your images for their services, tell them that they can use your images in their advertising or on Instagram. You can contact wardrobe stylists, hair stylists, and other professionals in a similar way.

6. Deliver your work earlier than expected

There are numerous ways to deliver your selected and edited photos to a client. Photo delivery is a part of your brand and communication with clients. Impress them at this stage too.

One of the best ways to surprise your clients is to deliver photos at least a few days before the agreed term. You can always give them an estimated delivery date with a margin of several days.

In order to deliver your photos earlier, you can use Photoshop actions or Lightroom presets which reflect your unique style and suit the photo session mood. They allow you to edit every photo in one click with a little adjustment, but they are real time savers.

When it comes to the method of delivery, it depends on what is convenient for you. Some photographers deliver images on branded flash drives along with a few printed photos and a thank you card in a nice box.

If you deliver photos digitally, you can upload them on your website and share a link with clients. It is a very suitable option if you shoot groups or events, such as weddings.

After people download all the images you can remove them from your server. But give clients at least 14 days to get the shots. Make the delivery as smooth and quick as possible to make the perfect last impression on your client.

7. Ask for feedback

Of course, it can be difficult to ask for feedback, especially if a person points out shortcomings. But every critic will help you improve interaction with clients and grow as a photographer and business owner.

There are numerous ways to ask for feedback. You can ask for clients’ opinions right after the shoot, and again when you deliver their images. You can ask for feedback in a messenger or in person.

The best way to get truly honest feedback about your work is to use anonymous forms on your website. When a client knows that you would not know it is him or her, it’s way easier to share negative points. And it’s important to hear your clients and try to make your communication better.

Over to you

Let me know if you finished reading the article in the comment field below. What methods to make a lasting impression on a photo shoot do you use? If I missed something, be confident to share it with us.

Honestly, there is a striking balance between what you like writing about and what your readers would like to see on your blog. Generating new blog post ideas is not that easy, however, there are numerous ways to find what you’re looking for.

In this article I’m going to share with you a few quick tips on how to find new content ideas. You can implement these steps into your everyday routine, so you would never run out of ideas again.

Why Blogging is So Important?

While your portfolio website is important to show your latest work and experience, blog is a perfect place to show your clients who you really are in less formal way. It allows you to showcase different types of photography you take, not just wedding or family portraits.

HubSpot published the study which showed that business blogging leads to 55% more website visitors and 97% more inbound links. Thus, blogging helps you to get better marketing results. Since, blogs are constantly updated with good content, Google keeps coming back there and monitors it, – so frequently updated blog can improve your rankings.

Besides, a blog is a perfect way to establish your photography brand. People start perceive you as an expert in photography area when you share your own tips and experience on a blog. With time you can develop your unique voice and gain followers. Thus, blogging has a lot of hidden benefits. Let’s create some awesome content ideas for your photography blog!

Know Your Audience

If you don’t know who you’re creating for, then figuring out what to create would be nearly impossible. You need to get to know your target audience really well, and create your content specifically for them.

Here is a huge questionnaire by Regina which will help you to find your perfect reader. When you know your ideal reader’s profile, you know how to create shareable, useful, informative content.

You can guess who your target audience is, but Google Analytics can tell you for sure. Just open Audience tab and then User Explorer to get to know your users’ age, gender, interests, location and even more.

One more great way to deeper understand your audience is conducting a survey. There is a free tool SurveyMonkey which can help you create a survey quickly and easily. You can ask your readers what types of post they would like to see on your blog?

Just make sure your survey has up to three questions: don’t ask your readers to spend too much time on it, because there is a huge chance they won’t answer. It’s better to create a list of options to choose from for quicker clearer results.

Know Your Competitors

Photography is your industry, but what is your niche? You may write about photography business, photography marketing, the art of taking pictures and so on. You should find blogs similar to yours and get to know what worked out for them. It would be a great source of inspiration.

In order to get to know the best content of your competitors you can use famous marketing toolset Ahrefs. Along with numerous useful features, Ahrefs lets you to get to know what blog posts of your competitors are popular on social media. Just insert any URL you need and go to Site Explorer, then open Best by shares tab:

Site Explorer has also two more important reports: Best by links and Top Pages. ‘Best by links’ shows you posts which have the most backlinks. Top pages helps you to see which pages of your competitors bring the most organic traffic to them and get to know the keywords.

Ahrefs is a paid tool, but they have 7 day trial for $7 which is quite enough to analyze your competitors.

There is no need to copy someone’s content, you can use their popular headlines as a base, but add it a different angle. For example, if you want to write about suitable clothes for a photo shoot:

– What to Wear for Outside/Inside Photo Shoot?

– Do’s & Dont’s: the Best Clothing for Portraits

– 10 Tips on What to Wear for Your First Photo Shoot

There are numerous variations of how to write a headline about the same thing. Add your individual approach to each topic to make it different. Think outside the box to bring a whole new angle to an old topic.

Online Ideas Generator

If you create site content, you most probably have some experience and knowledge in blogging and photography. However, it’s not quite enough to create intriguing headlines and unique ideas.

Everyone have creative block from time to time. Fortunately, there are online ideas generators which can help you create a huge list of ideas using just one keyword or phrase. TweakYourBiz is an awesome example of title generator.

Just open the tool and write your keyword. In less than a second you’ll get a collection of over 100 title ideas separated into categories: lists, how-tos, questions, business and more.

Of course, not all of these suggestions may seem logical, but at least you’ll get inspiration to create a blog post plan.

Also, you can use Headline Analyzer by CoSchedule.

It will tell you how much common, uncommon, emotional and powerful words your headline has, show you how it’s going to look like in Google, and give some tips on how to improve it.

Play with Google

There are two useful ways of how you can use Google to create new content ideas. When you start writing something in Google’s search box, at the bottom you see other suggested searches based on what you were looking for.

Google shows you what other people were searching for. So, each your keyword can be used to find even more blog post ideas.

Also, when you write a letter right after your phrase, you get even more content ideas. See yourself:

You can do this with every letter of an alphabet.

Follow Questions of Others

There are famous Q&A networks like Quora where people ask and answer different questions. You can find the topic you’re interested for and see what questions get the most followers and what answers get the most upvotes.

Here I searched for ‘content marketing’. You see that the question ‘What are some common beginner mistakes in content marketing?’ got the most followers, so it would be a great new content idea.

You can also ask a question yourself, for example, ‘what topics you would like to see on photography blog’ and wait for people’ answers.

Recycle Old Content

You can analyze your website using Google Analytics or Ahrefs to get to know what posts bring your the most traffic from Google.

Then, look through these posts, maybe some content there is outdated. You will be surprised to know how many changes you can make there to actually come up with new content.

You can add some information and images there to make your posts even more informative and engaging. Make sure to change photos, screenshots or paragraphs which seem too old.

For example, one of our most popular posts on Photodoto Who are World’s Most Famous Photographers? has been updated. It appears in top ten Google’s results for keyword “famous photographers” and it brings over 2,000 organic pageviews each month since 2012.

You can update your post and leave it, or republish it as a new piece on your blog – it’s up to you.

Bonus: List of Content Ideas for Photography Bloggers

• Tell you readers a story why you became a photographer.
• Advise them how to prepare for a photo session: clothing, makeup, poses, best locations, and so on.
• A behind-the-scenes of one of your photos. Tell a whole story beginning of how and where it was taken till post-processing.
• Tips on how to help clients to pick the best shots from a photo session.
• Tell about your travelling or some other hobbies besides photography.
• Show some before & after shots to get readers know how much time and effort you put into every image.
• Tell about local vendors which may help you clients to buy accessories, clothing or other stuff for the next photo session.
• Share your vacation or other personal images to help you clients to get to know your better as a person.
• Write about running a photography business and milestones other newbie photographers may face with.
• Share funny stories that happened on your photo shoot.

Wrapping Up

To keep your new ideas organized, I suggest you to create ideas file and update it once you come up to new blog post idea. It ensures your inspiration won’t dry out.

These were my ways on how to never run out of content ideas again. What are your ways? Please share with us your strategies of creating new content in the comment section below.

However, content is not the only important part of a business. Have you heard the statement, “community is its own kingdom”? This means that if you provide really good content, sooner or later you will build a community around your brand. Relationship marketing is what will help you to do that. That’s what we are going to discuss in this article.

Relationship marketing is a strategy designed to create a strong connection between clients and a brand. Its goal is to generate repeat sales, encourage word-of-mouth, and gather customer information.

In this post you’ll find 5 essential tips on how to build solid relationships with people around your photography brand.

Understand Your Audience

When you build relationships with your audience you start understanding their needs. No one really needs to follow you on social media. People follow you because your services fulfil their desires. Your posts are funny, informative, helpful or they are just looking for sales or discounts on the services you provide.

You need to learn how to trigger emotional responses from your followers. Think about your reader and whether they will be impressed when they read your content. The best way to connect your content and your followers is to engage your followers in conversation. For example, photographer and blogger Jasmine Star uses her blog to answer people’s emails or messages from social media and actually help them to solve their problems. See her interaction with clients on the following post: LISTEN + HEAR CLIENT REQUESTS.

Jasmine answers her client’s questions with only a few sentences. She keeps in mind that there may be more than one person who has the same problem. You can see how many comments there are. People respond emotionally, as their responses reflect how important photography is to them.

It is very important that you engage in conversation with your clients or followers. It’s more about listening than talking. And don’t forget to write down all your new ideas. People want actionable content that will help them reach their goals. They want to put your content to good use, so let them do it.

Use Seed Content

One of the greatest ways to build a strong brand is to collaborate with influential people from the photography world. Successfully partnering with experts from your field could make your content go viral on the internet. So, how do you do that?

Your goal is not only to find people with a lot of followers on Twitter or Facebook, but to create a list of people who can create engagement with you about photography. Just because someone has many followers does not mean that their level of engagement with their followers is high. There are various online tools that allow you to figure out which followers are real and who has the most engagement in a certain subject. A tool like Twtrland will help you with this task. You can search for topic, skills, areas, or other parameters, based on influence. I typed the word “photography” into the search box and marked Power Users to figure out who the influential people are and how engaged they are with their followers.

The next step is to create seed content that the experts would be willing to share. What I did on Photodoto is I made a showcase of the 50 best portfolio sites and emailed the owners of these portfolios, letting them know that their site was featured.

Email is better than messages on social media, as someone could easily miss a comment on social media. When you have written an article to post online, and you want to send it to an expert,, don’t be annoying and don’t ask for anything. You could ask the expert to tweet the article, so people can decide for themselves whether to share the article or not. For the expert, it’s an opportunity to show off how great they are, since his/her portfolio was featured in the article. And for you, it’s a great chance to spread your content and get your brand out there.

I did this with my Christmas post, interviewing some famous photographers and asking them just one question: “What is the best Christmas gift for you?”. After the publication, I emailed these photographers asking to tweet the article. They couldn’t help but share this content as they took part in creating it.

Collect Customer Feedback

What new features, product or services could help your business get to the next level? What can be fixed or improved in your existing business strategy? You can find the answers to these questions in your clients’ feedback. Whether you’re just starting out as a photographer or your business is already established and running, it is very valuable to study clients’ feedback constantly.

For example, Defrozo, is a service for photographers, allowing them to create a site and manage a lot of tasks in one place, and also manages clients’ feedback. Below you see the screenshot of their survey they made to define key features of the ideal photography marketing platform.

One of the ways to quickly collect your clients’ feedback regarding your work is online proofing. There are lots of tools enabling you to create photo galleries for clients available on the web. The most popular professional services are ProPhoto, Zenfolio, Photoshelter, and Shootproof.

One free solution worth checking out is Defrozo. Personalized photo albums for clients are just one of the tools this platform provides, you can create a personalized photo album for specific client in just 3 steps. You can activate digital downloads for separate photos or entire galleries, as well as lock in your gallery with a password.

This is one more way to build good relationships with clients and make them talk about you.

Deliver Value to the Clients

Another great step you need consider to take in order to build strong relationship with clients is to provide value. You need to stop thinking about making money, however, to start thinking about how to deliver value to your clients.

Why Apple products are so popular all over the globe? Because they took an existing product and brought to the perfection. They think on how to enhance the experience of the final product. The features of all Apple devices are so functional and useful because they thought of something you don’t even think about until you use the product or service.

[testimonial]

[/testimonial]

No one cares about you trying to build business or make money, everybody cares about themselves. You need to make it easy for your client to reach you. If possible, be their next door neighbor and friend ready to listen anytime.

Also, keep your clients informed about new trends, discounts and giveaways. Any method to communicate with client is great: be it an email, new article on your blog, or social media post.

Conclusion

So, content is a king, but without social media it won’t be sharable and won’t bring you success. Don’t expect that you will build strong relationships overnight. It requires your constant time and effort. Communicate with people every day, let them understand your message and get closer to them.

Utilize relationship marketing for your photography business in the The Photography Workshop Series – advanced photographic exclusive seminars covering producing content, building an audience, utilizing google display remarking tags, collecting customer feedback, social media pushes and the business of photography.

Let’s take a closer look at the photographer’s essential network. We’ll cover the top contacts, why you need each and tools to find the professionals you’d like to work with. The following specialists can team up with you to deliver a perfect customer experience as you create an effective photography brand.

Web Developer

Every photographer encounters a time when they need a special website tweak that can only be done by a professional web developer. Even premium WordPress themes need some customization. It’s a good idea to have a go-to person to help your website stand apart, install complex new plug-ins, or create a custom landing page for a new holiday promotion.

Look to your own web provider first. Photography website companies like ProPhoto (affiliate) and Defrozo have dedicated support and premium services to help.

UpWork is an outsourcing website where you can search and browse potential contractors.

Start small! Solicit a web developer for a tiny task, like $50 or less, to make sure you like the communication and quality of work. If the first task doesn’t go well, move onto another person. There’s an infinite number of people willing to do work for you, so find one that is a good fit for your style and budget.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when choosing a web developer:

• Find someone familiar with your web platform and theme. You don’t want to waste billable hours on someone who has to learn the intricacies of your website.
• Choose a developer with solid reviews.
• Cheap does not necessarily mean the best deal. My developer costs $100 per hour, but works 10 times as fast and can do things infinitely more complex than some people who cost only $25 per hour.

Graphic Designer

Your brand is arguably the most important piece of your business. Branding allows Coach to charge a premium for purses.

Logos, typography, business cards, and color schemes all need professional designs. Even though you could hack through it in Photoshop, it will save you time and earn more money in the long run by outsourcing graphics to a professional. If hiring a designer to develop a complete branding strategy is beyond your marketing budget, return to Fiverr to outsource a single task like a Facebook cover image or business card.

My choice for logo creation is 99Designs (affiliate). Set a budget, like $400, and you’ll get dozens of submissions from reputable designers. Choose a single winner and they get the cash. This approach allows lots of different options instead of hoping a single designer can match your creative vision on the first try. The competitive bidding process usually results in a more affordable result.

Assistant

All your gears, lenses, and lighting equipment could sidetrack you during a photo session, especially a wedding. A part-time or full-time assistant can help. This person can do anything from general administration, to meeting organization, or printing. The nominal investment allows you to focus on revenue generating activities like doing more photography!

Many newbie photographers are willing to be assistants for free just in order to gain some experience in the field. Working in a team is a great way to ensure that you’ve got someone to watch your back.

PhotoAssistant.com and VANetworking.com are two example sites where you can find an assistant.

Here’s an earlier post from Photography Spark about virtual assistants that gets into more detail.

Legal Resources

Weddings are once in a lifetime events for your clients, so you should make sure all expectations and requirements are spelled out in advance.  Solid wedding contracts drafted by an experienced photography lawyer are key to protecting your business.  Rachel Brenke at theLawTog offers some essential contracts for wedding photographers.

Wedding-Specific Contacts

If you’re about to enter the wedding market, make sure your contact list includes some makeup artists, stylists, wedding planners, and other professionals providing complementary services in the wedding industry.  

Makeup Artist (MUA) & Hair Stylist

Every bride should feel stunning on her big day. Experienced makeup artists and hairdressers will help to create a great modern wedding look to enhance the dress, color scheme, and accessories. Moreover, an MUA will have the proper coverage products to apply to a bride’s face which makes your job easier because your photos will require fewer touch-ups.

With so many makeup artists out there it can be a challenge to choose the best one. Look through the portfolios of a few specialists in your area, contact them and choose one or two to work with on a regular basis. Use Model Mayhem to find a specialist near you.

Wedding planner

You definitely want to be on the contact list of a few wedding planners since clients at the higher end of the market usually outsource all the wedding preparation hassle to these professionals. Popular wedding directories include GreenWeddingShoes, ElizabethAnnDesigns, and StyleMePretty are one way to find wedding planners whose portfolio appeals to you.

DIY & Decor Designer

DIY and decor designers create installations and handcrafted elements which you’ll use for creative wedding photo sets such as wooden letters, table numbers, banners, and chalkboard drawings. While most designers are quite universal and can do wonders in any style (words like “classic, vintage, bohemian, woodsy and modern” are what you may find in the portfolio of an average decor designer), every professional has their own personal style. By collaborating with a decor designer whose artistic vision and style compliments yours, you ensure that both you and your clients will get the most enjoyment out of their special day. Decor designers can be also found on GreenWeddingShoes website and One Wed.

Use Pinterest to help you to show your clients some options. I like these inspirational boards: wedding photography, wedding bouquets, wedding dresses, wedding details, reception decor and wedding photo ideas.

Videographer

Photography is not the only way to capture the wedding and create romantic imagery. Having a videographer in your contact list is also essential. Videographers create a personal, dialogue-driven and story-oriented film about the couple to save for generations. StyleMePretty and OneWed have a huge database of vendors, so you might find some cool videographer in your area to partner with. Some videographers create an engagement video to show during the wedding

Running your own photography business means you need to be able to wear many different hats. However, don’t try to do everything yourself. Your “dream team” may vary from time to time. Just find the people you would like to work with and organize your photography process to make the most of it. Share your thoughts in the comment field. Who is on your team?