Free and Inexpensive Resources to Market Your Photography Business
If you are a photography business owner, you wear many hats. Aside from actually taking pictures, the business side of things often occupies more time and energy than anything else. I am always on the hunt for a product that helps me do my job better – I’m looking for easy to use, inexpensive, and effective. I’d like to share four resources that fit my criteria and do the hard working job of marketing my photography business.
* WiseStamp – My newest favorite product that turns every email I send into an interactive business card! WiseStamp is an email signature that you customize to feature your website, social media, additional contact information, your headshot, and more! It took about 20 minutes for me to set mine up and it was a piece of cake. You can choose to either create a free signature that has their branding on it, or pay $72 for the year to have your signature.
* Linktree – Instagram has many idiosynchrocies and it seems that they are changing on a daily basis. One thing that has always annoyed me was the inability to add more than one website address to your bio area. Linktree solves this by providing you with one link that will then house multiple links that you can easily add. This way you can connect your followers to your website, other social media, webstores, etc. The best part is that it is free! However, you can also pay $6/month for the “pro” version which provides traffic data, customization, and other features.
* Later – This handy program makes it easy to plan and schedule your Instagram posts (and even other social media)! You can visually see your posts through their calendar feature and even use auto publish if you have an Instagram business account. I also like that you can save various hashtag lists to easily add appropriate hashtags to your posts. There are various plans, but I use the free plan that allows me 30 posts a month.
* MailChimp – Now is the time to build your email lists! We have seen what has happened to Facebook for businesses and we can only assume the same will occur with Instagram. The reality is that our social media audience is at the mercy of the whatever platform you are using. Email lists, however, are a tried-and-true method to connect with your clients. MailChimp has all kinds of great features such as easy ways to create opt-ins, a huge variety of eye catching templates, social media campaigns, and lots of data insight. I do think it takes a few hours to navigate your options, set up your subscribers, and start an email campaign, but the results are worth it. MailChimp is free for up to 2,000 subscribers and around $30 a month (depending on your plan) after that.
I hope these tools help you market your photography business a little smoother! “Organized and efficient” is my business motto. If you are needing a boost in your digital or business workflow, take a look at my complete PDF and video guide to editing faster in Lightroom and Photoshop, automated backups to protect your images, and hundreds of tricks to save you time as you run your photography business.