First Impressions
Make your First Impression Count
Website & Portfolio
Your website and portfolio are often the first things that couples will see in their hunt for a wedding photographer. The most important aspects of this branding element is that you keep it clean, keep it lean, and keep it professional. There should be very few main navigation tabs. It can be as simple as Home, Portfolio, About, and Contact. You should also link your social media accounts where applicable (most website building services have a place for them to go)
I recommend using a proven system like Squarespace to build your site. A service like this will allow you to build your website in a matter of days and relieve you the responsibility of things like SEO and mobile integration.
Home Page. You should grab the viewer with an immediate hook. Powerful imagery should be displayed front and center. It should be an image that most accurately represents your style as a photographer and excites couples at the prospect to have you capture a similar image for them. Navigation should exist along the top of the web page. Additionally, over the feature image, I like to place a button that links directly to the portfolio page to make that the obvious next step on the journey through the site.
Portfolio. Keep it simple and keep it confined to just the best of the best images in your arsenal. 25 amazing images are going to be so much more effective than 200 average ones. Be sure that your portfolio clearly demonstrates your style. You shouldn’t have images in here that display differing editing looks. You also shouldn’t include any photos that are not wedding related.
About. The about page, for me, ended up being more necessary than I had ever thought. Just as your portfolio page is a place for people to get to know your work, the about page is a place for people to get to know you. This is a great place to put a photo of yourself on the job accompanied by a brief description of yourself. Add real human elements into this description. What are you passionate about? Why did you start photographing weddings? Why is photographing weddings so rewarding to you? Close your bio with a call to action, “call today... send me an email... let’s meet over coffee...” Additionally, don’t describe yourself as a team unless you are actually a team. Use words like “I“ and “me“ rather than “we“ and “us.“ You will sound much more personal and genuine by speaking honestly about yourself and not pretending to be a large team or by speaking in the third person.
Contact. A simple contact form with required fields for items that will help you determine whether or not this is a job that you can and want to take on. You’ll want to know the inquirers name and contact info, the date of the wedding to determine availability, and a basic description of the inquiry.
Packages? Pricing? This is a trickier subject. Some people will prefer to have this information on a page on the website. I prefer to get people asking about it as a way to start the conversation. The only hard rule on putting this information in print is that if you are going to list prices, always list them as “Starting at...“ you never want to hold yourself to a number as every wedding is unique.
Be social
Social Media,Facebook & Instagram
Facebook, first thing’s first, create your page and invite all of your friends to like it. Having your friends like your page will be a big help in gaining initial traffic and it will help with the concept of building awareness discussed earlier. One of the strongest features of Facebook for businesses is the ability to collect and display reviews. About half of my inquiries come through Facebook messenger and almost all of them cite the good reviews as a reason for reaching out. That being said, you must maintain a good reputation online. This is not the place to voice ANY opinions on controversial topics. You obviously won’t be able to collect reviews until you go out on your own but all of this is about having building blocks in place so that they are ready for you when you get your first gig.
Instagram, the easiest way to get this going is to use your existing personal account and change the name of it to your business name. All of the people that would initially follow you anyway are already following you. If you decide that you want to keep a personal account that is separate from your business account, it’s possible but will take a little more time to gain traction. Create the account, be sure to fill it up with photos before inviting anyone to follow, and then invite your friends to follow the new account.
It is a good idea to have a Pinterest account as a wedding photographer. Many brides will have already created or are excited at the idea of creating a board of photos that they like/hope to have. It is an excellent tool for you to be able to look at examples of exactly what the bride likes and stage photos that you know they will want. I always ask my couples if this is something that they have already done or if it’s something that they would be interested in doing.
Being active on social media is crucial to fuel a business that does little to no advertising. These are places to show off your most recent work, to tag individuals to drive traffic to your page, and to display reviews from real people. It is also a place for you to interact with your audience and establish rapport as a photographer.
Logo?
It’s not entirely necessary to have a logo as a photographer. Most people end up going with a digitized version of their signature. This is something that’s pretty easy to accomplish on your own with a quick YouTube tutorial. If you’d like to have a logo and don’t have the design skills to make it yourself, I’d recommend exploring a site like Fiver and finding a designer with a style that you like. Fiver is a great resource to find outsourcing for pretty much any of your branding materials for that matter. If you’re willing to part with a little money to offload the work to someone else, it could be a huge time saver and allow you to leverage skills that you might not possess yourself.
Business Cards
Old school, but totally necessary. People will ask for these all the time and it makes for a quick way to start a relationship. It’s important to get the design right. The design should represent your photography style and your personality. It should be simple and it should be high quality for all the same reasons as your other branding materials. There is an element of perceived quality that is felt whenever someone experiences your brand, including when you hand them a business card. For the amount of cards that you’ll hand out, it’s worth spending a little extra money on a high quality card with a premium tactile feel.
The Part of Your Brand You Can’t See...
This part will seem pretty obvious but it’s worth mentioning. There is an element of your brand that only exists in the minds of the people experiencing it. What people think of you, your reputation, makes up a massive amount of your brand image. So many things can shape this perception. The way you present yourself on the job, the way you act when interacting with followers online, it all plays a role in shaping your brand. The way you’re dressed when you show up to shoot a wedding has a massive impact on this perception. It’s the number one compliment that I get when I show up and it’s the number one complaint I’ve heard about other photographers. It can take years to build a reputation and minutes to destroy it.