5 Ways to Drive Clients to Your Site (And Make Sales)
October 23, 2014
Sponsored by Zenfolio
You may be the most talented photographer in your genre, but unless you have an excellent web presence and advertising put in place, no one will know you exist. Here, we provide five crucial steps to get more exposure to your site, gain and retain clients, and boost sales for a profitable photography business.
1. Create an SEO-Friendly Website.
When potential clients are searching for a photographer in their area on Google or Bing, will your website show up? Aside from referrals, discovering photographers on search engines is the top way clients find who they want to hire, so making sure your website is SEO-friendly is key. Providing relevant keywords and text on your pages, such as geographic location and genre, will help. Zenfolio is built with HTML, so it automatically submits your sitemap to major search engines, and lets you know which fields are important to fill out and display on your pages.
2. Drive Visitors to Galleries.
Once you have galleries ready to view after a shoot, notify clients via email invitations or put out teaser shots on social media. Another great way to promote your galleries is to pass out promotional cards with a friendly gallery URL before you shoot an event so attendees can view the photos after the event. You can enable an automatic prompt to capture their contact information before they view the photos. With each gallery you create on Zenfolio, it’s easy to send beautiful email invitations, create unique and friendly URLs, and share photos via social media.
3. Give People Incentives to Buy.
Now that people are on your site, how do you get them to buy? Creating time pressure, offering a special promotion or bundling products into packages are all great ways. To get clients to act, set an expiration date on a gallery so that they have a limited amount of time to purchase before their images go away. If you decide to offer a special promotion, create early bird coupons for those who make purchases within the first week photos are online, or include a gift certificate toward a print as part of your session fee. Bundling products is great because people want more for their money. Create a package of prints and products and lower the total cost of what customers would pay for the same items à la carte. Zenfolio has all of these features, including shopping cart reminders, so that a client will receive emails reminding them of their unfinished orders, encouraging them to complete checkout.
4. Follow Up with Offers.
After a shoot is done and a sale has been made, it doesn’t have to be the end of the road. People are always celebrating something—holidays, anniversaries, births and weddings. Offer discounted sessions or rewards for referrals, and keep in contact with clients on a personal level, such as wishing them happy holidays and congratulating them on anniversaries. With Zenfolio, you can set up a contact list that captures visitors when they come to your website, so you can send emails to them later.
5. Have Flash Sales.
Having several sales throughout the year is a great revenue boost. During the holidays, offer a big discount for presents, or participate in Cyber Monday or Black Friday. Put photos back online for a limited time, or offer new products, such as photo books, and mention that they are perfect for an anniversary or birthday. With Zenfolio, you can easily create gallery banners so visitors are aware of the sale.
In order to be successful, it’s crucial to make new customers want to work with and buy from you. Make sure your website is set up to sell and can easily be tweaked and changed as necessary.
Get started on your own website today and save 25% on a Zenfolio account with the code getstarted25 at checkout.