Please note – some of these are affiliate links, which means I’ll make a small portion of the profit if you purchase something, at no extra cost to you! Thanks for supporting us!

---

 

Nothing is more thrilling than landing those first few clients as a photographer! As you really start to find your groove, you’ll probably learn a lot about which clients you really love working with. It won’t be long before you’ve stopped asking yourself how to find clients and started asking how to find the right client.

 

It’s important to seek out clients who are a good fit for you and your business. When you do work you enjoy with people you like, you do BETTER work. You’ll also have less of a tendency toward burnout. But first, you need to know how to make yourself attractive to these types of clients.

 

Know who the “right client” is

 

While it may be tempting to go after any client who will have you at first, it quickly becomes a slippery slope. You may look up a few months down the road and find yourself doing work you don’t really enjoy and burning out on it very quickly. 

 

Instead, start with an ideal client in mind. This will help you create content, a website, and a social media presence that draws the interest of the type of client you really want to work with. To do that, you need to do some research into your ideal client.

 

• What are their pain points and how can you help them?
• Where do they hang out {online or otherwise}?
• How do they communicate?

 

Asking and answering these questions gives you a direction. You can change that direction as you gain experience and discover which jobs you love doing and which ones you don’t enjoy so much, but always keep the “right” client at the center of those adjustments. {Even if your ideal client changes, too!}

 

Communicate value outside your main offer

 

Your photography skills are important, no one is disputing that. But this is the age of digital and lots of people are great at photography. What will make you stand out is the other things you can bring to the table along with your photos. 

 

Position yourself as an expert

 

For starters, remember that YOU are the photographer. If your potential clients could do your job {or had the time to try} they wouldn’t be talking to you. 

 

Even if you’ve never completed a paid project before, presumably you have done your due diligence. You’ve researched, you’ve practiced your craft, you’ve spent a lot of time looking at other photographers who have the career you’re building toward. {If you haven’t done any of those things yet, now’s the time!}

 

Show your potential client that you have a strong knowledge base. One that will help them achieve their goals. Suddenly you’re not just a photographer, you’re a consultant, too! The right client will find that very attractive because they’ll be getting so much more out of the deal.

 

Focus on your client’s experience

 

What’s the difference between working with an amateur photographer and a true pro? The client experience! Let me illustrate the difference for you. 

 

My original client experience:

When I started as a photographer, I wrote proposal after proposal just trying to get a single bite. Once I got a response, I would spend the next few days sick to my stomach, hoping the potential client didn’t ask me any questions I didn’t know how to answer. Getting details from me was like pulling teeth because I didn’t have any confidence in my process yet. My pricing was basically whatever the client would pay!

 

While shooting the project, clients would occasionally check in with me to see what progress I had made, and I would feel sick to my stomach again, wondering if I was as far along as they expected. Once I finished the images, I would shoot an email to the client with a Dropbox link and they’d have to send me an email back with the name of the photos (G563488.jpeg, anyone?) they had chosen.

 

My current client experience:

Now, I spend A LOT less time writing proposals because I use a series of automations that turn the contact form on my website into a pipeline. Potential clients who inquire about my services get back an email with a welcome guide that introduces them to my process and gives them a broad idea of my pricing.

 

In that email, there’s a link where they can schedule a discovery call with me. Another automation sends them a questionnaire to fill in before the call so I can do a little research and our discovery call can be as efficient as possible.

 

I send out a mood board and shot list ahead of time so I can feel confident going into a project, knowing that I’m headed in the right direction. Clients select their images through Pixieset instead of a maze of links. {I use Pixieset to deliver the images as well, and clients are able to choose different download sizes. They love it!}

 

A couple of weeks after our project, I check in with the client to get feedback and make sure they’re getting the most out of my work.

 

Now, if your potential clients could choose between the first client experience and the second, which one do you think they would go for? Don’t you think they’ll be able to see the difference pretty quickly?

 

Build a portfolio

 

What the right client wants to see more than anything is that you can create beautiful images. So create some! If you’re still starting out and haven’t done many paid projects yet, don’t worry. Sample projects and styled shoots are perfectly valid portfolio material. Just because nobody paid you to do it, doesn’t mean it isn’t great work. Those skills will put your foot in the door, and your client experience will seal the deal. Who cares if your resume is a little on the short side?

 

Once you have a library of images, find a way to host that portfolio online. There are many ways you can {easily} create and host a portfolio online these days, in a reasonable time and with no coding experience whatsoever. When your ideal client is able to access a portfolio of your work easily, they’re that much more likely to reach out.

 

Allow the right client to find you

 

Cold Pitching

 

I truly believe that cold pitching is the best way for you to find and work with the right clients. You get to decide who you want to work with instead of waiting to hear from potential clients that might not be a good fit at all! And, yes, I understand the idea of pitching cold clients makes us all super nervous. But it doesn’t have to be nerve-racking! And to help you get over yourself and eliminate the guesswork, I put together a Pitching Guide for you! You’re welcome 🙂

 

 

That doesn’t mean that you should stop all other marketing efforts. Actually I recommend you get your name out there in several different ways:

 

A blog

 

Informative, well-written blog posts help you position yourself as an authority, and they give potential clients a chance to get to know you before reaching out. It can also be good for SEO, especially if you use internal links between your blog posts.

 

If you have the connections, find some opportunities to guest post on other blogs. It will help you build backlinks that give your site more credibility, which can help you rank higher on search engines.

 

An email list

 

It’s never too early {or late} to start an email list! If you’re worried no one will sign up, create some useful freebies. These will incentivize people to try your list out while showing them right off the bat you’ll be giving them true value in return.

 

There are so many services out there now that will help you design and distribute emails. WordPress, Mailchimp, and Flodesk {that last one is my personal favorite and the one I use} are just a few.

 

Social media

 

What started off as a way to stay in touch has quickly become a small business goldmine. You would be surprised how much business I conduct right in my DMs on Instagram!

 

But first, you need to get active. Post regularly and use strategic hashtags to get noticed more quickly. Also, make a point to engage with the pages of brands you hope to work with down the road. This is where it really comes in handy to know who the right client is, because you can zero in on social media platforms they’re likely to use. You’ve got plenty of options:

 

• Instagram – Instagram is heaven for photographers. It’s almost too easy to show off our best work and find a community there. Stories can be particularly interesting to potential clients.
• Facebook – Facebook groups are great for making connections. There are a lot of supportive groups that will help you grow as a photographer and keep an ear to the ground for new clients. You can also stay engaged with followers by posting to your page, keeping fresh sample photos coming, and saying hi on Facebook Live every now and then.
• LinkedIn – I love using LinkedIn to find clients. As a bonus, it’s set up really well for showing projects {practice projects are fine, as long as YOU did them}. Clients can see my qualifications and access my portfolio, website, etc. all from one place.
• YouTube – YouTube is a growing force and some clients just like to see for themselves. Is there a way you can record some behind the scenes or case study videos? You’ve likely already got a good camera that supports video and a decent lighting setup, now you just need to start producing content!

 

Communicate like a boss

 

Be four things when you communicate with potential clients:

 

1. Prompt – The first one to respond to an inquiry is often the one to win the job. Clients don’t always have time to do a long search.
2. Informative – Clients don’t always even know what to ask! Be straightforward about your process and anything you need from them in order to move forward.
3. Clear – Don’t present information in a way that is confusing or requires your client to take a lot of steps.
4. Concise – Tell them what they need to know, and then let them absorb it. Throwing too much information at one time will only confuse them.

 

Potential clients will recognize right away whether or not you are a professional by the way you communicate. Once you do land your client, KEEP IT UP! Communicate throughout your project promptly, informatively, clearly, and concisely and you’ll have more clients knocking at your door before long.

 

Be prepared for the big “yes”

 

Be ready to jump on it when you get that first offer! Have all of your paperwork ready to go, create an onboarding workflow for yourself, and know what pipeline you want customers to follow.

 

No matter how happy a client is with your portfolio, they could back out if you don’t have your act together. So use this time you have right now before you land your first paying photography client. Set up your business for success. Then, when the offer comes, go forth and be awesome!