Clients & Weddings: Where do most of your clients come from?

[ashley.stalker]

I am fairly new to the wedding business and love the advice I have been getting so far, but I am curious about a few things...

Where do most of your clients come from?
A. Referrals (and if so how did you get the ball rolling)
B. Bridal Expos (what is your advice on that? which ones to go to and what to avoid?)
C. Mailers, or handouts? (what was your process of doing so?)
D. Misc, love to hear other ideas.

Did you notice in the beginning you had to gradually increase your pricing, or did you just have all the confidence in the world to charge more than other photographers?

[form]

I get 95% of my clients from craigslist and the other 5% by subcontract from a local vending business that sometimes has me do their photography when their main shooter is busy.

I noticed that I had to increase my pricing from free to $75/hour to get any work at all. I had the confidence to charge that much, because 1. That's the amount that made the job worthwhile for me to bother doing, and 2. it's an amount people seem to be fine with paying me.

The same vendor that hires me on occasion uses those bridal expos, but the overhead is extremely high, around $2k-$3k just to get involved and get your own table/booth space. I believe those are better for multiple-person wedding businesses, not so much one or two person freelancers. It's about cost vs. profit.

Never did mailers or handouts. Probably would work if properly placed, but again cost vs. profit.

[tim]

Mostly from being at the top of google, some from google adwords, and a growing number from referrals. I think 1/3 to 1/2 of the weddings I have in Feb are from referrals, though overall the number is 10 to 20%. Building up referrals can take years, even if you have an incentive program.

[ashley.stalker]

Mostly from being at the top of google, some from google adwords, and a growing number from referrals. I think 1/3 to 1/2 of the weddings I have in Feb are from referrals, though overall the number is 10 to 20%. Building up referrals can take years, even if you have an incentive program.

When I first looked into Queensberry albums I googled Queensberry album and I believe it was your site that came up. Pretty funny.

Defiantly need to do that, I have been mainly relying on referrals, which seems like it would take years!

[mezorn26]

When I first looked into Queensberry albums I googled Queensberry album and I believe it was your site that came up. Pretty funny.

Defiantly need to do that, I have been mainly relying on referrals, which seems like it would take years!


Yeah....Mostly paid advertising here. Google adwords is costing me a bloody fortune..

I would love to move up the list organically...

[Peacefield]

I get most of my work through Craig's List. They do tend to be bottom feeders. I can tell by the fact that they browse straight to my price and package page, spend a lot of time there, and scoot through my gallery if they even visit my other pages.

That said, I do get good leads that turn into sales, I think I'm priced fairly (a typical low cost package is ~$1k), and I am beginning to find more and more people coming to me through CL that are actually more quality than price focused.

Referals/word of mouth is second.

I used to do direct mail back when I first did weddings 20 years ago. It was effective then. Now, couples are frequently already working with a photographer by the time they run their engagement announcement in the paper.

My mailers look very nice: 6x8 glossy hard stock. My wife and both of my sons are all attending different local colleges and I have them posted there and other logical spots. No action from them yet, but I'd like to think I'll turn a couple up that way.

[woodfrogs]

Yahoo, Google, and we advertise on a local wedding directory website.
We are also building up a network of referrals thru venues. Often thru reciprocal web links, but sometimes I leave brochures/cards that they can include in their bride's info packets. I've only had 1 job book thru craigslist.
We've also had a couple of word-of-mouth referrals from previous clients.
Something you might want to check out is WeddingWire. Your clients can rate you and give reviews. That has also helped when people want referrals.
The pay-per-lead sites were no help at all last year, and I won't use them again. As far as Bridal Shows/Expos, for my small operation, they're too expensive, and I don't know that they really help. Often the bride's are just starting to get their feet wet by looking to see what's out there and don't want to commit, or they're just about done and are just looking for additional ideas.
HTH

[ashley.stalker]

Yeah most of mine have been from referrals, people who I have done family sessions, etc. Then two were from wedding wire that I am going to do this year. Wedding wire had a free trail period for most of last year for me so they didn't charge per lead just until now.

[ashley.stalker]

Thanks for the great ideas. I will need to look into these more on my own.

[R_Metzel]

I recently did a service trade with a Holiday Inn in my town. Shot a bunch of rooms in hdr and a few of their event rooms. All the photos have my logo in the bottom right corner. They use these photos to send to potential clients for weddings and venues....I booked 2 weddings alone just because they were so impressed with the room shots...

What did I trade for... a $50 gift card to their restaurant. lol got me some free steak and a couple of weddings...cant go wrong for 2 hours worth of work! :)

[randplaty]

95% referrals