How did your client first hear about you?

It is wedding season here in Philippines,  I have made new brochures.  I am hoping to get at least 10 weddings from these from now to end of the year.  Most of my work is refferal but I need new customers all the time.  I get work from photo booths at parties I do. I also leave brochures at a couple of photo labs that promote me with sample books and framed images. I do promo work for some hair salons giving them large framed pictures I shot with their stylists.  I made friends to some mall vendors and have tarpulenes and brochure and sample work. 

That about sums up my promotions.  How do your clients first hear about you?  and what kind of professional photography work you do?

My main business is wedding photo/video and I have been in business about a year.

100% word of mouth and social media (digital word of mouth).

But because I suck at social media other than Facebook, I'm going with 100% word of mouth.  It's important to get OTHER people talking about you.  Let other people use their social media do  your advertising for you.

For weddings, I'm sure your area has mass resources for things like that.  We have a few here.  Having a presence on those would be important.  As well as paying to have a booth at local wedding expos.  You want to put your advertising in the most target rich environment you can afford.

Craigslist, or word of mouth/referrals

Moms talking with other moms
H.S.Senior girls talking with other H.S.Senior girls
My ads running at the local theatre
Facebook

As mentioned above, word of mouth.  That's what gets me work.  Some folks have seen my work and looked me up but that's not the norm.

Mainly, I do commercial portraiture.   

If you're getting started, it's important to remember that all forms of advertising are crucial.   If you back it up with great work..the word of mouth work will grow. I find that best produces the best sort of client.   Usually, they're already sold on you and you.

someone wrote my number on the wall in the women's bathroom.

all my photo work the last couple years comes from here. because i'm just shooting for hobby now. i did get my current fulltime job after assisting a photographer i met on here.. so all my work comes from MM one way or another.

Cool Paolo, Where is Martinez?  Gonna try the bridal expo thing,  I haven't thought of that.

Networking, then word of mouth.

I am always making a conscious effort to network and market myself to the people who might benefit from my services, but most of my work comes from referrals. Clients have friends, and they all trust each other, especially in business.

Same goes for the studio I just opened. In the first 2 weeks of business I made it a point to market myself to anyone I could that might use the studio. I used my current network. I was relentless. I knew if I could get people in the door, they would fall in love with the place. I was right. Everyone who has come through the door has either booked a second visit or referred other friends within a 3 month period. Currently I am booking up faster than I can keep up with due to that.

By far the bulk of my work is word of mouth/referral.

I will however get new clients from my website from time to time. If I had to guess I get perhaps one paying client for every 3000 - 4000 or so unique visitors to my site but it's not really that easy to assign a number.  It's never consistent.

Now, traffic is driven to my site from various social sites and google search.  The largest part by far comes for "Big G's" search engine.  So, in truth there is no one source but many things and places that drive traffic and in the end business.

So far today's incoming links are:

Google Search -25
Google Image Search -6
Bing Search -3
Ask.com -2

Google+ -3
Facebook -3
Youtube -2
Pinterest -1
MM -1

Other websites -4


My site tends to average about 250 - 350 unique visitors a day.  Visits can however swing wildly. I may get 80 visitors one day and 1500 another day but as a rule I can count on 250 - 350ish.  In the end that's about 1 or 2 new clients form the web each month or so.  The rest is referral. It comes, goes and is never close to being consistent however.

Effective marketing isn't one thing.  It's how everything comes together as a whole.  One can't work well with out the other.  Even though I don't get many hits form all the social media sites these backlinks and activity does in fact tell Big G that the site is worth while and drives it up in Search Results.  Top that off with good internal and external SEO and it all works together.

Regardless clients that come by referral are by far worth their weight in gold and the best kind of client to have.

I get some inquiries from social media, but most potential clients find me by using search engines. I spent a lot of time on search engine optimization for my site.   My specialty is much more limited than the typical wedding or portrait photographer, so it was important to figure out which search words were most important.

http://www.BeyondBoudoirPhoto.com