A huge game changer for me in recent years has been my ability to book wedding photography clients online, without requiring any face-to-face meetings. By this, I mean just a few emails back and forth before the contract is secured and the deposit paid.

As a wedding photographer that doesn’t have a retail space, this significantly reduces the amount of time I’m on the road traveling to meet prospective clients in the hopes that they’ll book me.

I put this down to three things - two of which are my own doing and one that applies to all wedding photographers. Couples these days are much more tech-savvy and are happy browsing through websites and reviews in order to build enough trust to comfortably book a wedding photographer online.

What does this mean? You need to have a strong (and trustworthy) online presence to take advantage of this. It’s taken years for me to build the online reputation that I have, with a high number of positive reviews on reputable sites like Yelp and WeddingWire.

Prospective clients can hear first-hand from other couples about my work, customer service, and reliability, meaning they don’t need to be convinced by meeting me first. I’ve also created a website that puts everything at the fingertips of prospective clients.

From information about me and FAQs to blog articles and an extensive portfolio, they can do all of their research online and I can book wedding photography clients without having to leave the house.

They say you should live with no regrets but there are things we all wish we could have done better or achieved in our lives. So in this episode, I wanted to be completely honest with my listeners and chat about my biggest regret as a wedding photographer - not being able to grow my wedding photography studio!

A few years ago, I rebranded Henry Chen Photography into Aevitas Weddings, with the intention of expanding the studio with a few more full-time photographers. I wanted to be able to say “yes” to inquiries from couples on days when I was already booked and be able to grow the business while helping other wedding photographers make a living.

But due to a number of factors, such as not finding the right people and me being too tough on the photographers I do find, this hasn’t eventuated. But it’s still my intention and something I’m working towards, creating a collective group of artists with a common vision that clients can trust to deliver a consistent style and high level of customer service.

After my first week as a new father, I wanted to take some time out to reflect on the huge changes that have just taken place in my life and the rewards of this new role. Many wedding photographers out there are juggling a family and career, so how exactly do you prepare for the life-altering changes that having a baby brings and maintain the success of your business

In this episode, I’ll chat about some of the things I did in the weeks leading up to the birth of our baby girl and how I handled the delivery itself with the weddings I had booked. I’ll also share some of my ideas about how I plan to maintain my wedding schedule (and the success of my business) while being the best dad possible.

As much as you might be passionate about wedding photography and growing your business, once you become a parent, you can’t live in a bubble. But with a bit of foresight and careful planning, you can still be a success at both.

Passion is an essential ingredient for any successful wedding photography business and probably the main reason you decided to pursue this path in the first place. If your heart’s not in it, potential clients will quickly pick up on it and probably go elsewhere.

But passion alone is not enough. There are a lot of other elements that need to be taken into account if you want to build a thriving business for the long-term future.

In this episode, we’ll chat about some of the areas you need to work on to create a successful wedding photography business. Taking high-quality photographs that stand out from the rest is essential, which may require a significant investment of time and money when it comes to purchasing professional photographic gear and practicing your craft.

You also need to have good time management skills and be able to juggle the photography and administration sides of your business. Do you have the customer service skills to engage clients, listen to their needs, and deliver the results they want?

And can you photograph the number of weddings you need to make a living, while still leading the lifestyle you want? These are just some of the things you need to consider, aside from your passion for wedding photography, if you want to create a successful business.

One of the most important characteristics of an outstanding wedding photographer is communication - listening to what your clients want and applying this in the way you capture their special day.

A couple has probably selected you because they love your work, but it takes more than just showing up on their wedding day to leave a lasting impression that will see them referring you to all their family and friends.

From the very first moment they send you an inquiry, are you really listening to what they envision for their dream wedding and the individual elements that are important to them? Are there particular concerns they have about photography? Did one of their friends have a bad experience that has left doubts in their mind?

In this episode, we'll chat about why you should be listening to your clients and how this information can be applied to capture gorgeous photos. Perhaps there’s a family heirloom they are incorporating into their wedding that is particularly sentimental or they have a special relationship with one of their family members that they want to be documented.

By delving a little deeper to know what is meaningful to them, you’ll be able to craft stunning photos that will exceed their expectations.

Keeping in mind that most couples will start looking for and book a wedding photographer months before their special day, now is the time to start reevaluating your marketing strategies to ensure you’re getting inquiries for next year (and even 2019). It might seem like ages away, but it’s the steps you take now that will reap benefits down the track and ensure your business thrives in 2018.

In this episode, we’ll chat about four main strategies you can utilize to ensure you’re getting inquiries for the coming year. First and foremost you should make sure your website is SEO optimized. From blog posts to images and page metadata, this is what will ensure your website is found on search engines like Google.

If your budget allows, you can also do some advertising on sites like WeddingWire and Yelp. In my experience, the money I have invested in this type of advertising has more than paid off in bookings.

Networking and helping out other vendors can also lead to inquiries, particularly when it comes to sharing your blog posts or slide shows in which their work appears. It might be the floral centerpieces from a wedding, the DJ in action or the overall setting that resulted from the coordinator's hard work, all of which can be shared on their website or social media channels as free advertising for you.

Speaking of social media, this is the fourth way you can help to boost your inquiries for next year. I post to Instagram almost every day and (to a lesser extent) Facebook, which is a great way for couples who are searching for wedding inspiration to find your work through particular phrases or hashtags.

When chatting with other wedding photographers, I often hear that they don’t know anything about their website analytics and what they mean or that they can’t really be bothered trying to understand it all. But before you spend money on marketing or expensive gear trying to boost your wedding photography business, understanding your website traffic is an inexpensive but essential step in the right direction.

Your wedding photography website traffic can tell you so much about who is visiting your site, which pages they are visiting and where they are from. You’ll get information about how long they stay, if they are viewing it on a mobile or desktop platform and which pages lead to inquiries. This can tell you a lot about whether what you are posting is attracting the clientele you want and if it’s making them take the next step to get in touch with you.

Understanding your website traffic is actually much simpler than it first appears with easy-to-use tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console. In this episode, we’ll chat about how you can use these tools and what kind of insight they will give you on your website. I’ll also explain a little about what I do to understand my website traffic and the kind of data I look for.

EPISODE #100: THE MOST POPULAR TOPICS IN THE FIRST 100 EPISODES OF THE WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY PODCAST

Summary:

It’s with much gratitude that I’ve recorded my 100th episode in this Wedding Photography Podcast series and I want to send a huge “thank you” to all of my listeners who have made it happen. To celebrate this milestone, I thought we’d look back at some of the most popular wedding photography podcast episodes in the series and highlight those that had the most downloads and discussions.

We’ll touch on my thoughts about being a successful wedding photographer and how to find your own style, as well as how to efficiently manage post-production of images. The episode about how to get clients with low budgets to increase them was a community favorite, as was the discussion about how to rebrand your business.

I think many listeners also benefited from hearing about my own challenges and mistakes after ten years as a wedding photographer. So we’ll reflect on the episodes about my top mistakes and some of the lowest points in my career, as well as some of the most common challenges facing new wedding photographers. 

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EPISODE #99: ARE WE SETTING REALISTIC GOALS FOR OURSELVES IN OUR BUSINESS?

Summary:

Throughout my experience mentoring other wedding photographers and chatting with people in the community, I’ve found that sometimes we create unrealistic goals that are just setting us up for disappointment. Goal setting is a really important aspect of growing your business and finding personal satisfaction in your career, but it’s vital that you focus on attainable goals within a realistic time frame.

In this episode, I want to talk about the importance of setting realistic goals and taking into consideration your own experience levels, photographic skills and the network around you. Thriving as a wedding photographer can takes years of marketing your brand and honing your craft both during weddings and outside of hours, so it’s important to set incremental goals that reflect this.

You should also consider what your current lifestyle can support when it comes to available time to spend shooting and marketing and the funds you have available to invest in gear and advertising. There’s no point saying you want to book X many weddings if it’s within an open-ended time frame or by a date that doesn’t take into account your previous shooting record.

If you’re just starting out in wedding photography, it’s great to have energy and belief in yourself that you will create a thriving business. But if you set unrealistic goals, you may only be destined for disappointment.

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EPISODE #98: NEVER GET TOO HIGH OR TWO LOW IN YOUR BUSINESS - STAY THE COURSE

Summary:

Having ups and downs is all part of running your own business. There are times when you’ll be thriving, booking lots of clients and earning a lot, then you might go through a few slow months, have equipment breakdown or receive some negative feedback from a client. These are all things I’ve experienced in my ten years as a wedding photographer and if there’s one thing I’ve learnt, it’s that no matter the situation, you need to stay the course and maintain a level of equilibrium.

In this episode, we’ll chat about how you can stay positive when things aren’t going as you had planned. It might be that you shot a really stressful wedding or had an altercation that has left you feeling emotional and wanting to hide away. We’ll also talk about the importance of staying humble when you’re on “Cloud 9” and turning this energy into planning and investing for the future.

Running your own wedding photography business can be a roller coaster and sometimes you just never know what is around the corner. Having strategies in place to stop you from getting too low or too high when either circumstance arises will help you maintain perspective and create a successful business for the long-term future.

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