5 Marketing Tips for Photographers with Stephanie Fisher & Jai Long

stephanie fisher wedding photographer

MELINDA HARCOURT

June 18, 2021

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Hey guys, here’s another episode of my Make Your Break podcast – chatting with none other than our wonderful Stephanie Fisher from ‘From the Daisies‘.

Stephanie is an insanely talented, nationally published wedding and elopement photographer from the US. If you check out her work, you’ll see that she hits so many genres with her unique style, from bridal to editorial, couples and boudoir. An all-around beautiful human with over 10 years of industry experience, I knew we had to have her in May’s Wedding Photography Summit speaker lineup. Pulling all the stops, she presented “Best Bang for Your Buck When Advertising” and over-delivered! From the 101 marketing basics to effectively leveraging the different social platforms, Stephanie taught us all things on spending money and time wisely to make the biggest impact.

I invited Stephanie onto the podcast so you could all get to know Stephanie a little more before the summit and we also dived into her top five marketing tips for photographers.

It’s so easy for us to look up to our favourite successful photographers, comparing ‘luck’ and wishing it’s as easy as they make it look. Focusing on the ‘highlight reel’, we tend to forget that they also had to hustle hard, overcome countless setbacks and relentlessly chase their goals to get to where they are today. Success doesn’t come easy, things don’t just happen. It takes hard work and passion.

How Stephanie made her break as a photographer

stephanie fisher wedding photographer

Image Credit: Stephanie Fisher

Did you know that Stephanie originally went to school and completed a bachelor degree in Biology? She was only doing photography on the side for fun and was planning on going back to grad school. Grad school was expensive, influencing Stephanie’s decision to take a year off and book more shoots to save money for it. Despite her Instagram being mostly selfies, a girl reached out with a wedding shoot opportunity and that’s when fate played its hand.

New to the Instagram game and needing work, Stephanie stalked hashtags (marketing tip on that later), found an engaged couple in Arizona and commented her congratulations on their post. The bride-to-be followed her back but didn’t reach out till two months later. Stephanie successfully booked the couple for their wedding AND she’s also completed a maternity session and other lifestyle shoots with them since then. Building on their newfound friendship, this girl also referred Stephanie to all her bridesmaids and family members, which resulted in another seven wedding bookings. How crazy is that?!

Needless to say, Stephanie fell in love with wedding photography and never went back to school. Learning everything from scratch, she said nothing beats the reward of owning her own business, the freedom of spending time with her family and opportunities to travel all over the world.

Stephanie Fisher elopement photography

Image Credit: Stephanie Fisher

Facing the reality of ‘down days’

Despite her continued success, Stephanie wasn’t shy about sharing her down days. Likening it to a modelling career, she noted that she wasn’t getting any younger and with most newly engaged couples being in the 20 to 30-year-old bracket, she was aware that they’d likely relate to younger, upcoming photographers. At times, she struggles with ‘staying relevant and on top of the game’ but that’s where her marketing know-how comes in.

Stephanie Fisher’s top #5 marketing tips for landing your ideal clients

A mix of free and low-cost marketing tips for photographers, Stephanie still uses these strategies to this day, so read on!

1. Be present on Instagram and creep on relevant hashtags

This is exactly how Stephanie got one of her first wedding clients (now a raving fan), as covered above! By stalking hashtags like #engaged, you can find and comment your congrats on posts by newly engaged couples, opening up opportunities for potential bookings and styled shoots.

2.  Engage with vendors

Whether it’s a popular wedding venue, florist or wedding planner, you can grow your community by authentically engaging with vendors on socials. Aside from becoming one of their recommended photographers, you’ll also be building your brand and getting your name out there into the world.

3. Become a preferred vendor

Following tip #2, reach out to your favourite vendors and see if they’re open to having you on their list of preferred providers. To get your foot in the door, you can also offer to organise a styled shoot where they’ll get photos to post on their socials, putting your work in front of their audience.

4. Boost your Instagram posts

At an affordable cost, you can boost your Instagram posts to your target audience and retain control over who can see your content. Don’t boost blindly, make sure you keep the photos relevant to your target audience for maximum effectiveness.

5. Reach out to editors

From blogs to magazines, think about all the place where you want your work to be seen. Editors are always looking for new content – you can do their job for them by asking what they want for their feature pieces and sharing your work accordingly. Even if you keep getting noes and aren’t getting featured, don’t give up, keep hustling. Submit to another publisher.

To reduce the overwhelm, choose your editorial features based on the target audience and overall outcome you hope to achieve. For example, if you want status, you can push for a feature in top rung publications like Vogue or Harper’s Bazaar. If you’re after more bookings, consider reaching out to smaller publishers and local wedding blogs. Either way, the more features you score, the more backlinks you’ll accumulate for your website which increases its traffic and authority.

FOLLOW STEPHANIE FISHER

Website: fromthedaisies.com

Instagram: @fromthedaisies

Stephanie Fisher arizona couple vintage shoot

Image Credit: Stephanie Fisher

YOUR DREAMS ARE 100% WORTH BEING UNCOMFORTABLE FOR

If you’re just starting out as a new photographer or are struggling to make your break, here are some quick ideas that I personally abide by:

  •  Give value – Adopt a giver mindset and offer value generously. Whether it’s approaching a vendor to set up a styled shoot or responding to a potential client enquiry, think about all the ways you can deliver value upfront, without expecting anything in return. You need to give before you can receive.
  • Don’t wait for permission – Many of us wait for ‘permission’ to do something different, especially when it removes you from your comfort zone. For the summit, I went undercover as Jack Short to film a documentary about launching a new business in 5 days with just $2000 – and SO MANY attendees said that it inspired them because it gave them permission to just get out there. Watch it here.
  • Get uncomfortable – Along a similar vein as not waiting for permission, there will be many times where you’ll be forced out of your comfort zone when building your community and chasing your goals. From cold contacting vendors to having difficult conversations with clients, you’ll achieve more success when you overcome your fears. Get uncomfortable so your future clients can feel comfortable when engaging with you!
  • Keep it simple – Don’t fall into the trap of overcomplicating things because of self-limiting beliefs (e.g. fear of failure or success) or perfectionism. Business is a living, breathing thing that you can finesse as you go, as long as you have clarity on your vision and goals. Procrastination prevents progression, so stop giving yourself reasons not to succeed.

***Bonus tip: Aside from being featured on a vendor’s recommended suppliers list, why not create a preferred vendors directory of your own? This way, you can offer a shout-out swap and offer upfront value when networking.

EPISODE SPONSOR

This episode is brought to you by the guys over at PepperStorm, an awesome copywriting team who I have used across all my businesses for years. If you need some killer copywriting, get in touch and use the code: MAKEYOURBREAK to get $100 off when you buy one of their packages.

CHECK OUT PEPPERSTORM’S COPYWRITING & SEO SERVICES

 

Meet the Author

Obsessively wordsmithing and hyping the living daylights out of anything and anyone, Mel is our in-house word nerd and coach.

You’ll also find her regularly dropping hot website/ biz tips inside the Business Map and yelling at people for downplaying their wins (“big” or “small”, every win is still a win).

COPYWRITING COACH

Mel

she/her

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