In the competitive field of professional photography, marketing your photography business can be quite the challenge, not to mention cripplingly expensive for the smaller company. So how can you drum up extra business without breaking the bank?.

Traditional advertising such as the local Yellow Pages, or radio and television, however small the station, are just too far out of the advertising budget that many photography businesses have to work with. In addition, how well this kind of investment works is almost impossible to track. You may indeed be gaining a new client as a result of a commercial they have seen or heard, but the chances are you will forget to ask, and hopefully your subjects will be too busy posing to mention how they happened to decide upon your services. However, in order to survive and prosper, marketing your photography business successfully is crucial.

There is another, very effective and economical method of marketing your photography business that you may have never considered, or even heard much about. In today’s economic climate, the savvy photographer should consider the great power of online advertising. Thanks to the great spread of everyday Internet use by exactly the people you need to target and the power of major search engines like Google, you can target specific geographical areas for people searching basic keywords, in this case things like “professional photography” “picture taking” and even simply “photographer”. Even better, online advertising lets you target the specific demographic you are seeking. If you specialize in wedding photography for instance, the person clicking on your ad already has an interest in the service you are offering. Half the battle has been won right there already!

But how does this kind of marketing really convert into great photography business advertising? Most effectively you need to direct the person who clicked on your brief little online ad to a more expansive “landing page”. On this page you need to create a great and compelling reason for this potential customer, or visitor (they are “visiting” your page now) to share their basic contact information with you. This is an amazing opportunity for any photographer. You can upload your whole portfolio to your page, so that the visitor can instantly view examples of your dazzling work. You could add a coupon for some kind of free print or session in return for the visitor entering their name, telephone number and email address into a simple contact form. This data is emailed to you immediately, so you can follow up on these new leads while your work is still fresh in their mind’s eye.

The true beauty of using the Internet and this kind of photography business advertising is how little it costs. You will only be charged for potential customers who take the time to “click” on your ad specifically, those people who are demonstrating a real interest in your work and your photography services. Online advertising like this really is the best and economically sensible way to make the best of your photography business marketing dollar.