Ultimate Guide To Wedding Show Success For Photographers || CopperRed Photography
Maybe you’ve just booked up your very first Wedding Show or maybe you have done a handful in the past but not found them to be fruitful. Well, I am here to let you know that you can slay the Wedding Show game and leave with genuine, authentic leads. You just have to know how.
I’ll give you my go-to recipe for setting yourself up for an absolute win. I’m going to share the steps I put in place to guarantee that I leave a Wedding Show with countless amazing leads.
#1 Eye Catching Display
You HAVE to stand out and your booth space is where you do that. You need to put a lot of thought in and get your creative juices flowing when it comes to developing your booth display.
Think about your style, your brand, your vibe and do your absolute best to create a booth display that represents you. Think about the clients you want to book, where are their weddings? Are they outside, in forests, barns and fields or are they in urban cities, hotels and high end castles? Then carefully curate your display in a way that would draw those couples, those brides right to you from across the room.
#2 Pick Your Prints Carefully
This point is an extension of #1 in that you need to select the prints you display very purposefully. Get that dream couple or dream wedding you want to be photographing in your head and display only photographs that represent that style of wedding.
One of the biggest bits of advice I could give you is that you are NOT looking to be everyone’s photographer. You need to pick a niche and focus on it. So try as best you can to cultivate a presentation that represents the wedding you want to be shooting.
#3 Don’t Hide Your Pricing
Okay so I know that this is a divisive opinion. Some photographers will be saying ‘Amen’ whilst others will think that I’m breaking a marketing rule here. But here’s my honest opinion on this one…
I believe that couples have a wedding budget and they also know which elements of their big day they are more invested in. With that being said they have a budget in mind for their photography and guess what, you are either in it, or you’re not. It’s that simple.
Now is there always a possibility to change a couples mind and get them dying to invest a little more of their budget to get you, 100%. This is why I display my prices inside my Wedding Magazine Guide. This approach gets the couples looking through my work and then checking out my pricing and packaging. They actually have to interact with me and my products to find them out.
I am also 100% okay with the fact that not everyone can afford me. I, and neither should you, be looking to book every bride that comes to the show. I know how many weddings I want to book up each year and how much I must charge to do so. I hold my value and stand confident in my packages and so should you.
#4 Bring Your A Game
At Wedding Shows photographers are a dime a dozen. Wedding photography is always the most saturated group at every show so you have to stand out with your personality. Your gorgeous display will draw them to the booth but your personality is what will keep them there and spark their interest in booking.
Now I’m not going to lie my accent is definitely a foot in the door for a conversation starter but after that I have to be myself and show up for every couple I chat with. I am 100% interested in their story, their day and in finding out what they are looking for. So don’t ask generic questions that the 20 booths before you asked. Sit down before your show and write down 3 or 4 opening questions you could use on the day of the wedding show to spark conversation with couples.
I know that when I first started doing wedding shows I would clam up and have a brain freeze when it came to starting a dialog with people at my booth but once I had created a few go-to questions I was on a roll and creating connections right from the start.
#5 Don’t Forget Your Packaging
Remember that your goal is to stand out. One of the ways to do that is to not only put your stunning photos on display for all the room to see but also to showcase your unique packaging.
Once again get creative with how you show them off. Maybe you can perch them on something cool or have them spilling out with prints. Whatever you think of to ensure it looks aesthetically pleasing and if during the show it all gets messed up don’t be afraid to reset it.
I have a specific page I love my albums to be open on and when a couple leaves my booth I quickly reset the albums they were looking through and tidy up and packaging they’ve checked out. First impressions mean everything at wedding shows.
#6 Clear Signage
Large, clear, stunning signage of your company name is a must have. Yes it might cost you a pretty penny to purchase it but it sets the tone of your company and you want that tone to be a great one.
Just imagine you are a bride walking through a wedding show with a million and one photographers trying to get your attention. If their company name is written on a white sheet of paper in Comic Sans and taped to the front of their display you might not think they are particularly professional.
#7 Don’t Attack Them Lol
I have seen booths set up in two ways, with the table against the display with the photographer in front or with the table out front and photographer between backdrop and table. Personally I think that putting your table between yourself and the customer is an awesome idea and increases the chance that couples will come and check out your work.
Weirdly enough it’s intimidating to approach a booth at a show, especially if the couple thinks the person will jump on them within 2 seconds and bombard them with a sales pitch. When you stand in front of your table it means that the couple has to get past you to view your work close up and I truly believe that deters many brides.
I find that with my table in front of me couples feel comfortable and safe to approach, to flick through the album without me in their space. Then once they are having a look I step up and begin conversing with them. I don’t attack them with my sales pitch, I don’t even have a sales pitch. I try to see if there’s a connection that can form organically through real, genuine conversation.
#8 YOU have to take the details
This is a big one. It’s great to hand out your business card or include a flyer in the swag bag but guess what, at the end of the day when that bride gets home and she tips out her bag of goodies there are 100+ business cards and yours is just somewhere in the pile that ends up in the recycle.
The way to guarantee your leads is for YOU to take THEIR info. It can be a little scary I know, trust me I’ve been there but you have to push yourself to do this one thing. Get their email address.
Now to get this you might need to come up with something you are giving them in return. For me I have a gorgeous Wedding Guide Magazine that I email out to all my interested brides post show. Here’s how I approach it with potential couples at the show…
‘If you are interested I have a super helpful, totally free Wedding Magazine that I send out after the show to all my brides as a PDF. It’s a great way for you to reconnect with me and check out my work and pricing a little further. Could I get your email address to add you to my exclusive VIP Brides list and ensure it gets into your hands?’
Not once has this ever been responded to with a no.
Tip: Don’t let them hand write their email address. I learnt this the hard way in that when you go to type them all in you don’t understand what they’ve written. Instead start a basic Google Doc and have them type it out.
#9 Giveaways
Be careful. Don’t create some crazy giveaway that really doesn’t benefit you in reaching further couples.
Over the years I’ve seen madness as I’ve watched photographers offer a competition to win your wedding photography for free! Each to their own but I fail to see the gain in this for you. When you offer this type of promo you will of course get every brides email in the room but you will have to actually shoot an entire wedding for FREE! And most of the email addresses you get in the ballot box are not brides who are genuinely interested in your services and so the leads are few.
So think about a different option. Here are some ideas to get you going:
An Engagement Session $250 OFF Coupon Free Package Upgrade Extra 4 hours coverage Bridal Magazine Bottle of wine Gift Box
#10 Don’t Forget The Follow Up
So you’ve done all the hard work and created a gorgeous display, created connections with couples and acquired their email address and then you don’t have a post show follow up game plan. All your hard work was pointless.
You HAVE to have a post show game plan. An email campaign setup that optimizes your chance to reconnect and book with them. If you have no idea what an email campaign is then let me quickly share.
This is where you design a handful of emails that are scheduled to go out. They usually follow a pattern where the first one is you saying it was great to meet them at the show and a short intro about you along with an opt in for email subscription and links to your website/social media. Then a day or two later the 2nd one goes out with a link to a blog or some great content that is super helpful to them. Then a few days later another goes out which lets them know about any show promo’s you had running. And finally a 4th that encourages them to book up a coffee date, Facetime or phone call with you.
Remember that the communication shouldn’t end there. So long as they signed up to your email subscription you need to include them on your mailing list from here on out. You never know the referrals or last minute bookings you can get.
There’s some great software out there to help you with this such as MailChimp. But realistically you can even do this in your Gmail. Just design each email ahead of the show and save them as templates. Set reminders on your cell phone for each time you want one sent post show and you’re all set.
And there is it, my recipe to slaying your Wedding Show. I hope that you found a few nuggets of gold in amongst those 10 tips and that you can see them impact your rate of return on your next show. Don’t forget to let me know how it goes and share any tips you have in the comments below!
If you are looking to up your photography business game and want to invest in one on one mentoring I’d love to chat with you. I am all about sharing my journey, my knowledge and my growth in ways to further your business and get you earning killer profit!
