Vendor Marketing photography

Book More Brides With Vendor Marketing (in 6 Simple Steps)


Are you feeling frustrated that your website is getting too quiet? And you don’t seem to get any clients without spending a lot of money on advertising?

Then you will love hearing about this free marketing strategy that will help you get in front of your dream audience over and over again while making real connections with vendors in your area.

This strategy is super useful for wedding photographers but it could work just as well for other niches.

I am sharing 6 steps to get this free marketing strategy working in your photography business too.

6 Steps to Book More Brides With Vendor Marketing

1. Receive Vendor Information

First off, you need to create a step in your workflow to receive vendor information from your clients. For example, you can send a pre-wedding survey to your clients about 8 weeks before the wedding. They usually have all their details in place by then and filling out the pre-wedding questionnaire would be an easy task. As soon as you implement vendor marketing you will also include vendor information in your blogs and that will help to get brides familiar to seeing & collecting that information for you.

Download the free Guide to create your own Wedding Photography Questionnaire

2. Inform your Vendors You Will be Working with Them

Send a message to your vendors a few days to a week prior to the wedding. Just tell them you look forward to working with them and if you manage to shoot some extra detail shots of their work you will share them with them after the wedding. Now they know your name and your business, and they know you will bring them cool images of their work! They are happy to work with you and look forward to it, and you have not even met them! Make sure to include this step in your workflow so you will never miss doing this! Make it easy by using email templates.

Don’t have a workflow yet? Start with a paper workflow chart and download the free template below:

3. Pay attention during the wedding day!

You always pay attention of course, but this time, also find time to take care of the detail shots. Make sure you create diversity in your images by shooting the flowers with a macro lens and with a wider lens. Have an image where your bride holds the flowers and where the flowers are stand-alone. Don’t forget any of the vendors. If you feel like you have no time at all to do this you can always bring in an assistant to help you. Capturing the day in your best way is always the priority but when you have enough experience you will be able to capture the details as well. Your client will love having detail shots to enrich the story of their day too.

Pay attention during the wedding - vendor marketing

4. Share Images With Your Vendors

After the wedding and after you have shared the images with your clients you can share the images with your vendors too. Create an online gallery per vendor and you can add more images to that gallery over time or just simply email the images. Ask them to tag your business when they share them on Facebook and to link to your website when they share them on their website or blog. When you share the blog that lists all the vendors and showcases the whole wedding ask them again to share the blog with their audience. These are all amazing opportunities to get your work and business promoted to their audience which probably consists of a lot of potential clients for you. Getting links to your website from their websites is amazing to grow your search engine ranking which will help you get more visitors from Google as well.

5. Do This Consistently For Every Wedding You Do

It’s super important to make this a part of your workflow. Vendor marketing works really well when you are consistent with it. It will help you attract the right brides and grooms that love that exposure and spend time on wedding blogs. And over time your connections with vendors will grow and they will start sharing your business more and more. So make sure to download that workflow chart and get started with a workflow!

6. Automate When Needed

If you already have a lot of clients and need something more than a paper workflow chart to manage it all, sign up for the waitlist of ShootZilla. ShootZilla automates all those tasks for each client that you book and it also schedules the right emails for you. Now all you have to do is optionally personalize the email and press send!

I hope this inspires you to make this strategy a consistent part of your workflow. It will bring you so many benefits over time, I absolutely love it!

Are you considering this? Or maybe have questions? Let me know in the comments!

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