In today’s digital landscape, professional photographers are constantly faced with the challenge of effectively promoting their work to reach potential clients and stand out in a crowded market.
In almost any business, not just photographers, you’re pretty much left with two primary ways to get the word out:
#1 – Paid Advertising
#2 – Organic Marketing
Paid advertising involves investing resources (your money) to display ads and sponsored content, while organic marketing focuses on building an authentic online presence, usually through content marketing and social media marketing.
Both approaches offer distinct advantages and considerations for professional photographers.
Let’s explore the pros and cons of both paid advertising and organic marketing. Then you can have a better idea of what strategy will be better suited to your specific business needs and goals.
Remember, your overall goal is to book yourself solid with new dream clients. How you actually get there depends on a few things.
In fact, before we look at a Pros/Cons list, consider the following questions:
- What’s your timeline (how quickly do you want new clients)?
- What’s your budget (how much can you afford to invest in your business)?
- What are you willing to do (how much work are you willing to put in)?
- Besides booking new clients, do you have any other goals (like building a brand, selling a course, franchising, etc)?
You know your business better than anyone else so take some time to think about these questions.
With that in mind, there are pros and cons to both running ads and creating organic content as a photographer marketing effectively online.
Advantages of Running Ads:
- You can reach a very targeted, specific audience by selecting demographics, interests, behaviors, etc.
- Results can be tracked clearly by looking at metrics like clicks, impressions, conversions
- Ad spend is controllable and flexible based on budget
- Great for boosting traffic and visibility quickly
- Works well when trying to increase sales for products/packages
Disadvantages of Running Ads:
- Can be expensive to run if not optimized properly
- Need expertise in ad creation, targeting, bidding etc.
- Risk of low conversion rates if ad doesn’t resonate with audience
- Can come across as intrusive or sales-y if not done right
- Once the ad is paid for, it’s never shown again
Advantages of Creating Organic Content:
- Builds trust and relationships by providing value to a growing audience
- Shows up in unpaid search results based on relevance (SEO)
- Costs only time and effort to create content
- Posts have the potential to be shared widely if content resonates
- Shows expertise and passion for photography
- Stays online indefinitely (if quality is good, will generate new, consistent traffic)
Disadvantages of Organic Content:
- Requires consistency to see results long-term
- Harder to control reach and target specific audiences
- Difficult to measure concrete ROI compared to ads
- Must compete with a lot of other content online
- Takes effort to create content that performs well
Again, it depends on your answers to the questions above but in most cases, the ideal strategy is likely a combination of both ads and organic content.
This will help you to maximize reach, control costs, and build lasting relationships. Of course, you should test each and see what provides the best results for your brand and goals.
At Social Rocketship, we make it easy for you to do both!
With our Rocket Ads tool, you can literally run your ads in just a few clicks. Just choose a template, fill out your details (like daily budget), and launch!
With content creation, you can use our AI Content creator to whip up new content instantly. Then, you can use our Social Media Planner to distribute all of that great content across your various platforms.
You can watch a quick demo here.
To sum up, you can find that sweet spot with a combination of both. You can rock your ads, and then whip out a bunch of organic content.
Keep that camera clicking, use the right tools, and scale your photography business to the moon!
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