5 Tips to Get Your Photography Clients to Trust You
Getting your photography clients to trust you can hard - trust me, I get it. But it’s absolutely vital that you build trust with your potential photography clients because without trust they will never feel comfortable booking your services.
Just coming out and saying, “Trust me!!” won’t really work either. You have to have a holistic way of building trust with your potential photography customers through actions and not words. You have to show up, prove to them that they can trust you and your work, and do it again and again and again.
Here are my 5 biggest tips to use in your business to help build trust with those potential dream photography clients and how to put them to use in your business like, today.
1. Niching
Niching is essentially making your business specialize in one specific type of something.
For example, let’s pretend you were looking for a therapist to help with your fear of tall buildings - you would probably search for a specialist who worked specifically with people afraid of heights. You probably wouldn’t choose the therapist who worked with kids, families, animal therapy, art therapy, and said they specialized in people with depression, food disorders and fear of dirt.
Your photography clients want the exact same thing - they aren’t looking for a jack of all trades. They’re looking for the portrait photographer who specializes in outdoor natural light family photography.
Niching and specializing in one specific type of photography will position you as a professional in your field and build trust with your clients. They won’t think, “I’ll choose Katharine because she does it all okay”, they’ll think, “I’ll choose Katharine because she does branding photography for creative entrepreneurs. which is exactly what I want and need.” See how powerful the difference is?
HOW TO Niche
Do a website audit. Ask a friend or trusted professional colleague to go over your website and see if there are any parts that seem confusing or like they don’t add to your specialty. Narrow down your offerings to all support your one specific niche/specialty and try to keep it all under the same awning. Not easy, but it’ll also help you trim the fat from your website and take down any offerings that don’t add to your overall brand.
2. Show your face
Showing your face is such a simple and effective way of building trust with your potential clients. By sharing photos of yourself, doing Facebook or Instagram lives, or even getting out for coffee dates - showing your face and the person behind the business is powerful.
If you look at any big name creative entrepreneur online, you’ll notice they almost always start out their websites with a hero image - a massive, introductory image into the babe behind the business. This does a few things…
Immediately puts you on a first name basis (like you’re buds)
Shows that there is an actual, breathing human behind the work (humanizes you)
Literally puts a face to a name and shows you standing behind your work (confidence, baby)
HOW TO SHOW YOUR BEAUTIFUL FACE
You can do this in a few ways, the most obvious of which is just to share selfies. Post a photo of yourself on your Instagram feed every week. Show up on your stories (with your face, not just showing your work and talking over it). Pop in on a live for 5 minutes. It does not have to be a big, scary ordeal - just show up and show your pretty face a few minutes every day.
3. Put out consistent work online
Putting out consistent work online through your website and social media shows your potential customers what to expect when they work with you. This is similar to niching in that the idea behind it is to build trust with actions rather than words - showing online the style of editing and work that you will provide clients will show them what to expect from you if they were to book your services.
HOW TO PUT OUT CONSISTENT WORK online
You can do this by showing a similar style of editing by using Lightroom presets that build consistency and relate to one another (like this one). By having a similar and cohesive style between the work on your website, social media, newsletters and elsewhere your potential clients will start to recognize your style, remember you for your specific way of editing, and seek you out for your unique eye.
4. Use testimonials from past clients
Client reviews and testimonials are massive in business - they tell your potential clients that they should trust you from people who have actually worked with you. This lets your clients know that there are real life humans who booked your services, lived to tell the tale, and loved your work enough they wanted to share about it??!! If there’s something more convincing than that, I’d love to know - cause damn is that powerful.
“90% of respondents who read online reviews said that positive reviews influence their buying decisions.”
Testimonials build trust because they’re a real life run down of what it’s like to work with you - what went great, what could have been better, and what to expect. Again, you can tell people to trust you all you want, but showing them is so much more impactful.
How To Use testimonials from past clients
Reach out to amazing clients you’ve worked with and ask if they would feel comfortable leaving a review for you on Google/Facebook/Thumbtack/Yelp (whichever you want to get more views on). Make sure that you link to each place they can leave a review and not just tell them where to go - make it as easy as possible for them to give you their feedback!
5. Be professional, but also be yourself
Of course you want to professional in your branding and online marketing, but you also want to be sure to include aspects of your personality. If you’re working face to face with clients (or speaking to them online), they’re going to be speaking to YOU and I’m sure your personality will come through. So if you’re a giggly, happy personality but you put out online that you’re very serious and professional - your clients will get real confused real quick when you start giggling when you actually speak to them.
You don’t wanna answer emails all “wht u need gurl???” but you also don’t want to be super stiff if that’s just not your personality.
Imagine I never swore online or told my weird dad jokes, then when I met my client in person they would be like “who’s this effing weirdo??” - that’s the last thing you want your client to be thinking when they meet you. Your clients should feel confident in believing they know you because of what you share online, not that you’re going to show up a completely different person in real life.
How to be professional, but also be yourself
Take note of the types of phrases or words you use a lot and infuse them into your marketing. This is my favorite thing to do because it’s a very easy and quick fix, but it's also very true to your personality and a great insight to you as a person.