Last Tuesday I hosted a photography workshop. Besides meeting some incredible photographers, we spent the day talking about our marketing endeavors. The crazy thing about being a wedding photographer is acknowledging the fact that each year we must build an entirely new set of clients. Every season, we hope to get work.

Essentially, we start from scratch each year.

From my experience, however, there are some marketing approaches that extend beyond its initial flash. By far, the best marketing comes from my clients…but I empower them with things the share. In the past I've spoke about sending my clients gifts, tagging them in photos on Facebook, writing a detailed blog post about their day, but another tool of epic proportions is a slideshow.

After each engagement session and wedding I photograph, I send my clients a slideshow of images (an engagement slideshow has about 35 images, a wedding slideshow has about 85). Each slideshow is a story of their time in front of my camera, set to music. But I think of slideshows as a commercial for my business, starring my clients.

Clients usually share the slideshow with their friends and family by way of email (which is a major personal endorsement) and/or share it by way of social media. These ‘commercials' range from 3-6 minutes and viewers are experiencing my photography in a different, emotional way: their friends/family are showcased in the best possible way by way of my photographs. And this? This is POWERFUL.

Here are a few slideshows from recent weddings…with licensed music by way of The Music Bed (I lovelovelove this site for music…they stay away from cheesy royalty free stuff and provide really cool options!).

Kirsten + Robbie : The Standard Club Chicago Wedding
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Karen + Mohamed : Santa Barbara Wedding
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Kristin + Quintan : Terranea Resort Wedding

For those interested, I use Sound Slides to create my slideshows and I host them on my server. After trying multiple slideshow options, I opted for Sound Slides because it wasn't flash and could be viewed on mobile devices…which is a HUGE win over its competitors.

I hope this sheds light into my marketing approach and if you had other ideas to share, I'm all ears. The more we help each other, the better make our industry.