Wedding photographers can increase business by developing relationships with vendors

During tough economic times, a bride often decides to save money by not hiring a professional photographer or, when she does hire one, she spends less than she would otherwise. As a result, many photographers find that they don’t have enough work to keep their business afloat. Developing relationships with other wedding venue providers creates more profitable business.

You can build a relationship with a supplier by doing what you can to help that supplier get more business. One method to do this is as follows:

1. Create a section on your website about places. Add a subsection for where you’d like to go. In each section, include some tips on how to take great photos for that area. Add some of your best photos to the section.

2. Write a quality article in an ezine about the location. Write about ways to get great photos in that particular place. Spend some time on these articles. You’ll want to use them to later show your dedication to a win/win relationship.

3. Contact the marketing manager of the wedding venue by email. Include at least two links in your email. A link to your website with all related images and a link to the Ezine article you wrote. Let them know in the email how many people have already seen the ezine article. If the article ranks fairly high on Google under relevant keywords, please point that out and encourage them to check it out for themselves. Explain what you really liked about the place. At this point, don’t ask them to recommend you as a wedding photographer. It takes some time to build enough trust for them to feel comfortable referring to you. At this point, he has not yet met the director or manager. Tell them you’d like to expand the section of your website on their particular location, as well as perhaps write a more detailed Ezine article about their location. Ask if you can stop by and get some photos of your location for your website. Offer to let them use the images for their marketing purposes.

If they accept your offer, the tour represents your first face-to-face visit with the marketing manager. From then on, he must prove that he is responsible, easy to work with, accommodating and extremely talented. If that’s you, you should be able to persuade most CMOs to add you to their referral list.