I met with a photographer this morning – let’s call her Jess – and we got chatting about marketing (surprise, surprise!).

She recently took up an offer for a free Ad Words spend – which made her website appear as an ad at the top of Google results when people searched for things like “wedding photographer”.

I asked Jess how this went.

In one day, she got 4 enquiries.

Wow!

I then asked her how many of these enquiries converted to clients.

Not one.

Jess then went on to tell me that the number one place clients find her is on Instagram.

Let’s dig into the WHY behind this.

Often, her clients will come across her work on Instagram, through other clients, tagging her, through searching for hashtags, or through stylists, venues, florists, or other collaborators’ accounts.

A little scroll of Jess’s images, and they have either decided that Jess is not the right fit for them OR they fall in love with her work.

These clients-to-be are NOT just Googling and quote shopping.

When they contact Jess, they are doing so already wanting to work with her, and looking to find out how.

In fact, in two meetings last week, clients told me they were scrapping their Yellow Pages advertising (I don’t actually remember the last time I saw a Yellow Pages book – is anyone else the same?!).

Because it’s simply not giving them a return. And instead, their focus is on strategic social media.

Go guys!

My clients know I am less about broad brush advertising and more about creating connections, telling a story, and building relationships.

And I believe Instagram is one of the very best places to do that.

A couple of questions that might help you:

• Are you clear on the purpose behind every bit of marketing you are doing?

• Do you have a process to capture how clients found you?

• Which activities are connecting you with ideal clients? And are any attracting the ‘wrong’ type of people? If so it might be time to invest more in the former and move away from the latter.