Paid Advertising Vs. Organic Marketing

Would you believe me if I told you I’ve never run paid advertising in my photography business over the last 10 years?  Well, it’s true. I have built my photography business through organic marketing & relationship building only. While I have nothing against photographers running paid advertising, I think there are some misconceptions about it. That’s what I want to discuss with you today. 

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Clarifying Paid Advertising 

The art of paid advertising is that you are paying a platform to show a specific piece of content to your target audience. It sounds fabulous, right? Well, there is a caveat to this and almost an art to getting paid advertising to work. It takes a bit of a learning curve for both you and the algorithm. 

As I say paid promotion is the fuel to your fire! Your fire is marketing that is already working for your business on social media, your website, etc. Once that is working, then you add the fuel, aka paid promotion, to the fire is a win!  However, if you don’t currently have organic marketing that is working, paid advertising will not work for you. It just enhances what is already working.

Don’t Waste Money With Paid Ads

You can waste a lot of money with paid ads if you are currently struggling to get bookings, are brand new to photography, or you don’t have a niche or expertise. When & if you choose to use paid marketing you must be VERY clear of your goal. Your goal is to make you more profitable. Are you looking to book more weddings, sell out your workshop, sell your course or program or even fill up your mini sessions? This is how you tell Meta or another platform what action you want the user to take.

Types of Paid Ads

There are two types of paid ads, one on social media platforms and the other on search engine such as Google. Let’s break it down further to show you how they are each unique and require things in place prior to utilizing them. 

1. Facebook & Instagram Ads: These ads are usually featured as a feed or story content to advertise to your audience. Through this type of ad you want to invite the user to take an action through the ad, such as click a button, comment a word, or send you a dm. Your ad needs to be very clear as to what you want the audience to do. 
2. Search Engine Ads- When you search for something like on Google, you will ‘sponsored’ results at the top of the page known as search engine ads. People pay to show as a solution for specific keywords and key phrases. As you are creating these ads, you determine the key words that you are paying for. You can even use location as the keyword. 

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Biggest Misconception of Paid Advertising

You may be thinking if I run an ad, I will automatically book more sessions or sell out my mini sessions. A beautiful ad doesn’t necessarily result in more bookings. You also have to target a specific audience when creating your ad. Be specific about exactly what demographics you wish for your ad to see. However,  this will take time for the algorithm to get correct. Do not be surprised if this takes longer than 90 days to get an ROI on this. I suggest committing to paid advertising for at least 6 months.

Organic Marketing Still Works

To be honest, I’ve never run paid ads in my photography business. I have nothing against photographers running paid ads, however I think there are some misconceptions about it. My business was built through organic marketing and relationship building and this what I teach in the From Broke to Booked Blueprint.

I’ve had to pivot and learn new marketing methods over the years, but I’ve learned to make it work. I want this episode to encourage you that you don’t need paid advertising to be profitable and I want to educate you on what it really takes.