As a wedding photographer, you are a specialist in creating memories that will last a lifetime for your clients. After you provide your couples with a great experience, they have the opportunity to share how great these moments were with their friends and family members. This is great to have this kind of word-of-mouth reputation. However, it is even better when couples can share their experience of working with you with other couples that have, too—it establishes a unique and special bond between them that you helped form!
One of the best things you can do to achieve this is to bring brides together that have experienced your professionalism and creativity first-hand. This fosters a strong community of brides and continues to build their trust and loyalty with you and your brand, making them lifelong clients. With that in mind, here are 3 ways you can establish a community for your past brides.
1. Organize Events for Your Brides
People love to get together over shared interests or mutual experiences. Simply put, there is nothing like the energy of a room full of people who are all excited to be right where they are. As a wedding photographer, you can help to create a special community of your past brides and organize exclusive events for them. You want to find unique and fun ways for your brides to connect! For example, maybe you are interested in creating a guide like, “10 Things Every Bride Should Know before the Wedding Day.” This would be an excellent time to organize a get together with past brides, so they can share their own stories, and contribute to the success of other brides.
The events you organize don’t need to always revolve around something you’re working on. A great example of this is how Wedding Photographer, Katelyn James, organizes her Bridal Spa Day for brides, which allows her clients to connect with one another in a fun environment.
“They not only love their signature massages and facials, but they also love getting to meet other brides, which strengthens our ‘KJ Bride’ Community.”
By putting together a day of relaxation for her bridal community, Katelyn is not only giving them the opportunity to meet and share stories, she is also constantly delighting them and further solidifying their loyalty and trust in her. Organizing these events for your brides proves that you care about their experience at all stages of the wedding process and will do anything to ensure that they are taken care of before, after, and during the actual wedding.
2. Create a Group on Social Media
People love to talk about their experiences with others that have shared the similar ones. It fosters a sense of community, creates an open forum for discussion about what they loved about their wedding, and even to a lesser extent gives them the opportunity to show off a little by sharing their own photos. You can easily do this through something like Facebook where you can create private groups for your clients. If not all of your clients follow you on Facebook (or they don’t have an account), but you have a website, you might consider creating a forum space that’s directly on your site for people to interact with you and one another on.
Related: Do you have a successful social media strategy?
Tip: Not everyone has a Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, but you do have a website that you can use to help brides connect. Before looking at what you can with already established social media, consider what your website has to offer in terms of bringing your brides together, such as online forums.
3. Engage New Brides with Past Brides
New brides are likely to have a lot of the same questions regarding the wedding process. Chances are you already have a guide or a series of blog posts that are meant to assist them along the way. However, you can take this opportunity to reach out to your past brides and arrange for them to meet with your brides that are still in the pre-planning stages of their wedding. You don’t need to do this with every new client, but if your new brides want their wedding to happen up in the mountains and you just shot a wedding in the mountains, then you might consider arranging for the two brides to connect. This can be done either via email or face-to-face. Not only will this show your new bride how dedicated you are, it also shows that you value your past brides as well, and want to include them in the growth of your business. As a bonus, the two brides may even create a close connection and become lifelong friends!
Related: Don’t miss out on clients – learn how to blog effectively for your business!
It is important that your clients always know that you have their best interests in mind. By providing them with these opportunities to meet and bond over experiences, you are living up to the promise set by your brand. For you to spend the time nurturing your clients, be sure to partner with a specialist for your wedding photography editing. Right now, there are dozens of great ways you can create opportunities for your brides to meet – from surprising them with a group spa day or simply opening a forum that they can interact online in. Just remember to always keep things upbeat, fun, and engaging for both you and your brides. Find out how you can use social media to connect your brides in our Facebook for the Wedding Photographer Guide!
