This blog post discusses how to ask your clients for reviews and what that can mean for your ranking and searchability online!
You dress to the nines, put on makeup, wear your best jewelry for a party — but nobody compliments you. You work on the fence of your house all day, repair it by the time evening arrives, and now it looks like new. Yet, your spouse doesn’t say a word about it.
Aren’t these scenarios a bit unsettling?? It is because everybody wants and loves appreciation! Not receiving feedback for all your efforts is heartbreaking.
This holds true for every individual and every business. Wedding photography businesses are no different. If your clients don’t tell you that they enjoyed your company and your work, how would you know? That’s why getting good reviews is crucial for your growth as a photographer and a business owner.
Receiving good reviews is more than just feeling appreciated. It has many other benefits for your business. Read below.
Top 7 Benefits of Asking Your Clients for Reviews and Getting Them!
- Listening to your clients will help you understand what they expect from you.
- With reviews, you know what your clients like the most. You can work more on those points to make your future clients’ experience better.
- Good testimonials and reviews also get you new clients. You can put these reviews on your wedding photography site to share with the new visitors or showcase them on social media to advertise your amazing services.
- As a photographer, good feedback motivates you to go out of the way for your clients
- It encourages you to keep improving your photography skills.
- Good reviews even attract other wedding vendors to collaborate with you.
- They are good for your SEO rankings on Google
Now that you know how vital good reviews from clients are, you need to learn the tricks to get them. Want more on interacting with your clients? Check out this blog on How to Say Thank You to Your Couples.
How to Ask Your Clients for Reviews AND Get Good Wedding Photography Reviews
You are a good photographer and do your assignments with utmost honesty. But, usually miss out on reviews. It might not be because your clients do not like you. But because they think it requires work and time to put out a testimonial. They might think that you have so many clients and if they do not review you, it would not make a difference.
You have to convince them that every review matters. You have to tell them how important their words are for you. To realize your goal, we have some easy and amazing tips for you. Let’s begin!
1. Don’t be Afraid to Ask
You should not wonder about what they say. Request after-event reviews from your clients when signing the wedding photography contract.
It will be your service that can make a testimonial or review good or bad. You need to give it your best when taking the wedding photos and let the couple decide what they want to say. If they are happy with your services, you’ll get a good review.
2. Make it Easy
You can allow your clients to add their reviews directly on your website.
If your site is on WordPress, we recommend you use the WPForms plugin. With this, you can create a review form for collecting and displaying testimonials.
3. Guide Your Clients on Writing
Some clients might not know how to express their feelings in words. Guide them on writing. Tell them they can mention their names, the venue, and the date.
Explain to them that they can start with a nice, short headline. Tell them they can write what they feel about you as a photographer. Are you energetic, a happy person, kind, helpful, ready to listen? They can mention what they feel about their photographs. What was their overall experience? You can send them examples of past reviews to get them an idea of the whole thing.
4. Under Promise, Over Deliver
Do not make big promises you may not be able to meet before the wedding day. It’s always great to over-deliver than promising and not fulfilling.
Taking more photos than you committed is a great way to impress your clients. The more impressed they are, the better the testimonial. One way to achieve this is to give extra time during the couple poses to shoot. A client’s wedding is their most important day, and they will love your extra efforts.
5. Keep in Touch
Once the wedding session is over and you deliver the photos, you’re not done. A client can bring more customers to you. Stay connected via emails. This ensures they have your email if they need to forward it to a friend.
When you have the email of the client, you can request for the testimonial or send them your review link(s). In the meantime, they must have seen the photos. Now, they will surely give a good wedding photography testimonial to you for your work.
6. Request Them to Share Review on Social Media
You can request your bride and groom to share the review on their social media besides your website. Tell them politely how their good words will help you. Be nice and friendly with them. Send them a greeting card or a keychain with their initials engraved on it. They will love this gesture and won’t mind speaking highly of you on their social media.
PROTIP: You can also ask other wedding vendors you work with to review your services. Then you can return the favor. It’s a win-win for both.
After you know how to ask your clients for reviews, where do you put the Reviews?
Besides your website, you can put these reviews on your social media. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or anywhere else you want. If you follow our last tip well, you will also get it on your clients’ social media.
You can register with sites where clients look for photographers based on reviews. Then send your business review link to past and present costumers. We recommend you use:
- Yelp
- Wedding Wire
- The Knot
Conclusion
Before approaching your clients. Have a clear idea about the kind of feedback you are looking for. Tell them about it. Make it clear to them that you are not looking for something technical. Because, of course, they are not photography experts. Tell them you just want to know their feelings and about their level of satisfaction form your work.
After you get a review, take a step back and consider it. Building a good reputation takes years and you are likely to get negative feedback at times. Don’t lose heart. A good practice is to refrain from saying anything in response to negative feedback. A polite ‘thank you’ would work best, then try to resolve your clients’ issues and ask them for a review again.
One awesome way to get incredible reviews from your clients is quick turnaround times. If you can get their photos back to them as quickly as possible (without sacrificing image quality), your brides will absolutely love you!
ShootDotEdit strives to get your photos edited and back to you in 5 business days or less (often as fast as 48 hours).
Imagine what it would feel like to hand over beautifully edited images to your clients in less than a week! And imagine what it could do for your referrals…