Once you’ve been in the wedding biz for awhile, you start to realize what lights a fire under you. You start leaving shoots thinking “Holy f*ck, I love my job” or “I can’t wait to edit this session when I get home”. If you’ve found yourself in this stage, CONGRATS! You’re getting into a groove and really honing on what you love. But the question is, how do you keep booking those types of sessions once you start?

If you’ve been racking your brain trying to figure out how to book your dream clients at your dream destinations, you’re in the right place. Being in the marketing field for wedding pros, it’s quite literally my job to help my clients get consistent dream inquiries in their inbox! Keep reading to find out my 6 tips to book those “hell yes” clients. 

Be clear on your ideal client

First thing’s first – you can’t attract your dream clients if you don’t know who they are. If I’m being totally honest, I recommend hiring a brand strategist to really nail down who this is for you. But if that’s not in the cards right now, no worries! Here are a few questions you can ask yourself to determine yout ICA, or Ideal Client Avatar:

• How does my ideal client spend their free time?
• What do they do for work?
• How old are they?
• What is their relationship dynamic like?
• What are their core values?
• What do they do when they need to destress?
• What do they prioritize in their life? 

This will give you the perfect foundation for figuring out who you’re trying to market your services towards. 

Optimize your website for your goals

Your website is designed to book clients, right? Well, make sure it’s optimized to only attract clients that you want to work with! I recommend hiring a copywriter for your web copy because their literal job is to accomplish that for you. Although if a copywriter isn’t in your budget at the moment, totally don’t sweat it. When DIY’ing your copy, be sure to pretend like you’re talking directly to your ICA. Use language that would connect with them, references they would understand, and phrases they’d be familiar with. 

Along with your copy, optimize your blog content for your ICA as well. Are you looking to book unique, fun weddings? Have resources on your site like How To Personalize Your Wedding, 5 Unique Wedding Ideas, and a Modern Day Nontraditional Elopement Guide. These types of blogs will instantly grab the attention of couples who’s vision aligns with your dream events! 

For all of my monthly blogging clients, we have monthly strategy sessions so that I’m up to date on all of your business goals. If you haven’t created it already, we’ll build your ICA together so that we both have clarity on what kind of inquiries you want in your inbox. 

Curate your Pinterest profile

If you’re utilizing Pinterest as a marketing platform (and if you aren’t, respectfully, WTF are you doing?), it can be easy to pin whatever galleries you have on hand.  But that’s kinda the opposite of what I recommend doing for a multitude of reasons. Your Pinterest profile should serve as inspiration for your ICA, therefore you need to make sure your content reflects that! For example, if you want to book more local engagement sessions in Chicago, IL, here are a few boards you should have:

• Chicago Engagement Sessions Locations (break this up into types of locations! City, nature, views, etc.)
• Chicago Engagement Photo Inspiration 
• Outfit Inspo For Your Chicago Engagement Photos

And of course, only Pin galleries that reflect the type of sessions you want to book in the future. For all of my monthly Pinterest clients, I’m extremely selective with the images I choose to schedule for Pinterest, because we don’t believe in wasting marketing potential over here. I encourage you to be just as selective yourself!

Be selective on which images you share on IG

Similar to what we just discussed about Pinterest, you’ve got to be selective about which photos you share on your Instagram. Some photographers make it a goal to create a post for every single session, but here’s why I don’t recommend that:

• Not every session is going to be the type that you want to do in the future. If you booked a big, traditional wedding last year but only want to focus on elopements this year, what would be the best strategy for that? 
• Some sessions simply just don’t reflect your best work. Whether it was the lighting, the location, or something else entirely, your client could be over the moon about the photos while you’re not that excited about them. And that’s okay!! Don’t feel pressured to share images that you aren’t fond of.
• You may not have had the best experience with the couple who booked a session with you. Your personalities may not have meshed well, or they may have been different than your first impression with them. Either way, if you didn’t get good vibes, you don’t gotta post the pics! 

Going back to attracting your dream clients on IG, the formula is simple: don’t promote sessions that you don’t want to do in the future. If you want to really niche down and only book dream clients, you can’t try and appeal to everyone. 

Book content days/styled shoots

Although they shouldn’t be the main focus of your portfolio, content days/styled shoots can be a fantastic way to book certain locations especially. Because these events are usually held at “destinations”, it’s the perfect way to diversify your portfolio and step outside the box creativity-wise! Plus, this way you’ll have photo content for your blog content surrounding your desired locations. 

Don’t book weddings/elopements that aren’t a “hell yes”

Everyone is at a different stage in their business, and everyone has different lifestyles/financial situations. If you’re in the position to be selective on what sessions you book, I highly recommend doing so! I know it can be difficult to turn down clients, especially when you’re in a creative field. But if you’re serious about wanting to niche down and book dream clients at your dream destinations, it’s time to be more selective. If you get an inquiry that makes you want to Facetime your best friend and tell them all about it, you know you’re on the right track!

If you’ve been trying to figure out how to book your dream clients at your dream destinations, you now have the perfect foundation for accomplishing that. If you have any questions about any of these tips, feel free to shoot me a DM on IG! And if you’re ready to stop DIY’ing your marketing (and stop getting inquiries that aren’t a “hell yes”), I would love to hear all about what your dream business looks like and how I can help you get there. To book a 30 minute consult call to determine if you’d be a good fit for monthly retainer services, you can click here! I only onboard a select number of clients per month, so if you’re thinkin’ about it, let’s chat 🙂