The Best Marketing Strategy for Photographers Might Be the One You’ll Actually Keep Doing

Written by Kelsie Pinkerton — 20+ years of marketing and running a photography business, now helping photographers and creatives build websites designed to support the businesses they’re growing.

If you’ve been a photographer for more than five minutes, you’ve probably been told you need to be doing approximately 47 things to market your business.

Post on Instagram.

Make Reels.

Blog.

Start a newsletter.

Get on Pinterest.

Work on your SEO.

Network.

Ask for reviews.

Build vendor relationships.

Start showing your face more.

Maybe TikTok?

And inevitably, someone somewhere is doing one of those things spectacularly well and telling you it’s the thing that changed their business.

Maybe it did.

But after more than 20 years of running a photography business, I think there’s another question worth asking:

Will you actually keep doing it?

Because the theoretically “best” marketing strategy isn’t particularly useful if you hate it enough to abandon it three months from now.

Meanwhile, a pretty-good strategy you can consistently execute for years?

That has a chance to become incredibly powerful.

1. Why “Best” Is the Wrong Question
2. The Marketing I Actually Kept Doing
3. Consistent Doesn’t Have to Mean Constant
4. Choose Marketing That Fits How You Work
5. Pay Attention to What Compounds
6. Don’t Confuse Boredom With Something Not Working
7. You Still Need More Than One Way to Be Found
8. A Simple Way to Choose Your Marketing Priorities
9. The Pinkerton House Perspective
10. Key Takeaways
11. Frequently Asked Questions

I understand why we ask it.

What’s the best way to market a photography business?

What’s working right now?

Where should photographers be showing up?

They’re reasonable questions.

But they tend to assume there’s one objectively correct answer.

And marketing doesn’t really work that way.

The photographer who loves talking to a camera, has endless ideas for short-form video and can make a Reel in twelve minutes may have huge success on Instagram.

Give that exact same marketing plan to someone who needs two hours and an emotional support beverage to record a 15-second video? 🙋‍♀️

Probably not sustainable.

Another photographer might genuinely enjoy writing and have years of useful expertise to share.

Someone else might be in their element connecting with planners, venues and other vendors.

Another may have a body of work that performs beautifully on Pinterest.

The question isn’t only:

Could this marketing strategy work?

It’s also:

Could this marketing strategy work for me long enough to matter?

That’s a very different question.

For a huge portion of my photography career, one of the things I did consistently was incredibly unglamorous:

I blogged my work.

Wedding after wedding.

Year after year.

Was every post a carefully researched SEO masterpiece?

Absolutely not.

Was every title strategically optimized?

Nope.

Did every post get a ton of traffic?

Definitely not.

But I kept doing it.

And over time, something interesting happened.

Those posts accumulated.

Google had more and more ways to find my work.

Potential clients could search for venues, locations and wedding inspiration and land on something I’d published months—or even years—earlier.

Other vendors had a simple way to share my work.

Pinterest had pages (and hundreds of wedding inspo images) to send people to.

And my website became this increasingly deep library of evidence that said:

I’ve done this. I know this world. You can trust me here.

I can trace significant photography business back to old blog content—including a single post that ultimately led to tens of thousands of dollars in contracts.

I didn’t know that would happen when I hit publish.

That’s sort of the point.

Marketing often works because you keep giving it chances to work.

And if blogging is one of the marketing strategies that makes sense for you, here’s how I approached blogging a wedding for SEO without losing sight of the actual humans I wanted the post to reach.

I think this is where the word consistency gets a bad reputation.

It starts sounding like:

Post every day.

Never miss a week.

Feed the algorithm.

Create more.

Stay visible.

Keep up.

And if that’s your definition, consistency sounds exhausting.

I don’t think that’s what it has to mean.

Consistency can simply mean:

You have decided this matters, so you keep coming back to it.

Maybe you publish two thoughtful blog posts a month.

Maybe you send one useful email every other week.

Maybe you make a point of sharing galleries with the vendors involved after every wedding.

Maybe you show up on Instagram three times a week instead of seven.

Maybe you spend one morning a month creating Pinterest content.

The cadence matters far less than whether it’s something you can realistically repeat.

Because twelve months of “pretty consistently” is usually more valuable than three weeks of I AM FINALLY GOING ALL IN ON MARKETING followed by four months of silence.

Ask me how I know. 😉

Sustainable doesn’t mean effortless. And it definitely doesn’t mean choosing a marketing strategy simply because you enjoy it.

It means finding something strategically useful that fits you well enough to keep doing after the initial burst of motivation wears off.

Sometimes marketing is work.

Sometimes you’re going to need to learn something new.

Sometimes the thing your business needs isn’t the thing you’d most like to spend Tuesday morning doing.

But there is a difference between:

This takes effort.

and

This is fundamentally incompatible with the way I operate.

That’s worth paying attention to.

If you’re trying to decide where to put your marketing energy, I’d look at a few things.

You don’t have to love it.

But if every single Instagram Reel takes you three hours and makes you want to throw your phone into the nearest body of water, building your entire visibility strategy around Reels might not be your best move.

Could you write instead?

Photograph something useful?

Send an email?

Build relationships?

Create pins?

Find the version of marketing that gives you the least resistance while still putting you in front of the people you want to reach.

Don’t build a marketing plan for Imaginary, Aspirational You.

She’s apparently extremely organized and wakes up at 5:00 a.m. delighted to batch content.

Good for her. ⭐️

Build it for you.

The one with clients.

Kids.

Editing.

Appointments.

Laundry.

A life.

A marketing strategy you can execute during your busiest season is much more useful than one that only works when your calendar is empty.

This part matters.

“I like doing it” isn’t enough if your dream clients aren’t there.

The sweet spot is finding the overlap between:

something you’re reasonably willing to keep doing + somewhere your right clients can actually encounter you.

That’s where I’d start.

And this guide might be helpful too: sustainable marketing → sustainable business.

Not all marketing has the same lifespan.

A social post may get most of its attention quickly.

A blog post can potentially be found for years.

A Pinterest pin can continue circulating long after you created it.

A relationship with a planner can lead to multiple referrals over time.

One of the simplest systems I kept in my photography business was sharing images with the other vendors involved in a wedding. It wasn’t complicated or especially innovative. But do that wedding after wedding, year after year, you’re not only building relationships with planners, florists, venues and other people who regularly talk to your potential clients – you’re ensuring they all have a simple way to continue sharing your work with them.

A great client experience can create reviews, word of mouth and repeat business.

A strong website can make all of those sources of visibility work harder once someone arrives.

I really like marketing efforts that have the ability to stack.

You do the work once, but some of the value sticks around long after that.

That doesn’t mean every marketing activity needs to be evergreen.

Instagram can be incredibly valuable for staying familiar and giving people a window into what you’re doing now.

Networking can create opportunities that content never could.

But if every part of your marketing disappears the second you stop actively feeding it? I’d want to add something with a longer shelf life.

Because one of the nicest things you can do for Future You is create marketing that doesn’t require Future You to start from zero every Monday morning.

This is a sneaky one.

You’ve been doing the same thing for a while.

Blogging.

Pinning.

Emailing.

Networking.

Posting.

And then someone tells you about a completely different strategy that’s working amazingly for them.

Suddenly your perfectly reasonable marketing plan feels terribly boring.

Maybe you do need a podcast!

Maybe you should be on Threads!

Maybe YouTube is where it’s at!

Maybe you’ve been doing everything wrong!

Or…

Maybe you’ve just been doing the same useful thing long enough that it no longer feels exciting.

Those are not the same problem.

There are absolutely times to change course.

If something is consistently taking significant time and producing no meaningful signs of life, evaluate it.

If your clients aren’t using a platform anymore, adapt.

If your business changes, your marketing may need to change with it.

But don’t abandon a sound strategy chasing after all the shiny things.

Compounding is boring for a surprisingly long time.

Then one day you realize you have years of searchable content, a network of people who know your name, a body of work that’s been shared hundreds of times, or an audience that’s been quietly paying attention.

You don’t get that part if you restart every six months.

Now, before this turns into:

Kelsie told me to choose one marketing strategy and ignore everything else forever.

Nope. Don’t do that.

I wouldn’t want my entire business dependent on one source of visibility.

Platforms change.

Algorithms change.

Referral relationships change.

Search changes.

Your market changes.

Your own interests change.

And sometimes a marketing channel that worked beautifully for five years simply becomes less effective.

What I would do is resist the idea that every channel deserves equal energy.

You can have a primary visibility engine and a few supporting pieces.

For years, blogging could create searchable content.

Pinterest could extend its reach.

Instagram could keep the business current and personal.

Vendor relationships could create referrals.

And the website could bring all of those people into one beautiful place where they could understand the work, the experience and whether I was right for them.

That’s ultimately what I want a photography website that books clients to do: turn all that visibility into trust, connection and a clear next step.

Those pieces didn’t all have to be equally demanding.

They just had to work together.

If your current marketing plan is essentially:

I should probably be doing more of everything,

I’d simplify it.

Write down the marketing channels you’re currently using—or considering using.

Then ask of each one:

Not people.

The people you actually want to hire you.

Think in years, not in an unusually motivated week in January.

It doesn’t have to. But it’s a bonus.

A blog post, useful webpage, Pinterest pin, email list, review or strong professional relationship may continue paying off long after your initial investment.

This doesn’t have to mean immediate bookings.

Look for smaller signals too:

• Search impressions.
• Website visits.
• Replies.
• Saves.
• Referrals.
• Inquiries mentioning a source.
• People telling you they’ve been following for a while.

Marketing usually has a longer path to purchase than we want it to.

This might be the most important one.

A marketing strategy that brings you lots of attention from people who don’t want what you’re selling isn’t necessarily successful.

Just like your portfolio should help attract more of the work you want, your marketing should be designed to bring you closer to the business you actually want to have.

If I were building a photography business today, I wouldn’t try to win at every platform.

I’d build a small, connected marketing ecosystem I could realistically maintain.

I’d want a website I controlled.

I’d create useful, searchable content around the things my ideal clients were already looking for.

I’d choose one or two places to actively stay visible and build relationships.

I’d make it incredibly easy for clients and industry friends to share, recommend and remember me.

And then?

I’d give it time.

That’s the part we’re always tempted to skip.

We can see everyone else’s visible results without seeing the hundreds of small, boring repetitions that created them.

The blog post that brought me a dream client required me taking the time to write it.

The vendor relationship that generated an ideal referral only existed because we’d built a relationship.

The old Pinterest image could only keep circulating because I put something there to circulate.

The website could only help someone trust me because I’d spent years filling it with evidence.

None of those things felt revolutionary while I was doing them.

They just kept adding up.

And if I had constantly abandoned them for the newest “best” marketing strategy (which I was tempted to do, regularly)?

I’m not convinced any of them would have had enough time to work.

• There isn’t one universally best marketing strategy for photographers.
• A strategy you can stick to is often more valuable than a theoretically “better” strategy you abandon on repeat.
• Consistency doesn’t have to mean constant content—it means continuing to return to strategically useful work.
• Look for marketing that fits both you and the way your ideal clients actually discover photographers.
• Build a few connected marketing channels—including some that can compound over time—rather than relying completely on one source of visibility.
• Don’t mistake boredom for failure. Give good strategies enough time to do their jobs.

There isn’t one marketing strategy that’s best for every photographer. The strongest approach usually combines places your ideal clients actually look for photographers with marketing activities you can realistically keep doing. Searchable website content, social media, referrals, vendor relationships, Pinterest, email marketing and networking can all work—the right mix depends on your business, market and strengths.

Start with a strong home base—usually your website—where potential clients can understand your work, approach and services. Then choose a manageable mix of visibility channels that bring the right people there. That might include SEO and blogging, Instagram, Pinterest, professional relationships, referrals, email or local networking. You don’t need to use all of them.

Nope – I sure as heck didn’t. Posting every day can work for someone who enjoys and can sustain that pace, but daily posting isn’t automatically a better marketing strategy. A realistic schedule you can maintain while continuing to serve clients and run your business is more useful than an aggressive posting schedule you quickly abandon.

Blogging can still be valuable for photographers when posts are genuinely useful, specific and connected to what potential clients are actually searching for. Unlike most social content, a strong blog post can continue bringing people to your website long after it’s published. Blogging was one of the marketing activities I sustained for years in my own photography business, and old posts continued creating visibility and inquiries long after I wrote them.

There’s no ideal number. I’d rather see a photographer maintain a few channels that work well together than attempt to be active everywhere. A useful approach is to have a website you control, one or two primary ways people discover you, and supporting channels that strengthen referrals, trust and ongoing visibility.

If you’re overwhelmed by photography marketing, I wouldn’t respond by adding three more things to your list.

I’d probably remove some.

Figure out where your right clients are.

Figure out which marketing activities fit your strengths and your actual life.

Keep enough variety that your entire business isn’t at the mercy of one platform.

Then choose a few things worth repeating.

Do them thoughtfully.

Pay attention to what’s happening.

Adjust when you have a reason to adjust.

And give the good things enough time to compound.

Because the best marketing strategy for your photography business might not be the shiny new one.

It might simply be the one you’re still doing three years from now.