Brides looking for a wedding photographer don’t come to Shutterkey because they want traditional poses or boring golf course pictures. They come to me because they want something different. They want emotion, happiness, tears, and smiles. They want photos that make you feel like you’ve been transported back to your big day, reliving the amazing moments all over again. And they know Shutterkey is where they can get it.

Here’s how I took Shutterkey from a college student’s part-time side-hustle to an award winning, nationally published wedding photography business that is massively sought-after in the Pacific Northwest.

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After modest sales in the first year of being in business full time, I realized that if I wanted to get Shutterkey to the next level, I needed to reassess how I was attracting clients and marketing myself.

I needed to figure out the pain points of choosing a wedding photographer for the type of client I wanted to attract, and position Shutterkey as the solution. Through market research, I determined that millennials like myself place great importance on feeling like they're hiring a person and not a faceless business conglomerate.

Armed with this insight, in 2017 I completely revamped Shutterkey's marketing and sales strategy. The first milestone I wanted to hit was to at least triple initial inquiries at the top of my sales funnel.

Through extensive surveying, I discovered that nearly 90% of brides start the process of choosing their wedding vendors with the venue. Once chosen, couples tend to ask the venue for referrals for other things like flowers, catering, photographers, etc. I realized that if I could build strong relationships with venues, I could build a vast referral network that would massively increase initial leads. I did this by offering local venues free professional-quality photos of their properties that they can use on their sites and social media to attract clients. These free sessions gave venue owners an opportunity to get to know me on a professional and personal level. My end goal was to be the first person in mind when couples asked these venues who they recommend as a photographer.

The initiative was a massive success, and initial inquiries for Shutterkey increased 7x, from an average of 4 per month to over 30.

Now that Shutterkey has a solid stream of inquiries, the next milestone was to double the percentage of leads that follow through to booking.

I redesigned Shutterkey's pricing guide to showcase more of my personality and to focus on providing reassurance that by hiring me, couples are going to have a far less stressful, far more enjoyable wedding day. I also placed greater emphasis on in-person meetings when possible, to give my couples a better idea of what it will be like to work with me on the big day. The initiative worked excellently, and couples that followed through with booking increased from about 25% to over 60%.

Now that Shutterkey had a solid business foundation, I pivoted to utilizing social media, targeted ads, and SEO to fuel further growth by diversifying my lead sources.

Using Google Analytics and GTmetrix, I redesigned and optimized my website to follow SEO best practices, including placing emphasis on being mobile-friendly. This redesign also dropped my bounce rate from around 65% to 39%, further helping my ranking. Another strategy I pursued was growing my domain authority by getting Shutterkey featured in popular national wedding publications like Junebug, Ruffled, LooksLikeFilm, and Rangefinder. I regularly blogged on my site, so Google knew it was consistently being refreshed with new stuff. I also created evergreen content and through targeted ads, drove a high amount of traffic to the posts within the first couple of weeks, signaling to the Google algorithm that it was high-quality content that should rank highly.

Shutterkey also received a massive boost in domain authority when I was nominated for the prestigious Rangefinder Rising Stars of Wedding Photography.

Over time, I was able to get Shutterkey to rank first on google for nearly every popular wedding photography search term in my area of business, as well as ranking on the front page nationally for terms like Yosemite Engagement Photographer and Oregon Coast Wedding Photographer. This led to a huge increase in sales and organic search accounted for nearly half of all bookings in 2019.

In just over 2 years, I grew Shutterkey from a part-time side hustle that made around $8,000 a year into the most sought-after wedding photography business in the area doing nearly $150,000 in bookings in 2019.

Growing a one-woman business from nothing into an award-winning, nationally regarded player in the industry gave me immense hands-on digital marketing experience and knowledge that I'm eager to bring to other businesses wanting to get the next level.