What Does Advertising Cost? - A Brief Overview - Photography Business

What Does Advertising Cost? - A Brief Overview - Photography Business
By Demarcus O’Dell - 08.18.21

Whether you are looking to reach a wider audience, obtain new inquiries by potential clients,  profile visits on social media platforms, or visits to your website; advertisement is necessary to make noise within a plentiful market. 

Firstly, does your portfolio represent a clear niche and your style? This question should be answered first before you apply advertising to anything. There is nothing wrong with experimentation; periodically changing out images within your portfolio and testing advertising efforts to see what gets more attention. 

It will be more cost effective to apply advertisements directly to those who you want to see, at the times of day when they will be on the internet or social media. However there are many platforms and mediums for which to advertise within and many options for advertising. 

Programmatic Advertising uses artificial intelligence like technology to only advertise to your exact demographic at the exact places and times that are relevant. They use a wider set of parameters within their demographic database; interests, distance from interests, behaviors and devices. 

They can reach your audience with ads when they get off work and go online on their phone, or when they wake up and use their tablet to read the news. The United States alone spent over $60 billion in digital display ad spending in 2019 and over $96 billion so far in 2021. Check companies such as; Kedet, Media Math, Amobee and Smartly Ads for more information and to inquire about pricing structures.

Instagram Advertising is a great option for photographers who use it as a portfolio or wish to advertise on more than one medium. It is really intuitive, allowing you to choose the specific details of the demographics that you are trying to reach; location, age, interest, etc.

You can choose your budget from $1 dollar daily to $6,000 daily, and the duration of your ad from 1 day to 30 days. They estimate you can reach 2,800 people to 2,500,000 people depending on how you arrange your budget and ad duration. 

Google Ads is a great option for photographers who have a website or storefront. They will tailor advertisements for the results you are looking for whether that is more phone calls, website visits, mailing list sign ups or store visits. 

You can choose your own daily budget for estimated 0-30 clicks a day for a 21 day stretch or they can recommend a budget. Google mentions that you will not be charged more than your daily average by the end of the 21 days but that you pay for results and some days will use more of the budget than others. 

• $2.10 - $11.20 for 0 - 10 clicks per day
• $11.40 - $15.10 for 0 - 20 clicks per day
• $15.20 - $22.70 for 10 - 20 clicks per day
• $22.80 - $25.00 for 10 - 30 clicks per day

If your budget is very low, there are many free methods for advertising. Joining a relative Facebook group can be a great free tool to spread the word about who and what you are. Your audience will consist of hair and makeup artists, models, stylists and other photographers so try not to dump advertisements on their feeds however the opportunities for spreading your name within your local artist community is important. 

Article writing, forum posting and YouTube are excellent free tools to utilize. You can give back to the photography community with useful and relative information from your experiences and of course apply website links, your own images or direct them to your images off site. 

Medium.com is free to join and is a great place to post articles and you can actually monetize the written content. Quora.com is a place where people come to ask questions and look at answers for issues or concerns they have. Youtube is a well known platform for finding clear information that otherwise may be more difficult to find and comprehend. If you have written content; consider turning it into a video. 

Search engine optimization or SEO can be free in some ways. When writing content within a blog or your website; spending some time researching popular keywords and applying them to your content will make it easier for people to come across you when searching online. 

Websites such as Answer The Public and Ubersuggest are great options to get ahead by using popular keywords that people are using when searching for photography and advertising. 

Whether your budget is large or small; the factor of advertisement for any business is crucial and possible to generate. The price varies but invest in yourself, and represent the best of yourself when applying advertisements and you will see results. Good luck and come here for more.