Digital marketing strategy with Stat Counter: Choose the Right Digital Marketing Channels

Choosing the right mix of marketing channels for your photography business is highly individual and will differ depending on your type of business, where your potential customers hang out, your budget and the amount of time you can put into it.

Here we’ll take a look at the four main channel groups and some examples within each.

Writing an informative and helpful article on how to dress children for a portrait session, including example photos from your previous sessions would be a great way to attract leads via organic search.

 Choose the Right Digital Marketing Channels.

1. Choose the Right Digital Marketing Channels.
   1. Owned Media.
   2. Shared Media.
   3. Earned Media.
   4. Paid Media.
   5. Publish Valuable, Relevant, and Consistent Content.

Choose the Right Digital Marketing Channels.

The content you create to attract leads should be aligned with the interests of your niche market but doesn’t have to be directly about your business, products or services.  

People in need of a photographer have other related problems they are trying to solve imultaneously. 

This is a core concept in content marketing.

Owned Media.

Owned Media refers to any media channel that is owned by you where the content is under your control. Examples of owned media include:

• Your Website and Landing pages
• Your Blog
• Your Email List

Social platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Medium have made publishing content almost effortless, however it is getting increasingly difficult to get seen organically on these platforms and you are at the whim of their algorithms and editorial guidelines.



We strongly recommend having your own website, blog and email list that you control and supplementing these with shared media.

For example, if you publish a blog, republish those blog posts on Medium. Maintain your own website portfolio and also post to Instagram. This diversification means you always own and control your content but also benefit from the network effects of shared media.

Shared Media.

Shared Media refers to social media channels such as:

• Instagram
• Pinterest
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Medium

Sharing on social media platforms can be a time sink so it’s important to focus on where your target audience hang out and choose a few relevant platforms instead of trying to be everywhere at once. If you’re a commercial photographer, LinkedIn can be a useful resource for connecting with businesses. Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook can be fertile grounds for wedding and portrait photographers.

Earned Media.

Earned media is the most trusted form of advertising. Think of it as word-of-mouth in digital form. It’s what other people say about you and it inspires confidence in shoppers more than any other type of media. Earned media includes:

• Ratings and review sites (e.g. Yelp, Google Reviews)
• Case Studies and Testimonials
• Mentions and reviews on 3rd party blogs
• Press Mentions
• Social Reposts and Mentions

When a customer compliments you on the work you did, ask if they would mind writing a review on Google Reviews or Yelp or ask if they’d answer some questions for a case study.

Paid Media.

Paid media refers to the various advertising channels available to promote your content at a cost. These include:

• Display / Banner Ads
• Search Ads (e.g. Google Ads, Bing Ads)
• Social Ads (e.g. Instagram Ads, Facebook Ads)

Ads on Facebook and Instagram perform well for photography businesses. Both of these networks are getting increasingly more difficult to rank on organically so more and more businesses are paying for ads to promote their content.

Read also: Digital marketing strategy for photographers with StatCounter: the Buying Cycle.

Getting a return on your investment for paid media involves choosing the right channels,  targeting the right audience, using a powerful image or video, and linking the ad to a landing page on your website.

Publish Valuable, Relevant, and Consistent Content.

"Best way to sell something — don’t sell anything. Earn the awareness, respect & trust of those who might buy."Rand Fishkin

Traditional methods of pushing products and services at people have become less effective over time.

The emergence of websites, portfolios, blogs, social media, ecommerce stores and ratings and review sites has put more power in the hands of the customer and turned shoppers into researchers, reviewers, and conversationalists, looking for recommendations, advice, and interaction on a global scale.

Content is the center of the digital marketing world. Creating valuable, relevant and consistent content that resonates with your niche market and doesn’t feel like a sales pitch is how to earn the awareness, respect and trust of your target audience.

The content you create to attract leads should be aligned with the interests of your niche market but doesn’t have to be directly about your business, products or services.  People in need of a photographer have other related problems they are trying to solve simultaneously. This is a core concept in content marketing.

In our earlier example of a parent looking for a children’s photographer, we highlighted a few problems parents are trying to solve that are related to the photo session. One that is likely to get a lot of searches is around the topic of  how to dress children for a photo shoot.



Writing an informative and helpful article on how to dress children for a portrait session, including example photos from your previous sessions would be a great way to attract leads via organic search.

This can work for all types of photography. A wedding photographer might choose to write about wedding venue options in the local area or how to make the big day go smoothly.

Consultative, advisory selling is the most cost-effective, the most enduring, the most impactful and the most powerful marketing strategy a business owner could ever devise.