How To Ask For Reviews For Your Photography Business
Asking for thoughtful reviews from your photography clients can be scary. You want to ask but don’t want to come off as pushy or tell people what to say. Still, it needs to be done because social proof is still one of the most powerful tools for getting clients.
So, let’s talk through how to get great reviews (and what to do with them!).
How To Ask For A Review From Your Photography Client
When To Ask For A Review
In my experience, there are two prime times to ask for reviews. The first is one to two days after you deliver their photo gallery. At this point, your client is still floating on Cloud 9 from seeing their photos. They’re probably sharing them with friends and family. (We all know they do!) It’s the perfect time to ask for a review.
The second best time is when a client asks to leave you a review. Believe it or not, the better your client experience, the more often clients will beat you to asking to provide a review! When this happens, have an email ready.
What if your client is doing multiple sessions with you?
It can be tricky knowing when to ask if you have a client that’s doing multiple sessions with you. For instance, if your client is getting an engagement and wedding session or a maternity and newborn session. In cases like this, I ask twice! You can also ask them to do a review in on one platform for one service and another platform for the second session. Doing this lets you get additional reviews and hyper-focus on a review for each service.
The Best Way To Ask For Client Reviews
I know the industry has a blurry line for communicating with clients via phone, text, email, and social media DMs. That’s a conversation for another blog post. Still, email is the best way to ask for reviews. It’s professional and easy to refer back to if your client is too busy to do it right away.
You can create a canned email template asking for reviews in your CRM. I like to build this email into my automated workflows so there’s no way you’ll accidentally forget to ask. Plus, if you feel awkward about asking for reviews this takes that element away. You’re never having to ask for it personally, it’s an automated task that your CRM does for you.
If you’re not sure how to craft an email asking for a review, check out my email template workflows in the shop. Each workflow includes a pre-written email that doesn’t sound like a boring auto-message, and has been proven to help collect more reviews for my photography clients!
Speaking of collecting reviews…
How Do You Collect Reviews?
Google, Facebook, wedding directories…everyone talks about collecting testimonials but which is the best platform to collect reviews for photographers? This is a tricky question to answer. For the most part, I recommend making Google your main place to collect reviews (more on that in a moment) and mixing in a few others, depending on your niche.
Google
If you work primarily with local photography clients, Google is going to be your number one platform to collect reviews. Google uses the reviews you collect to determine how good your services are. They include them on your business listing on the right-hand side of desktop results and in map results. Both of these help your SEO. Plus, it’s a great way to keep all your reviews in one place.
Facebook
Facebook is my second favorite platform to collect photography client reviews. Since Facebook is still a big player for some photography niches, it’s important to keep your reviews where your audience is. Most of my family, maternity, and newborn clients say their clients use Facebook. So, if you specialize in any of those niches, you should utilize it for reviews.
Directory Websites
Directories are great ways to find wedding and engagement photography clients. The Knot and Wedding Wire are two of the most popular wedding directories on the internet. Lots of newly engaged couples find these directories first because of their amazing SEO. From there, they can find local photographers, like you.
For this reason alone, you should make it a priority to collect at least ¼ of your reviews on these sites. This keeps your testimonial feed fresh and ensures you seem active to the website algorithm and its users. Even if the client didn’t find you on that directory, it’s ok to request they review you on it. If the client did find you on that directory, make sure they leave you a testimonial there! It always looks good to see a review that someone found you on that platform and had a great experience with you.
Once the reviews start trickling in…
If you start asking, people will start giving you reviews. Once that happens, it’s time to start using them to inspire more clients to inquire.
The first thing to do as new reviews come in is to thank your client. Even if they didn’t tell you they left one, the platform will let you know. Write a personal note to them to thank them or respond on the platform thanking them. Mention how beautiful their session was. A thank you note goes a long way with your client and shows others how you value your clients.
Then, post it everywhere! Highlight your reviews on your website and on social media. By posting it on multiple platforms, more people are likely to see it. Plus, it shows people that you’re in demand and have a great client experience. This is the social proof that I mentioned earlier. Your clients’ words can uplift and inspire others to want to work with you.
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