Running a photography business is a lot of work, which often comes as a surprise. Most of us go into it thinking that our skill with a camera and a few posts to social media will be enough to build a business. And we’re completely shocked to find we’re totally wrong. Between shooting, editing, client communication, bookkeeping, marketing, networking, branding, client follow up, client “thank you”s, image delivery, travel and every thing else we find ourselves exhausted and overworked. Fortunately, others before us have had this problem and created some solutions to make marketing your business easier. These are the best tools for your photography business, to help take some of the load off.

I want to start by giving you a heads up that some of the links included here are affiliate links. But I wouldn’t be their affiliate if I hadn’t used them and didn’t stand behind them. These links are here because they actually ARE the best tools for photography business in my personal opinion. Now, if you’re really against me getting some money from this, you can definitely search them yourself and try them out without my link (but I’d of course prefer you to use the link 😉).

Dubsado: The Best CRM for your Photography Business

One of the most helpful things to have in your business is a functional CRM (client relationship manager). I’ve tried plenty and Dubsado is my favourite for many reasons. It’s a powerhouse, for one. Between tracking leads and clients throughout your workflow, adding calendar dates, automating emails and invoices, connecting with payment processors and most major banks, as well offering embeddable forms for your website, it really does it all.

With Dubsado, I’ve been able to automate my response and follow up process with all my leads, ensuring that no one falls of the radar. I also have a beautiful, branded contact form that is embedded right into my website. It tracks my income and expenses by connecting with my bank as well as quickbooks, making life even easier for my bookkeeper.

Honestly, Dubsado has made my business run way smoother and I don’t even use half of it’s functions! The one downside is that set up can be a bit complicated, but they have certified Dubsado educators you can have help you with set up. The link above will give you 20% off your subscription.

FloDesk: The Best Email Marketing Platform

Email marketing can be tricky. There are a lot of really great programs out there that aren’t very user friendly and don’t create pretty emails. Maybe you don’t think thats a big deal, but when your business is art, aesthetic of the emails you send matters. This is why I love FloDesk. This email marketing platform comes with gorgeous templates that are easily customizable. You can personalize colors and fonts so each email fits seamlessly with your branding elsewhere.

FloDesk also allows you to create lead magnets and sign up forms that can be embedded in your website or their own landing page. You can create email sequences based on how people singed up for your email to warm them up to become clients in the future, or create an email sequence for past clients to keep them top of mind! You can start you free trial of Flodesk, and use that link to get 50% off your first year.

Showit: The Best Website Platform for your Photography business

There are a ton of website platforms out there! Many people are very opinionated about the ones they use, and I would say I am one of those people. I’ve tried Wix and Squarespace, but neither comes close to Showit. Showit is a drag and drop website platform, making it super user-friendly and easy to use. They also offer free and inexpensive website templates so you can just customize to your copy, branding and photos and you have a website ready to go very quickly.

On top of ease of use, I love Showit for how simple it is to get SEO set-up. Each canvas or element on the page has a panel where you can tag text or add SEO title and alt text to an image. Showit also has a wordpress hosted blog, which makes blogging for SEO simple, which means more free leads! Get a month of Showit free when you use this link.

The Best Blogger for SEO

Blogging is one of those things we as photographers hate to do, but it’s so important! As I mentioned above, consistent blogging means better SEO, which means more free, better qualified leads. This is one of the first thing I outsourced in my business to make it run smoothly and keep those leads coming in. This isn’t so much one of the best tools for your photography business as much as a best person or team for it. Rokee and Co is amazing at what they do. They create well researched, SEO optimized blogs in your tone of voice that fit with your brand. Personally, I saw Google traffic go up 600% after a few months of working with them. If you’re looking to outsource your blogging, hand it off to them immediately.

Those are the best tools for your photography business based on my experience. These are four things I love and use often to ensure that I can offload some of the work and really focus on what I’m great at.

If you’re looking for other ways to make your photography business easier, check out my 5 tips for Saving Time in your photography business!