Local Marketing Ideas for Photo Booth Businesses
Photo booths are an entrenched part of their local community, and their business owner’s approach to digital marketing should reflect this. Focusing on local marketing tactics can quickly grow your reputation — both online and person-to-person — while enhancing your visibility to the community as a whole.
Best of all, photo booth owners have more options at their disposal than ever for locally focused digital marketing campaigns. With just a few minutes a week, they can build up their marketing capital, advance in local search rankings and earn progressively more bookings.
To get you started, here are a few photo booth local marketing ideas that can have you earning a lot more customers with just a little bit of extra work.
Use Schema Markup on Your Contact Page
Search engine visibility is rapidly becoming a key competitive factor for local businesses. To decide which business earns their money, search users want to see as much information as possible in the results pages. This information helps them decide which business’ website to visit or which business to contact directly. In fact, many bookings happen straight from the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) these days, but you still need an adequately structured website for this to happen.
What, exactly, does “adequately structured” mean? In a nutshell: using the right coding markup. By including certain snippets of code within your site pages, search engines like Google and Bing can more easily pull out information to tell your audience crucial information about your business right from the SERP. For instance, 70 percent of people call a business directly from the SERP, so you will want to code your site page so that Google’s call extension feature works properly.
Start with your NAP — “Name, Address, Phone Number” — along with your business contact hours. You can use this auto-generator tool or learn how to code each schema component piece-by-piece. Rest assured that although it looks technical, you are really just plugging in simple instructions!
Claim Local Business Listings
Services like Google My Business allow your customers to quickly see information they need to make a booking decision, including your map location and reviews. Claim your Google My Business page first to ensure your information is accurate and linked directly to your website. Afterwards, go out and claim other listing/review sites on Bing, Yelp, WeddingWire and others.
Keep up with these sites to ensure the information described is accurate, particularly the services you offer and your contact information. You can also engage with reviewers to thank them for a positive review or add context to a negative review, but remember to keep it professional!
Use Geo Pages for Enhanced Local SEO
We will cover SEO (search engine optimization) practices in detail in the next post for this guide, but, for now, know that you can add new pages to your site to enhance your SEO presence.
Say, for instance, your photo booth business operates in the suburbs west of Chicago. Your first geo-page would focus on the biggest area of service, which could be Schaumburg. So, each page element would emphasize the fact that you offer “photo booth rentals in Schaumburg”.
- Page Title (Title Tag): Photo Booth Rentals Schaumburg | Your Company
- Main Page Header: Photo Booth Rental in Schaumburg
- First Paragraph: “We offer Schaumburg photo booth rentals to some of our favorite Chicagoland clients! Whether holding a gorgeous wedding at the Seville Banquet Hall or a low-key party at your home in Roselle…”
Again, we will discuss SEO best practices in greater detail soon, but the gist is to keep the page sounding natural while still including the target keywords. If you repeat keywords too often as a spam tactic, search engines may actually penalize the page. Write like a human would talk, not a robot.
Also, make direct references to local attractions within your target area. This practice further enhances relevance signals to the search engine algorithm while showing potential customers you are familiar with their area.
Encourage Your Clients to Leave Reviews
Reviews from local customers are some of the best ways to boost your search engine ranking while also boosting your reputation as a whole. Include a reminder to review your company on your final invoice at the end of the event, and follow-up with another friendly reminder via email.
Since most people only remember to leave reviews if they have had a bad experience, encouraging happy customers to share their opinions can greatly raise your review rating.
Also, provide incentives for people to give referrals! They may want to refer you anyways, but having them claim their reference ensures you can track where your word-of-mouth business has come from.
Stay Active on Social Media with Locally Focused Postings
Photo booth business pages are a great way for locals to keep up with events and happenings in their area. Ask permission from customers to upload photos first, and ensure you tag them with a specific location to connect them to the local scene. For community events, like charity fundraisers, use relevant hashtags so that people sharing pictures or trying to find photos see your business’s social media profile within the results.
You can also post directly about happenings in your community that aren’t booked events. Take a picture with your sandwich from a local shop, for instance, or congratulate someone who has been honored in the community. The more active you are in the local scene, the more followers you can obtain and the more connections you will have with active people and organizations.
Volunteer Your Booth for Local Charities, Schools, Etc.
If you ever have a slow period, consider providing your photo booth rental services for free or at a steep discount to benefit a worthwhile cause. Just imagine how much social engagement and great publicity photos you can get out of a pet adoption event for your local humane society, for instance! A “puppy photo booth” can provide marketing assets that basically sell your services for you.
You can also volunteer to participate in events like the following:
- Middle school or elementary school fundraisers
- Benefit balls for first responders
- Awareness/charity drives for non-profits like Relay for Life, your local humane society, etc.
Donating your time and business resources to events like these can quickly pay dividends, not to mention give your company a write-off!
Run Contests
Contests can quickly drum up interest in your business and get people talking about your services. For instance, you can offer a giveaway of a free photo booth rental to one randomly selected person who submits their email address. A campaign like this can be an amazing way to grow your email list! You can also have people respond to a Facebook post to enter, which increases the likelihood your page has at showing up on their timeline.
Flex your creativity and think of promotions that can get people in your community excited and engaged.
Use Fun Photo Booth Props
The photos a photo booth owner takes provide a powerful asset for marketing campaigns. Whether snapping photos of wedding revelers or people with cute puppies, having high-quality photo booth props and photo booth backdrops can attract participants during the event and drive engagement on your social media posts afterwards.
Just think: the more fun and wacky your props are, the more business you can generate with each event you book! Start adding more appeal to your photo booth and your local marketing campaigns by taking a look at the high-quality, fun photo booth props and accessories we offer.
And, stay posted for deeper advice on SEO, social media marketing and more as we continue our Ultimate Guide to Marketing for photo booth owners!
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