Why Most Photographer Marketing Fails in 2026 And What Smart Owners Do Instead

James Dooley: If you're a photographer looking to grow in 2026, but you're uncertain what digital marketing strategies to focus on, should you be trying to team up with a photography SEO agency or a PPC company that specialises in photography businesses?

These are all questions we get asked a lot as part of digital marketing growth. But before we get started, what bit of advice would you give to a photographer looking to grow in 2026?

Kasra Dash: For photographers looking to grow in 2026, the biggest piece of advice I would give is to check profitability, where the leads are coming from, how much money you have actually spent on those leads, and which marketing channels have been the most profitable.

Once you have those figures in place, digital marketing becomes a lot more predictable. You can scale certain campaigns that are working for your company, or switch off campaigns that are not working for your company. So James, for photographers, what are some digital marketing strategies that you would recommend?

James Dooley: Branding, or brand SEO, and making certain that you look good online and have a strong reputation. Everything needs to start with the foundations of a positive brand SERP for who you are and what you do.

A SERP stands for search engine results page. Getting that branding right across the board can then lead on to other things you can be doing. It will improve your conversion rate on paid ads, social media and any leads that you're getting. If, at the 11th hour, someone is deciding who they are going to go with, branding becomes very important. I would say that is the first thing people need to get right for all digital marketing strategies.

Kasra Dash: My next strategy is AI visibility. More and more companies are looking into this. What do ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok and Perplexity say about your brand or your business? Is it positive or negative?

You also need to figure out what they say about your competitors. Improving that is really important. Some people call it AI SEO, some people call it GEO, and some people call it LLM optimisation, but this is going to be a big thing in 2026 and in the years to come.

James Dooley: I think that is a huge strategy people need to be looking at with regards to artificial intelligence. More and more people are obviously using AI.

The next one for me is filling in the form at FatRank or PromoSEO, which do commission-based lead generation services for UK companies looking to grow. I think it is important to look at your own digital marketing efforts to generate your own leads, but if you can also use freelancers and outsource some work, you get that diversification of leads. So head over to fatrank.com, fill in the form and see whether they can help you with a no-risk supply of enquiries. PromoSEO also does a very similar performance-based lead generation service. You might want to fill in the form there and check whether a third-party lead generation company can top up your enquiries and start generating leads for your business to grow in 2026.

Kasra Dash: Next on the list is Google Business Profiles, so Google Maps listings. This is local SEO, where you try to get more reviews and build out your Google Business Profile in your local area.

There are pros and cons to this. The biggest pro is that once it is ranking, you are going to consistently generate leads. However, to get from nowhere, let's say you do not have a Google Maps listing at all, to ranking in position number one, the issue is that there might be a 60 or 100 review deficit. To get those reviews, you need leads. So it is like the chicken and the egg. I think it is good for personal branding or for branding your company, so always try to get the Google Maps listing, but you should also know the pros and cons.

James Dooley: For certain. If you're in a local area, you want to try to get those local Maps listings. For me, you need to be omnichannel and omnipresent.

The next part is SEO in general, so organic SEO. Can you build up your website to get it ranking better? If you are in a local area, you might want to create a page for your service and the area you cover, like photography in Manchester. Hopefully, you can then share that on the Google Business Profile you mentioned. You want to get organic rankings because of the amount of search volume from people looking for the different services you offer. It could also include blog posts. There are different strategies you can use, but ideally you want good quality content, to build topical authority, and to get some third-party backlinks to power up the site and improve organic SEO rankings. That is another big part you need to be doing as part of your digital marketing strategies in 2026.

Kasra Dash: The next one ties back to what you were saying before, James, which is organic social media.

Organic social media is more of a numbers game. Try to create good content that your audience would actually view. I see this time and time again where brands have published maybe four or five posts on their Instagram profile and have not been active for three years. That is not going to drive sales. If you can do how-tos, guides, or before and afters, people will see you on social media, click to learn more about you, and fill in the contact form. The caveat with organic social media is that, yes, it is free to do. It is not like PPC, for example, but it is very much a numbers game. You want to be consistently uploading, maybe not every day, but at least three or four times a week.

James Dooley: For sure. On the subject of social media, paid social ads are massive as well.

I'm a massive advocate of the dollar-a-day strategy that people talk about. If you are going to take the time to post regularly, as you mentioned with organic social media, spend a few pounds on those posts and boost them. Get case studies, any awards you have won for reputation, and start boosting that. You can also run retargeting ads. If anyone has clicked through to your website, you can run retargeting, which is paid social as well. Different places like Meta, so Facebook and Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, and even Reddit can be used for paid ads. I think paid social media is still an untapped market for digital marketing strategies.

Kasra Dash: The next one is probably a love-hate relationship. It is PPC, right? Google Ads, or doing it on Bing, wherever.

That is basically the sponsored results. If you search for a service, it appears above local SEO. James and I have spoken to so many business owners who have spent £10,000, £15,000 or £20,000 on it and have not had a single result. Others might have had a few leads, but the quality has not been there. Then you have other people who have spent hundreds of thousands on it and say it is the best thing that has ever happened to their business. The reason why people either absolutely love it or absolutely hate it is probably down to how it has been set up. There are so many nuances to PPC. For example, having a really proactive negative keyword list, making certain that you have a set of banned IPs, because competitors could be clicking on your ads, which is click fraud. You also need a high-converting landing page, and you need to KPI your sales team. When a PPC lead comes in, it should be one of the first priorities they handle when contacting leads. There are all these different nuances, and if you're not on the ball with PPC, it is probably not going to work for your business. However, if you have a really good, well-refined sales team, a strong landing page, a well-kept and up-to-date negative keyword list, and you are using click fraud software, it will probably perform well for you. Again, just know the pros and cons of PPC.

James Dooley: For sure. There are certainly pros and cons. There are benefits to using it to get instant leads, but like you said, the amount of people we speak to who have burnt a lot of budget and not had the enquiries come through is pretty scary.

While we are on the subject of paid ads, we spoke about paid social ads, and now you have spoken about PPC with Google or Bing. I'm going to throw paid ads on AI platforms into the mix. It is not fully rolled out as we are doing this video, but I know that ChatGPT is looking to roll out ChatGPT ads. Claude, Perplexity and other LLMs might start rolling it out in 2026. If you're one of the early adopters and innovators to get on there, you could be getting cheap leads or cheap contact form submissions. So it is something to look out for. Paid AI listings and ads could be something to watch in 2026.

Kasra Dash: Next on the list, and this is a little bit out of your control, is forums where you can get your brand mentioned, like Reddit and Quora.

That very much comes down to the aftercare. Where are the customers you have dealt with previously? Are they raving and shouting about you? If they are, then that is a very good resource for getting other people to recommend you. It is a little bit out of your control, but asking for reviews and asking customers to recommend you to friends and other people can generate a decent number of leads and enquiries as well.

James Dooley: For sure. The added benefit of places like Reddit is that they are being cited so much now in AI overviews.

When you spoke earlier about AI visibility, if you can get a positive number of people talking about your products and services, and some reviews on there, it is going to help you indirectly, or directly, with AI visibility. The last one for me is tradesman websites, like Checkatrade, Bark, or teaming up with a third-party lead generation company. Something I would say with all these practices, as Kasra touched on earlier, is to make certain that you understand your KPIs and your ROAS, which is return on ad spend. It is very important for business owners doing any sort of digital marketing to track how much time and effort is being put into things like running organic social media or running paid ads. Everything should have KPIs in place. This is exactly the same with tradesman websites like Checkatrade, Bark, Rated People and MyBuilder. These could all be amazing platforms for generating leads that give you a positive return on investment. If they do, you should continue using those platforms. There are certain lead generation companies out there that could generate you a lot of leads. They could be using organic SEO, PPC or social media ads to generate those leads, but if they are getting you a positive return on investment, I am all for it as part of your digital marketing strategies. I just want to repeat one more time with regards to FatRank and PromoSEO. They do lead generation and they guarantee a return on investment. It is a commission-based lead generation service or performance-based lead generation service. Make sure you head over there and fill in the form. That could just be one part of generating leads among many. You should be trying to generate your own leads. You should never have a single point of failure, and you should be trying to get that diversification. Make sure you head over to PromoSEO or FatRank lead generation service as part of your digital marketing efforts in 2026. Thank you very much, Kasra.