Shoot to the Top Podcast By Sam Hollis & Marcus Ahmad cover art

Shoot to the Top

Shoot to the Top

By: Sam Hollis & Marcus Ahmad
Listen for free

About this listen

 What happens when you get a commercial photographer (Marcus) and a seasoned marketeer (Sam) in the same room? That’s right, you get all the answers on how to “ Shoot To The Top” Learn the best marketing strategies for your commercial photography business. Sam will tell you how to find the ideal client, get yourself noticed, build your brand and loads more! But hold on, it’s not just about the money, is it? Marcus will be defending his corner with hard hitting punches on how to be the best photographer in your market, to really start taking images that you can be proud of.Sam Hollis & Marcus Ahmad Economics Marketing Marketing & Sales
Episodes
  • Expert Corporate Photographer Stephanie Belton shares her business and photography experience and expertise with us.

    Expert Corporate Photographer Stephanie Belton shares her business and photography experience and expertise with us.
    Jul 8 2025
    Stefanie has been a professional photographers for twenty years in the St.Albans area. Her focus is now 100% on commercial photography. Stefanie says it’s important to think about what motivates people to get photos. What are the triggers that make people want a photograph? This could be an event for a family, it could be being asked for a headshot as a business leader. Stefanie says it’s very important to make it very easy for people to work with you. For example if someone wants a corporate headshot she already has a blog ready that answers many of the questions they might ask about headshots. A few weeks ago Stefanie was working with a school on their marketing. She said the women at the school was convinced that she only did school photography as she had such a great landing page for school photography. Having specialised landing pages for areas you work in makes life simple for the lead which helps to convert them. Stefanie also ensures she responds to lead very quickly.Stefanie also wants to engage the local community as she wants to work locally. For example last year she went on a local Mum’s Facebook group and said she wanted to help those with a LinkedIn profile photo that they were embarrassed about. She offered a free headshot for three people who were happy with their before and after shots being shared publicly. She got a lot of queries and then worked out who she wanted to work with using various criteria, including making sure they were very different. So the posts on the Facebook group created abuzz. She then started sharing what she did on LinkedIn. She did some posts asking people to help people choose their new headshot and gave a few options. This got lots of engagement as so many people saw the post and so many people were willing to chip and and comment on which headshot should be used. This process has also been working on the triggers helping people realise they do need a headshot. Corporate photography UK is a Facebook group that Stephanie helps to run along with Martin Hobby (see our show with Martin here). Elise Marks setup the group. The group is about supporting each other and is Uk based. The group is also used for referrals, so for example if Stefanie does a photoshoot in London and the same company needs a photoshoot in Manchester, she would use the group to find someone to refer that work to. Stefanie says it’s vital that your website is excellent as it needs to appeal to photographers looking to refer work. Also she says she won’t refer work to photographers who don’t have a good website, even if she knows they are excellent, as she wants to ensure the person she is referring gets the right impression.Marcus asks about Stefanie’s use of artificial light. She says she uses artificial light nearly all the time. As she is a portrait photographer then light on the face needs to be right and an artificial light is essential for this. Stefanie’s advice for anyone moving to corporate photography is first of all to learn off camera flash. Understanding and creating light is a big differentiator between professional photographers and those shooting on phones. This skills means that during the day you may need to change your setup as the sun moves and comes in and out of clouds. Marcus asks about dealing with people and getting them comfortable. Stefanie says you need to work with your own personality or it won’t work. Stefanie says she is quiet, calm person. So she doesn’t work in a high energy way, which others might if this is their personality. It is important to also understand where the person is coming from who is having their photograph taking and having empathy with them. This is related to our past show on listening. You can reach out to Stephanie on LinkedIn hereOr ⁠find her website here⁠.To get the Shoot to the Top Podcast in your inbox every week, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠And to join the ⁠⁠⁠Shoot to the Top Facebook group head here.⁠
    Show more Show less
    27 mins
  • Blogging: Why it is so essential to your marketing as a photographer.

    Blogging: Why it is so essential to your marketing as a photographer.
    Jun 30 2025

    Why blog?

    1. It's amazing for SEO
    2. It gives you things to talk about on social
    3. It gives you content for your newsletter
    4. It’s good for authority marketing
    5. It increases engagement on your website

    Sam explains that if you only write your blog and don’t promote it, no one will ever find it. He says your blog needs to be about a theme. It needs to be about a topic and help to show that you are an expert in your field. For example, Samsuggests that a wedding photographer could review wedding venues. A blog without a theme or purpose is not much use. Also, consider what is valuable to your target audience and how the topic can demonstrate your expertise.
    Once you have a theme, we are then down to writing individual blogs. Marcus asks if your blog should be on your website or elsewhere. Sam says one of the points of a blog is helping with SEO. This does not happen if you use a blogging platform instead of your website.
    Blogs are words. Photographs only are not acceptable and don’t work on their own. A blog must be at least 500 words. 1000 words average. Once it gets much over 1500 words, it’s time to think about splitting into two smaller blogs. A mix of sizes is good, some longer, some shorter. For SEO, Google needs to understand who you are and what you do, and only words can do that. For social media, there is no point promoting your blog on social if it is only images, as they would expect to see the images on social anyway. Do use images in the blogs. But there should be plenty of text to go with the images. Do not fill space with photographs.

    Organise the writing in your blog. Make it easier for people to skim read. Use sub-headings, bullet-pointed lists, etc, to help people skim read it. This structure helps people and Google to understand your blog. Give value in your blog. The blog has to be useful to them, or it won’t be engaging.External and internal links are essential. Both to other websites (external links) and within your website to other pages and blogs (internal links).


    1. Marcus asks if Sam blogs and how he blogs. Sam says that inthe past, he has had copywriters blogging for him. This ensures that you get regular blogs created. But he also blogs himself, both written and video blogs. Sam says one key is ensuring you put time aside to create content. In terms of ideas, Sam often uses topics that have come up in conversations in the last fewweeks.
      Marcus asks about AI. Sam says it's good for some stuff. It is bad at writing blogs. Do not simply ask AI to write you a blog; it will be very generic and easy to spot. But it is useful. It is great for ideas. If you cannot think of anything to write, it can give you ideas. You can also ask for a blog structure. Don’t 100% stick to the structure, as it will be quite bland. Then write the blog yourself. But once you have written it yourself, put it backthrough AI and ask for improvements.
      How do you get people to your blog? First of all, no one will come if you don’t tell them about it. What can you do?
    1. Send out social media posts sending people to the blog
    2. Make an email newsletter and send people to the blog.


    Those are really good ways of getting people to your blog. As part of SEO, Google assess how popular your website is and how long people stay on the website. So by sending engaged people to the blog, you are helping with your website's SEO. Ensure that you have your website connected to Google Analytics so you can see who is visiting your blogs and where they are coming from.


    You can reach out to Sam on ⁠LinkedIn here⁠

    Or⁠ ⁠find his website here⁠.⁠

    To get the Shoot to the Top Podcast in your inbox every week, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠


    And to join the ⁠⁠⁠⁠Shoot to the Top Facebook group head here.⁠⁠
    Show more Show less
    20 mins
  • Could the Photographers United Pro Community help you as a commercial photographer?

    Could the Photographers United Pro Community help you as a commercial photographer?
    Jun 24 2025
    Phillip Noth Coombes started Photographers United as aFacebook group. Graham Diprose is also a part of this. He was a commercial photographer in the 70s to 90s. And then taught at the London College of Communication.He also wrote books about the River Thames, and one about Henry Taunt. You can find all Graham's books hereThe group is now called Photographers United Pro. The group started in 2018 from an idea Phil had on a dog walk. He thought photographers were all working alone at home, and he wanted photographers to be able to communicate. So he built a community of commercial photographers to help each other and help sustain the industry. Graham is a real help in bringing in the photography students with all his work with photographer education links. Sam asks if Phil has created a modern version of a photography association. Phil thinks that he has, but in some ways, this group is different. This group doesn’t charge; it’s about helping each other. There are also no grades within the group. Everyone is equal and has their skills and experience. There areabout 3,400 members on the Facebook group, and lots of members are sharing their ideas and helping each other. There are other parts of the group beyond the Facebook group. They try and arrange socials so people can meet in person. They also arrange in-person meetings where they bring people together, and some speakers give talks. The group also deals with education, which Graham is dealing with. The group also has a range of discounts for members. A member of the group got a job at an auction house. So some members put work into frames and put them into the auction, and lots were sold. The group don’t run courses themselves, but have a very good idea of what courses are on offer in theUK and can guide people to the right place. Lots of leaders of courses are in the group too, which is a great benefit to student members. Marcus asks if they have some advice for photographers.Graham says Be prepared. He says when working with film, a lot less gets edited post-shoot, so the shot had to be perfect. This meant planning had to be spot on, and that is a really useful skill even with digital photography. Graham saysthat being able to complete a risk assessment is vital to protecting yourself. Phil says Get out there and meet people. Be bold, creative and make connections. Phil says he started by literally knocking on doors. His second idea is to keep fresh, keep re-inventing yourself and keep clients. He says these things are linked, as having new ideas means you havesomething new to offer your regular clients. Phil asks Marcus the same question.Marcus says ideas are very important. Phil says building a great team is also very important, and as part of this, an assistant is very helpful. Graham says as part of this that many photography courses have students in their second andthird year who are looking for experience. And they can make amazing assistants. Graham says he is happy for photographers to contact him to get help with this.Graham has been doing quite a lot of work on neuro-diversityand looking at how this can be seen as an asset in some areas rather than a problem. To join the Photographers United Pro group, you have to have :A website A businessInsuranceThis ensures that only those in the industry are in the group. The Facebook group is free, but the website with furtherresources is £30 a year. You can reach out to Phil and Graham via the Facebook page.Or find the website here.To get the Shoot to the Top Podcast in your inbox every week to ensure you don't miss an episode,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠And to join the ⁠⁠Shoot to the Top Facebook group head here.
    Show more Show less
    30 mins
No reviews yet