How to get photography clients?

[Jennifer]

1. build your portfolio- photograph your friends for free
2. get a website- wordpress has template based websites that are easy to start up on, they have a blog attached to the site which gets you more views
3. get business cards
4. blog often!- the more you blog the more links there are to your site, the more people see your work
5. RESEARCH- know your market, read books and legitimate sites about portrait photography, be able to talk about your art, know industry standard pricing, know how to create a variety of good work
5. create packages (different work for different amounts of money)- realize that you are just starting out, you can't charge $2000+/wedding, but don't sell yourself short either, if you price so low you undercut your competition then you are making a lot of people in the industry mad and making little to no profit for your work
7. if you have a little bit of money, advertise- pay for those little annoying sidebar facebook ads, pay to be at the top of the google search, put a classified ad in your local newspaper, see if you can get your business cards in pastry shops, boutiques (anywhere that your prospective clients will see them)
8. If this is something you really want to do, don't give up easily. It takes a LONG time to get anywhere in the industry- you have to be dedicated and constantly working toward your goal