Any advice on how to get clients for a photography studio?

Networking groups and social media. Join you local BNI or search on Meetup for networking groups and go with a STACK of business cards.

This is assuming you have a grasp of professional quality photography. Understanding lighting, posing and composition along with some business sense. If yes, Ok so everyone has mentioned the obvious about FB and Instagram. My question would be, what is the demographics of the store your studio is located in? What can you do to pull from their clientele? Coop advertising with them. Several ways to do that.

Another idea would be create a small box with a few samples attached to it and out it in the store your studio is located in. Have a drawing for a session and a beautiful 4x6 color portrait. Mention there will be up to 5 winners. Have a value for it. My sessions are $275 and a 4x6 is $60. It is a proof. No art, etc. $335 value. It has to have a value for them to want to fill out the entry form. Guess what everyone wins. When I was 21 I did this and went thru all the entries and the addresses that I knew could afford me. WON!!! It worked great. You have a chance to get some samples, clients get a session and a portrait and you have a chance to get larger orders. Without all this said. Please don’t be a shoot and burn hotographer. You just go broke slowly. Charge a professional price for professional quality. Try to sell wall portraits first then sell the digital files, don’t give them away. Good luck.

This is my 2 cents on the matter. All the other commenters are right in marketing for their business. I think it does take time to get things going but during that time you need find out about your business. What is specialty? Who is your target client? Why are you a better option than established photographers in the area? All these things start coming out in conversations. I attend networking events all the time because those are my target audience. Another trick with networking is always focus on who you are talking. Learn everything you can about what they do before you even mention your business. People love to talk about themselves and how great they are, so give them the stage and they will definitely think it was a great conversation when you follow up with them. I heard somebody say "After all, the difference between a professional photographer and an amateur is rarely talent, rather it more often comes down to the hustle and business save." Take the photography out of it and think of it in simpler terms of just any old business. Best of luck! If you want it enough, things will work out great.

Studio photography outside of major crowd draws like outdoor or indoor malls which necessitate high volume discount pricing is difficult. I recommend utilizing Google Adwords, Craigslist, the Knot, Thumbtack, and any other referral services popular in your area. Also be open to renting the space by the hour to other photographers to keep the income coming in. Be careful to adjust your billing cost according to your marketing costs, cannot tell you how many times I have seen businesses fold due to blown budgets!

Hey Rosalie! My advise is any free advertising telling everyone where your located, would be great. Facebook has been great with advertising (and not paying to advertise). Social Media gets a lot more attention that what some people think. See if the Everything You Boutique would allow you to leave cards or advertising info in their boutique, and offer them a free session for allowing you to do so. Possibly even team up with them to put your card or a flyer in the bag of every purchase, on their busy days. With this you could also offer the Boutique, some free images that you take that they could use for their advertising. It's a win win for both of you. Hope that helps

There's a new website, just for small businesses. It's in beta testing, right now. That being the case, you can create a web page listing at no cost, for an entire year. After that, it's still dirt cheap with the highest package cost being $55 per year. Home Town Tour USA at https://www.hometowntourusa.com
They also have an inexpensive way to have them create the page for you, which is SEO compliant.

This is really promising as a small company can easily set up an informational page with little to no cost. Easy way to get listed high on Google and to share your business with potential clients.

Make sure that you have a website with good SEO, or are constantly building your SEO. There are tutorials all over the place to help with this. Blogging is so important!! And yes to the other answers as well so far.... Instagram, Facebook, business cards... it's all free advertisement and helps to get your name out there.

Join the Chamber of Commerce, networking groups and civic organizations. Give your card to EVERYONE, donate portraits to silent auctions and not-for- profit fundraisers. Get out there and EXPOSE yourself!

Local Chamber of Commerce, Local Rotary, Local Kiwanis, Local Church, Local charities. Local Networking groups. Participate and the work will come.

It's it's always hard when you start out especially with all the competition now from at home photographers.... Let's see some of your work...