How to Start Photography Business From Home Part-2

This article is the second installment of How to Start a Photography Business from Home. Please go through the first part of How to start photography business from home Part-1.

Getting Target Clients

Getting customers is not an easy task. You have to do a lot of things to attract them to your business. At the primary stage, you should try to create a brand of your business. Be strict to provide the best service quality. Show your own unique style of photography. You should target your customers with services like wedding photography, product photography, baby or nature photography, and something like this.

Grow a strong network to flourish your business. You may be a skilled photographer, but if people don’t know you, it won’t bring anything good. So, for publicity, you should join in the forums, clubs, meetings with the people of your track, etc. As a businessman, you have to maintain a proper relationship with your clients on a regular basis. Show your cordial interest to them so that they become your long time clients as well as they refer you to others.

As a part of marketing, use various social media. There are various social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and so on. But, for your photography business promotion, Facebook and Instagram can be the best media for you. Social media are the finest tools of marketing and increasing traffic to your website.

Your first customers may come from your friends and family. It may be that they have helped you much to set up this business. So, you have to spend time to take their photos. In this case, remember it is your business. So, make a specific rule and discount for them. Even though you are working for them at a discount rate, take an opportunity to make them understand that it’s your business. But, never neglect them, rather seek help from them. Because they will be the first Brand Ambassadors for your business. And they do play a great role in your Word of Mouth Marketing.

You can search for target clients in various social media as well as search engines. There are endless strategies and newer strategies are also coming in every day. So, I’ll not go through all of them. Just to name one, you can try searching for leads in Twitter Search, and search for “looking for” OR “searching for” OR “planning for” “photoshoot OR “photographer”. You might find some promotional Tweets, but out of them, you can find some really good leads also. If you search, “can anyone recommend”  photographer in Twitter, you can get more refined leads.

But, the best way to get clients is through your website. Well, perhaps this is what you can do from home. But, it is not free. Invest on a website to get targeted leads. Then go for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your website. This brings the best quality leads for your business. Because the right message is the trigger to the right audience at the right time when they need it. But, let me warn you that, SEO is not a quick fix thing. It is like life itself. You have to live strongly long enough to become stronger than your competitors. It sometimes can be a bit costly in the short run but pays back in the long run. Provided that, you run long enough. But, you always can cheat the game with PPC and get on top of the market. And if you do start with PPC, always start with your locality.

Grow up Your Business

Suppose, your business is well set up. Now, it is time to promote your photography business to reach the goal. You should take steps properly for marketing because it is the fuel of business. However, here I would like to give you a list that you should do for getting the desired growth

• This is the time of investing considerable money in the marketing of your business. It will help you to publish your business.
• You can promote your business locally. To do that, make a banner, billboard, sponsor in local events, sports, various cultural events, etc.
• For digital marketing free, use various social media like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, etc. Create pages, groups, offer content, etc. for generating traffic into your website.
• As a paid service, use Google ad services like PPC. You can also buy some SEO tools to get exact analytical results.
• Generate an email list by landing page so that you can inform your client’s various updates like greetings, service offers, discounts, etc. It is very necessary to maintain a good relationship with your clients.
• As I said before maintaining a blog. It is one of the powerful ways to increase public engagement.
• Every business has a season. Photography is also a seasonal business. During the season, you can earn more whereas in the off season, earning will be less. So, make a saving plan for the off season so that your photography business runs well.
• You should diversify your business. Find new opportunities and make another plan. Suppose, you are a wedding photographer, you can also take the images of maternity, newborn baby, etc.
• Always keep learning new things. You should also learn from your mistakes and promise never to do that again.
• Be patient and behave decently with your fellow employees. Remember, every success is the result of a great endeavor–

“All progress takes place outside the comfort zone.”

— Michael John Boba

Hire Help as-needed Basis

At the beginning of the business, most of the work like setting up shoots, taking shots, editing photos, and event marketing are done by yourself. As the company grows, you need to expand the arena of your business. You may need to employ people as-needed basis. Once your business is established, you can delegate responsibilities among the employees. But, when your company is too much busy, you can have done some works from outsourcing. Suppose, you can take various image editing services like clipping path, image masking, image retouching, color correction, image retouching, neck joint, image restoration, and so on.