How to start a photo business?

Question

Marketing

I have been doing photography for about 9 years, but it was the main source of income only for the first three years. The rest of the time is a sluggish hobby in your free time, which sometimes brings profit. I live in a small town (300,000 people), there are 3-4 "top" photographers, I understand that I can shoot just as well, but I don't understand where to start and what exactly to do. I want to make money on photography.. How to start advertising? Ways, ways?

Answer 1

First you need to choose a niche in which you get the best quality photos. Wedding, subject matter, children or portraits for dating sites are examples of niches. Surely you already know what is yours and what is not. Now you need to think about which of them is more profitable and what your competitors are strong / weak in. Such a SWAT analysis at home.
Take, say, children. Do you have a **children's photographer** or **children's birthday photographer** in town? Look at the statistics of these and similar requests, perhaps you can set up ads in adwords/direct. Request statistics can be viewed, for example, in Yandex Wordstat.
Or maybe you have online stores in your city. They probably need an object or even a photo with models.
Try to suggest. It is important to ask for money for the finished photo of one product.
Read up on guerrilla marketing. I highly recommend old man Jay Levinson. He has a detailed plan for small businesses, from niche and name selection to newspaper promos. The material may seem outdated in some places, but it cannot be called irrelevant. After Jay, take something on contextual advertising, figure out how to set up campaigns yourself and test a niche.
Make a page on vk.com and you can even advertise it directly. Later, you can make a beautiful landing page with a small gallery of works. The main thing in the landing is a simple and understandable offer to the audience + an application form. If you are an IT specialist, be afraid of yourself - it is important not to complicate things here. At the first stage, it is more important to do it as quickly as possible than to do it beautifully / advanced, etc.
Come up with an interesting offer for your niche. For example, collect non-standard places for a wedding photo shoot in your city in a post or brochure. Publish to local sites. We have, for example, a very popular city forum, oddly enough. An interesting offer can be used both for promo and as the main product that you will sell. *Photo session of your child and his friends in superhero costumes. A great idea for a children's party.*
Form a clear price offer. For example, "you will receive 200 photos to choose from, I will process 75 selected ones (retouching, cropping all things) for XXX rubles. This includes renting a photo studio, props ..."
As soon as there are large volumes of orders, immediately hire an assistant to process photos. In my opinion, this is an easily delegated part of the process.
Get a working phone number (separate), try to publish it somewhere in local magazines, distribute flyers. Install an application with a call counter and count how many incoming calls you received per week of publication or promo. So you will understand what works and what does not.
Well, for a snack. Start easy. Shoot something from the chosen niche for free and ask to recommend to friends/acquaintances. This is how you get your first clientele.
Hope it was helpful.
Good luck Alexander!
— Stas.
PS Another very interesting topic is taking pictures for western photo stocks. You will first need to collect a high-quality portfolio, pass an assessment. But it is VERY PROFITABLE! And almost not hemorrhoids. There are instructions on the toaster for withdrawing money from foreign services.

Answer 2

The methods for a photographer are no different from any other business.
Targeting - Yandex, mail, google, vk, ok.
Website, promote articles in the topic.
Groups in popular social networks networks with interesting content (not only for clients, but also for those who want to learn how to photograph - they will increase your reputation).
Organization of thematic photo shoots.
coupon sites.
Advertisements in newspapers.
Communicate with the heads of magazines, I willow in the same "village", but here they release two "glossy" magazines with a good girlish audience.

Answer 3

First you need to move to a bigger city.
4 photographers for a city of 30,000 people is already a lot.

Answer 4

To begin with, take a close look at this, take the time. A sluggish project means that you do not invest in it, but want to have something. That won't work. Surely you have a "local promoted forum site". Advertise there. I see you have a website. Unroll it. Just be on the hearing of the target audience, I think they will find you :)

Answer 5

Actually interested in the same questions. I really have a city of 120 thousand, I photograph weddings. Everything is swinging very slowly, I am assembling a studio on manual inflated flashes for a portrait portfolio.