As a small business owner, it's imperative that you consistently review what you're doing, improve upon your weaknesses, and set yourself up for more success in the future.
It's an ideal time to set goals and get yourself started on the right track in the new year.
With that in mind, here are three simple and practical tips for improving your photography business.
Offer Freebies to Paying Clients
A lot of photographers balk at the idea of offering anything for free.
However, there is a method to the madness that can really help you expand your business and make the new year your most successful yet.
The key is to offer free things to repeat clients that have booked you over and over again.
The purpose is twofold:
- You reward client loyalty and encourage them to continue using you for their photography needs.
- The more your best clients are in front of your camera, the more opportunities you have to sell prints, albums, and other items.
But there's a third purpose that's a little less evident - referrals
On the one hand, offering something like a free portrait session will get your clients talking about you, how much they enjoy your work, and what great customer service you provide.
That sort of word of mouth advertising is invaluable...
But if you make your freebies transferable, you can also turn them into a referral machine.
Think about it - your best client offers their free portrait session to their good friends, who redeem it.
Once they experience working with you and see the photos you take, you'll likely have another long-term client on your hands.
So, even though you're offering something for free, in the end, it could very well end up paying dividends for you and your business.
Learn More:
Revamp Your Online Presence
Even if you had a website designed just a few years ago, the chances are good that the tides of design have changed and that your site might be a bit outdated.
Revamping your website or online portfolio doesn't have to be complicated, either.
Sometimes refreshing the color palate and fonts you use is enough to modernize the site.
If you've had the site built using Wordpress, Wix, Squarespace, or something of the sort, completely changing the theme or template to something fresh and new is usually quite easy to do as well.
Perhaps even more importantly, revamping your online presence should focus on telling people who you are, what you do, and do so in a way that's easy to remember and unique.
The ideal solution is to refresh your website with a new domain name specifically designed for photographers.
Think about it - a .photo or .pics domain name accomplishes a lot for you and your brand.
For starters, it tells would-be customers exactly what you do thanks to the new .photo and .pics domains.
What's more, these domains are short, sweet, and to the point, meaning they're easy for clients to remember.
Additionally, since .photo and .pics are both very short domain names, you can squeeze your URL into small spaces, like on your business card or in those impossibly small fields on your social media profiles.
On top of that, since these domains are purpose-built for photographers and they're new to the market, you won't have any trouble getting your desired domain name for your business.
So, not only can you get a unique URL that's easy to remember and tells people exactly what you do, but you can also refresh your online presence and drive more traffic to your website.
What's not to like about that?!
Learn More:
- Sign Up For a .photo or .pics Domain Name Today
- Critical Mistakes You're Making With Your Photography Website
Identify Your Weaknesses and Work to Improve Upon Them
No one's perfect, so if there's some things that you don't do all that well, it's nothing to be ashamed of.
The important part is sitting down and reflecting on what aspects of your photography or your business need some attention, and make a commitment to making changes to address those weaknesses.
For example, I'm terrible at math, and I've always been terrible at math. I don't enjoy it in the least.
So, rather than spending an abundance of time trying to balance my books, I hired an accountant. Problem solved.
As another example, my first love is landscapes, but selling landscape prints does not a successful business make.
So, I decided to become an improved portrait photographer, that way I have a more diverse means of making income. I can sell big landscape prints on the one hand, and on the other, I can take photos of families, newborns, high school seniors, and so forth to pay the bills.
And you don't have to dedicate hours and hours each day to improving on your weaknesses, either.
Just a few minutes a day - 15 minutes even - where you sit down and learn something new will be highly beneficial to you in the long run!
In the new year, follow these simple tips, and my guess is that as the year goes on, you'll see marked improvement in your business.
Learn More:
- 14 Things You'll Want to Know Before Starting a Photography Business
- The Legalities of Setting Up a Photography Business