How to Create a Wildly Profitable Photography Business Without Working More
Paid photography—whether you’re a wedding photographer, newborn photographer, landscape photographer, senior photographer, etc.—is a highly competitive arena.
It’s one thing to have your technical knowledge of your camera down or your composition, shoot storytelling, or post-processing all refined. But, it’s an entirely different struggle to create a wildly profitable photography business that’s booked out without working more long hours that deplete your quality of life.
So, how do you do it? Well, I’m going to give you five ways to get started sharing with you my profitable photography ideas.
5 Ways to Wild Profitability Without Wild Hours
1. Tell An Authentic Story that Connects
An authentic story grabs people’s attention and pulls them in. The people who connect with your story are then driven to work with you in a way they aren’t with others, which means you have demand. And demand means you get higher prices. Your story needs to support your brand and business and you have to pull people into it.
One of the ways I help my clients do this in my brand experience collections by including a “developing your story”. Then, I have my conversion copywriter, Holly Mthethwa, take all that we discuss and craft your messaging to help you clarify your message and attract the right clients. She actually writes the home, about, and main service page, and the content for your welcome packet.
2. Brand You and Your Style
Raise your hand if you’ve ever picked brand colors or a font someone else uses because you like how it looked on their website. Truth time—in my personal style, I’ve picked shirts that I’ve seen other people wear because they looked amazing on them only to get it home, try it on, and find out it doesn’t work for me.
Take the time to identify your true style and brand yourself in a way that shows who you are. You also need to brand yourself at a level that matches the quality of your photography. When your brand isn’t at the same level as your beautiful shots, it shows a disconnect and can limit how much you can charge. The truth is that bad branding can really hold you back.
One of the ways I help my clients do this in my branding and web design package is having them create a brand discovery questionnaire and drafting a mood board before we develop their custom logo, custom stationery, and website.
3. Design a Strategic Website
Your website needs to be just as strategic as it is pretty. There are a lot of beautiful website templates out there, but many of them are just not laid out with customer conversion or the buyer’s journey in mind.
A fill in the blank template is not the same as creating a strategic layout and flow that directs your clients to the services you want them to choose.
One way I help my clients achieve this by helping them map out the site menu (including names) and the calls to action on each page. With copywriting included, my team creates a site that flows seamlessly, giving your leads everything they need to do to hire you before they actually reach out.
This saves you time because:
- you’re not doing this work yourself and
- you have to do very little to sell the lead once they’ve reached out to you and you don’t have to answer a bajillion more questions.
4. Create Branded Marketing Materials
When you create marketing materials and brand collateral (think welcome guides or how to plan your outfit guides), you’re laying out exactly what your clients can expect, how you communicate, what your work hours are, etc. Your welcome guide is your chance to set the boundaries on how often you check emails, how quickly you deliver final images, and everything else that’s going to keep your client informed and out of your inbox.
And once again, it makes you look like you have your stuff together and people want to work with those they can count on and view as sophisticated business owners (even if you have a colorful and playful brand).
One of the ways I help my clients do this is by including a welcome guide, a branded email signature, and business cards in each of my brand experience collections.
5. Set Boundaries and Learn to Say No
What’s setting boundaries have to do with your branding and website? And how does setting boundaries help you work less and make more? Don’t worry, I’m going to dive into all of that.
Now—the key here is that when we set and brand your boundaries, you have to stick to them and follow through (wink, wink).
If you want to work less and earn more, you have to start saying no to the shoots that are outside of your style, clients who try to negotiate prices, and friends and family members who always want a “friends and family” discount.
It can be scary to say no to something when you feel like you need that money, but trust me you are making space for a client that will pay you what you need to charge. And as eerily and strange as it seems—as soon as you say no to the wrong person and the wrong price, the right person and price almost immediately shows up.
Saying no automatically reduces your work hours and it helps you become more profitable because you can raise your prices and have space for higher paying clients. So then you can focus on your marketing (planning and executing social media, working on your SEO, etc) and attracting those clients instead of spending your time working for the ones who don’t cover your costs.
One of the ways I help my clients do this with my collections is through a developing your story call. Together, we will identify who you want to work with, what your brand story is, and between myself and my copywriter, we identify their pain points in the copy and showcase your story through visual branding that reflects who are and the kind of clients you want to serve.
If you’re ready to be original and truly create a personal brand that stands out online and attracts more leads and bookings and is truly “unforgettable”, I would love to help you.
Check out my tailor-made brand experience. In this experience, I build a custom package for brand design and support to your budget, which means you can work with me on everything from your brand foundation to your website design to your marketing templates and brand collateral.
hearts and hoorays friends,
