FOR PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHERS

MAKING MONEY WITH PHOTOGRAPHY

I receive emails all the time asking “How do I earn some extra income from my photography?”..or “Are my pictures good enough to make money?”...and “I can’t seem to get my photography business out of a rut.”





This short article may not be the most lively thing you will read today; it might even be dry as dust..BUT; if you want to make some money from your photography; you SHOULD read it from beginning to end. If you already have a established photography business shooting weddings, portraits or whatever, this is especially for you.


Blogs are usually sprinkled with pics, graphics etc to keep the reader interested.
Sorry, no pics this time.

If you have been a photographer for years and can not understand why your business has not taken off; read on.....

Weather you are shooting weddings, doing editorial stock submissions, shooting commercially or photographing dogs with their owners, there are a few things we need to fully understand if our desire is to earn income.

Let’s dispel some myths right from the start.


MYTH #1

“If my pics are better than the competition’s pics, I’ll succeed.”

Wrong! While quality photography is very important, it alone will not make us successful. We’ll get to that shortly.

MYTH #2

“I have little money to market & advertise, so there is no way I can compete with the big guns”

WRONG! Because we are NOT a mega-corporation, we have certain advantages they can not avail themselves to; we can market in ways the big guns can’t and won’t.


MYTH #3)

“The economy is in the dumper; no one wants to pay what I’m worth”

Sorry; that dog won’t hunt either.

MYTH #4)

“It seems every Tom, Dick and Harry can buy a digital camera and start shooting for money; they’re killing my chances and driving down what photography is worth”

Yes!..But only if you allow it too.

C’mon Pete!..What’s the answer then?

A drum roll please!.....................................

BUSINESS!

Yep..it’s all about the business of photography.

There are two types of photography.

1) For fun.
This is great and photography should be fun. I love having fun with photography. The difference is I get paid to do it.

2) The Business of photography

Here is a simple truth:

The BUSINESS of photography has nothing to do with taking pictures.

Here comes the reason why so many can not earn money with photography or the business is floundering or not profiting in the way we want. $$$

I can take the prettiest of pictures, have a technical understanding of post processing second to none, possess the most expensive digital camera and lighting systems; but without a sound understanding of basic business & marketing practices, we will not succeed.

The fanciest website on the planet will not convert admirers of our work into paying clients without effective marketing. Don’t misunderstand me; while the tools of the trade are important, we can not expect them to produce results alone, and they won’t.

Without a business/marketing plan, we are going nowhere.

I’m not talking about a 200 page manifesto laying out every nuance of our business. We’re not Microsoft; we are entrepreneurs‘. 

So where do I start?

1) Start by identifying what it is we wish to accomplish.

Without a goal, how do we know if we have arrived?

If I call my travel agent and say I want to get to Los Angeles, he/she will ask where am I leaving from. If I don’t know where I am, I doubt my travel agent can help me.

Let’s explore that first myth.

"If my pics are better than the competition’s pics, I’ll suceed.”

For those just starting out and those who have been shooting for years, allow me to make a recommendation. Search the internet for photographers who are not even attempting to make money with their images. www.photo.net is a good place to start.

Here you will find what many consider less than good work and we also find photography at the highest level. Some of these photographers do indeed earn money from their work, most do not. It’s good to see what you might be up against.

I can assure you, your work will not stack up against some of these photographers when it comes to sheer aesthetic beauty, image enhancement techniques etc...Many of these people have tried to make some money from their outstanding pictures and can’t. Why? No business or marketing savvy. No focus.

If any of us feel our work is so good as to NOT need to promote ourselves, we are deluded. If your wedding business is generating $100,000 per year or if National Geographic is begging you for your pictures, you may stop reading right here.

#2) “I have little money to market & advertise, so there is no way I can compete with the big guns”

Really? I can think of at least 50 ways to market & advertise without a big budget that produces results. Is it easy? No; of course not. If it were easy no one would be making any money. Throwing money at our advertising and marketing and expecting the phone to ring off the hook is silly; it’s not going to happen.

Spending our money and using marketing dollars EFFECTIVELY will make the difference.

Just to get us thinking; here are a few VERY inexpensive ways to market & advertise.
What? You haven’t tried these yet?

 

Marketing plan

I list a marketing plan first because most of us either don’t have one or we don’t know what it is. It is perhaps the single most difficult aspect of building our photography business because it entails a lot of thought. If you don't understand what a marketing plan is, contact me.

“What do I currently have at my disposal and how will I MAXIMIZE it?”

2. Business cards

3. Trade Shows

4. Yellow Pages-white pages

5. Regional magazine adverts
5a. Remnant space

6. Radio

7. Classifieds

8. Signage

9. Involvement with organizations

10. Noble causes

None of the ten require large budgets. On the contrary, all are quite inexpensive when done properly.

None of those ten will by themselves get you a lot of business.
All ten used together will get the phone ringing.

ALL of the ten singly or used together WILL get you business IF implemented properly.
The effective implementation of the ten require a MARKETING PLAN.

Who do I market to?
What do I want to market?
Why do I want to market my service or product?
Where will I market?
Which market products work best for me?
When will I market (At what intervals?)

Anything less is nothing short of voodoo planning.


“The economy is in the dumper; no one wants to pay what I’m worth”

This is a personal favorite of mine.
It is nothing more than a excuse.

Many of the personal emails I receive from fellow photographers go something like this:

“Everyone I talk to tells me they’ve had to cut their prices, we can’t even get enough work..How am I supposed to market w/o having enough work?”

I can’t speak for everyone, but my business has increased this year.

Blaming the economy and looking at our competitors excuses is nothing more than subsidizing our own failure. “They gave up so maybe I should.”

No where in this article will you find me saying it’s easy. It is NOT easy.

This is where a BUSINESS person prevails. Kinda’ like the last one standing philosophy.

I wish no ill will to anyone, but so many photographers have either left the market recently or cut their marketing budgets that I now have a whole new crop of fresh clients.

I don’t have a mega-budget for advertising and marketing. What I do have is used effectively and creatively. I’m committed to my plan. If after a period of time I see work originating from a area of my marketing, I pour a little more effort in that direction. If I see little coming from my marketing decisions after a given length of time, I don’t abandon it, I analyze it, improve it, adjust it.

A major cause so many businesses fail other than under capitalization is lack of commitment. If we don’t see immediate improvement in our bottom line, we move on to the next idea? No way! We must give our marketing plans sufficient time to take root. If we don’t, we are a reed in the ocean being tossed & turned by every wave.

“It seems every Tom, Dick and Harry can buy a digital camera and start shooting for money; they’re killing my chances and driving down what photography is worth”

Worrying about what the amateurs are doing is taking our eye off the ball.

1-2-3 strikes and you’re out!

Marketing is focus. Looking at the amateurs is nothing short of a distraction.
It is good to see what our competition is doing as part of our marketing plan, but cutting prices is not the answer to a poor economy or responding to amateur work.

The amateurs come and go, professional business people stay; we’re in it to win it!

When digital cameras began to come of age and become affordable to the masses, I noticed a ramping pattern. Sometime around 2000-2001, we saw a big influx in people attempting to earn some money with their new digital cameras. For a while, some professionals felt the pinch as this influx of available photos flooded and diluted the marketplace.

Now, in 2010-2011, I see another change taking place rapidly. As quickly as the ramp moved up with sub par photography, it is now dropping rapidly. Remember the CB radio craze in the late 70's? Everyone wanted one and it seemed like everyone had one. After a few years, the only people still using CB are the truckers.

Publishers, editors and even the general public seeking quality wedding photography are once again realizing it does take a professional photographer to produce excellent results time and again.

Once again, high quality photography is being appreciated for what it is and the professional shooter is rapidly regaining their position.

Marketing is proactive, not reactive.

The reactive approach will drive us into the poor house.

Here’s another email I often receive,

“Pete, these Craigs List people are killing me!”

Wanna’ know a secret?
I advertise on Craigs List; often!

Why? Because it is simply another way of keeping my name out there.
Craigs List represents a VERY small percentage of my business. It is but one more weapon in my arsenal of marketing; nothing more, nothing less.

Many people I hear from shoot weddings.
Craigs List is chok full of wedding advertisers. Most are not professional photographers, but people looking to make a little x-tra money. I have no problem with that.

One of two results come from my Craigs List ads.

1) They go to my web site and see I am not a weekend warrior and move on because they don’t want to spend what their wedding images are worth. Great! I don’t market to that segment.

2) They get to my web site and call me to inquire concerning my prices.

After I work up a package customized to them, they see the value and long term savings I bring to them over others and hire me. Great again!

You are a professional photographer. If you can’t show your client why you are different, why you are a benefit to them, how you actually save them money; you need to re-think your position as a professional.

Marketing is NOT about deception. This is one reason most of the Craigs List people advertising wedding or portrait shoots are here today and gone tomorrow.

All the best marketing methods in the world are for naught if we can not deliver what we promise; if we can not show the consumer why we are better, how we save them money, the benefits we bring to the table.

Since this article is aimed at professional photographers, allow me to speak briefly about quality.

Quality is not just a good in focus photo.
It is not showing our client our fancy equipment. Our client’s don’t care about our fancy equipment.
Quality is not simply using the best lab to finish our work.
Quality is not bragging about our expertise with Adobe Photo Shop.

Quality is providing service to our clients that benefit them! Period!

If our images are of poor quality, we did not benefit them.
If we don’t help our client solve a problem before, during and after their special day, we have not serviced them fairly.
If we are unavailable to them after the shooting is over, we have not helped them.
If we are unprepared to handle problems that may arise during the shoot, we have not only cheated our client, we can not be considered a professional by any stretch of the imagination.

Marketing never takes the place of poor service. Marketing ties in with honesty, fairness, understanding, flexibility with our clients.

Marketing points my customer in my direction so I can be of help and benefit to them.

I remember a quote from Zig Ziglar; “We will get everything we want when we first get our customers what they want.”  
If we believe the most inexpensive product or service always wins out, then we don’t understand human needs. If the above statement were true, we would all buy the cheapest TV set, live in a inexpensive home, buy generic everything and drive the cheapest car available. We don’t; do we? We spend our money where we find value; true value; real value.

If you are not delivering real value, it’s time to re-think your position.

Remember; it’s not about photography. This article was not intended to teach lighting ratios, post processing techniques etc..

IT’S ABOUT BUSINESS

Its not all fun. At the risk of repeating myself, if it were fun and easy, we would all be doing it; right?

“The business of photography is what separates the professional from the amateur, the swimmer from the one who flounders, the one who holds his/her client’s needs above their own.”

My apologies to all who email and do not receive a response. I get to as many as time permits; sadly I can not answer all of them, I wish I could.


I can be contacted from my website at

www.petercharlesphotography.com or directly at pherman76@comcast.net

All the best.