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What to Do in the Off Season as a Photographer
As a photographer, we all know that we are insanely busy taking photos, editing, and communicating with clients from early fall through the end of November. Busy season can really bog us down and leave us with not much time to work on anything related to the back end of the business. So often times, when the off-season hits, we don’t know what to do with ourselves.
Today, I’m going to be sharing all about how to maximize your profts, efficiency, and set yourself up for success for the year during your slow season!
Here’s what you should be doing during your off season as a photographer:
Show off all of the work you’ve been too busy to post.
Most of my new clients either find me from Instagram or google, so keeping up with posting regularly on Instagram and my blog is SO important for my business. It’s literally what sustains my business and makes me profitable in the future.
If you fell behind on posting all of the amazing work that you created during your busy season, now is the time to go through and post all of your sessions.
If you want to steal my exact strategy on how I find most of my clients on Instagram, even during the off-season, you can download my FREE guide here.
Update Your Systems and Processes
Are you using your CRM as efficiently as you could be? Are you using a CRM at all? I highly recommend one if not! You can fully automate sending contracts, invoices, style clients, all client communications, and so much more! You can save so much time by not having to all of these things manually. I personally use Dubsado. You can check it out here if you’re interested in learning more.
Does your Gallery Delivery process need updating? I personally use Pixieset to deliver client galleries, which I love because there are so many ways that you can make passive income as a photographer using Pixieset. You can also create an email template that you send when you deliver client galleries that helps explain how to use their gallery, how you purchase prints and products, etc. You can steal the exact wording I use by downloading my gallery delivery email template here.
Analyze Your Revenue and Expenses
Did you have any super high expenses this year that didn’t actually contribute to bringing in more revenue for your business? For example, maybe you invested in marketing that didn’t really work for you. Or maybe you paid to attend lots of styled shoots but you didn’t really see an increase in sales from that new portfolio content. Now is great time to decide what you might need to cut back on for the upcoming year.
Did you make enough revenue to keep your business profitable and sustainable? Did you make enough money for how many hours you worked? If not, this leads me to my next point.
Evaluate Your Prices.
Now is a great time to run an update Cost of Doing Business. Ideally, we should be doing this multiple times per year to make sure that our prices are profitable and sustainable. Most of us will probably need to raise our prices this year due to inflation. Just remember, while it’s amazing to have a job that you love, we as photographers need to pay our bills just like everyone else. And we need to make enough that it’s worth it to spend that time away from our families. Setting your prices should be a non-emotional decision. And there is where the CODB calculator can really help!
Focus on Education and Improving Your Skills
Are there any photographers or business educators whose work you love (or who are very successful) who offer courses? Now is a great time to invest in learning from industry leaders and work on improving your craft!
Plan Out Your Year
Do you plan to offer mini sessions or themed session this year? Now is a great time to plan out all the details, set up all your systems and processes, order props, and book studios! That way you’ll be totally prepared before busy season hits!
I hope you found these ideas helpful! Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions!
Three Things I Bring to Family Sessions That Improve my Photos
Hey Photographer!
I used to be a stickler for not bringing any props to my photo sessions. For the most part, I think props tend to look cheesy and low-end. BUT as I’ve photographed more and more families, I’ve realized that there are a few items I need to bring with me to help me get amazing photos, especially with the little ones! So lately, I’ve started bringing three things with me to every family session, and it has really helped improve my photos and make the session more fun for families and kids!
A light up wand to get little one’s attention
Here is a link to the exact one I use! When babies and toddlers are struggling to pay attention for those important looking and smiling photos, I hold my light up wand close to my camera! This almost always does the trick for getting kids to look at me and smile! I can also use it as a reward during the session! After getting some photos that I need, I let the kids hold the wand and play with it when they need a break! Using rewards is one way that I get kids to like and trust me and have fun with me during our photo session!
2. A Blanket For the Family to Sit on
For me, during family sessions, the name of the game is variety. I love to get TONS of variety in posing during family photos, and that includes sitting and laying down photos! Most families don’t love to lay in the dirt in their nice dresses (which is totally fair), so this cute blanket helps with getting families to feel comfortable.
P.S. If you need help with making sure you have lots of variety of FUN poses during your family sessions, you can download my free posing guide here.
3. Books to read
And the last thing I bring is books to read! I found some cute, neutral books. I use them when it seems like the kids need a break from being told what to do. I let one of the parents read to the kids, and they LOVE it. And as a bonus, I get adorable photos out of it!
I hope this was helpful! Want to tailor your prompts and poses to each specific family? You can download the questionnaire that I send to all of my clients for FREE by clicking here!
Baby Clothing Product Photography
I was so excited when Ruth Ann from Tiny Toes Baby Co reached out to me to take some lifestyle photos for two of her new baby bamboo rompers from her new spring collection of baby clothing. Lily always has so much fun being my model! She's becoming so experienced in modeling at this point! We spent our morning having so much fun taking photos of little baby Lily around the house in her new bamboo rompers!
We took some photos first in my little studio in our house. Then we moved to Lily's nursery. The purple floral romper looked amazing next to the pink sheets in Lily's crib and the pink walls in her nursery. Then, we used a white back drop to really make the clothing stand out.
I love all of the clothing in Ruth Ann's shop. Tiny Toes Baby Co has such adorable baby clothing. I highly recommend checking out her products! It's a perfect way to support a small business! I love finding amazing small businesses to support. Tiny Toes Baby Co has amazing high quality clothing. Lily certainly loves her new bamboo sleepers! Both the floral and the turkey patterns are super cute! We will definitely be shopping with them in the future!
Are you looking for a family photographer, maternity photographer, or newborn photographer in the Greenville, South Carolina area? I would absolutely LOVE to work with you! Please reach out to me over on my contact page, so we can talk about how I can serve you and your family in the near future! I can’t wait to hear from you!
I also love to take lifestyle photos and product photography photos, especially for any baby companies. Please feel free to reach out to me if this is something that you and your company are interested in!
How to Market Your Wedding Photography Business for FREE
Hey there, photographer friend! I’ve been in your shoes. When you are first getting started with your wedding photography business, you probably don’t have tons of funds to invest into marketing. But you know what? You don’t need any money to market your business! I built my business entirely on FREE marketing, and you can too! I’ve put together a list for you below of ways that you can market your wedding photography business for FREE!
Post Regularly On Social Media
Posting regularly on social media is so easy but so overlooked by photographers. I built my business mainly from using social media as a free advertising and marketing tool to reach new wedding photography clients. The specific social media platform or platforms that you should be focused on are going to depend on who your ideal client is and what your price point is.
As I’ve gained experience with wedding photography, my prices have increased. And I’ve found that as my prices have increased, I’ve needed to change up my marketing strategy. When I was first getting started with wedding photography, I was pretty inexperienced and my prices obviously reflected that. At that time, I was able to book the most engaged couples through Facebook groups. That was where my ideal clients at the time were searching for their wedding photographer. When my prices were more about average/slightly higher than average, and my ideal clients started becoming a little more high end, I found that I booked the most wedding photography clients through Instagram.
Instagram specifically has been an amazing marketing tool for me. For the past 2-3 years, about 75-90% of my couples found me through instagram. Now that my prices are a higher than they were the past two years, this number has decreased to about 50%, because I’m focused on different marketing tactics to reach my new ideal clients. Instagram has brought me so much business, and still does! So I would be happy to share some of my best Instagram strategies with you:
Use relevant, specific hashtags. Focus on location specific hashtags like #IndianaPhotographer
Geotag your locations. This allows couples near you to find your account.
Interact with others. Like and comment on posts from other local wedding vendors. This helps to build relationships and helps other vendors’ clients find you.
There is so much more than I could dive into when it comes to Instagram, but it would be a little too much for this one blog post. Hopefully these three tips can help get you started.
Start a Blog
If you have been putting off starting a blog, I totally feel you! It took me so long to start my blog. I thought of it as just another task to add to my to-do list when I was already getting plenty of business without one. The reason I was finally convinced to start my blog is that it’s super helpful for SEO. It brings people to your website instead of them just staying on your social media accounts. You OWN your website and blog. Instagram/Facebook own your social media accounts. Instagram and Facebook are great ways for clients to find you, but you want to funnel those people to the space that you own.
One thing that really helped me when I first started blogging was building blogging into the workflow I was already using. I was already editing sneak peaks after every wedding day. So instead of posting those sneak peaks on Facebook, I started posting them on the blog. Most of my couples share their blog post since it’s the first time they’ve seen some of their wedding photos. This brings all of their friends and families to my website. It’s great for SEO, AND it’s great marketing for me. When people are already on my website, they are more likely to take a look around while they are there.
Use SEO
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. This essentially means that I want people to find me when they are searching on google for a photographer. There’s a few different ways that I try to improve my SEO in order to get found on google:
Blogging. I talked about this above, but there are lots of SEO benefits to blogging. Google rewards websites that frequently update and add new content to their websites. Blogging is a great way to do this.
Using Key Words. Think about the words that people would search in order to find your website. I want people to find me when they search “Indiana Wedding Photographer.” But I also think about other key words like venues in my local area. I get found a lot but using key words like “Laurel Hall Wedding.” People book their wedding venue before they book their photographer (usually), so I want my photos to pop up when engaged couples are searching for photos taken at their wedding venue.
Naming Your Photos. When you export your photos from lightroom, name them using key words. If you have a lot of time on your hands, you can name each photo a different and very specific key word relating to that photo. I usually name all of my photos based on the title of the blog post (for example Indiana Vineyard Wedding1.jpg; Indiana Vineyard Wedding2.jpg; etc.).
There is so much more that goes into SEO! Way too much to put in this one blog post, but hopefully these three quick tips are helpful!
Share Your Galleries with Vendors
Sometimes as photographers, we get very protective over our photos, and we can be a little but stingy with our galleries. I know that we have all been burned before by someone stealing our photos and not crediting us. I get it! And I understand copyright law. I understand why some photographers want to charge vendors to use their photos. However, I think the amazing relationships that we can build with other vendors is worth the risk of someone potentially using our photos without crediting us. Plus, if someone doesn’t credit you, I have a great way of giving myself “sneaky credit.” I just comment on the photo saying something along the lines of “I loved photographing this wedding. It was so great getting to work with you!” That way, people who see the photo will know who took it, but I’m still being super kind and non-confrontational.
After every wedding day, as soon as I finish editing the full gallery and send it over to the bride and groom, I send over the full gallery to each of the wedding day vendors as well. The vendors are always SO appreciative, because this isn’t something that every photographer does. My thought process is that those vendors put so much time and energy making the wedding amazing, and my images would not be what they are without the work from the vendors as well. Other wedding vendors who are not photographers need amazing photos of their work for social media and their websites. If you are one of the few photographers who send full galleries to wedding vendors, they will be so much more likely to recomend you to clients over other photographers who are more stingy with their images.
Free Photography for Venues and Planners
Now, hear me out on this one. I KNOW that we as photographers don’t like to work for free. No one likes to work for free, right? And in general, I don’t recomend doing free work, because it tends to devalue the industry. This is one of the few exceptions for me, personally. Remember how I said earlier that with my current prices, I’ve started gaining most of my clients from different sources than I did when my prices were lower? Well, guess how most of my clients find me now. Through venue preferred vendor lists and wedding planner referrals. These are the two vendors that engaged couples typically book before they book their photographer. Therefore, it is super important to network and build amazing relationships specifically with wedding venues and wedding planners.
One of the most obvious ways that you can offer free photography to these types of vendors is to offer free headshots. I’ve done free headshots for tons of different wedding venues and wedding planners. They are usually so appreciative! Although, I will say, a lot of photographers have this same thought, so venues and planners may already have great headshots from other photographers. Or maybe you’ve already taken headshots for specific vendors and you want to continue to build up that relationship. You can also offer personal photography for free for venue sales managers as well as wedding planners. Get creative. Offer family photos, couples photos, or anything else that those individuals might need. They are going to be so appreciative, and you are going to be one of the first people to come to mind when one of their clients is looking for a wedding photographer.
Plan Styled Shoots
If you don’t know what a styled shoot is, it’s essentially a fake wedding where vendors come together to create something that their ideal clients would love. Styled shoots are amazing. It’s a great way to network with other wedding industry professionals. You can show off your skills and what you’re capable of. You have the flexibility to be creative since you don’t have to worry about delivering very specific photos to a client. You get to take the types of photos YOU want to take instead of worrying about what a client wants. All of the vendors will post the photos, you’ll all tag each other, and you’ll get so much cross promotion. Styled shoots are also an amazing way to get published, which I’ll talk more about below.
I do want to put a disclaimer in here that you cannot build your entire portfolio on styled shoots. Like I said, styled shoots are amazing, but you need real world wedding day experience as well. Clients can’t tell the difference between styled shoots and real wedding days, and it’s not fair to potential clients to make it seem like you have a ton of experience that you do not actually have. You can definitely put SOME styled shoot images in your portfolio, but you also need tons of photos from real wedding days. You need photos from throughout an entire wedding day so clients can see how you shoot getting ready photos in an ugly hotel room, how you deal with a pitch black reception, and how you shoot portraits in harsh sun in the middle of the day. Absolutely participate in styled shoots, but also please accurately represent your real wedding day experience to potential clients!
Submit Photos for Publication
There are so many benefits for getting your photos featured in magazines and online wedding blogs:
Social Proof. When blogs and magazines publish your photos, it helps to reassure your clients and potential clients that your work really is as amazing as they think it is. Being featured on the cover of a hard copy magazine is especially great for social proof. I get so many positive comments from my clients when my photos are on magazine covers. It’s also so fun for the couple who gets to be on the cover as well.
SEO. I know that everyone thinks it’s especially cool to be featured in physical, hard copy magazines, but being published in online blogs is actually what is best for SEO. We didn’t talk about this in the SEO section of this blog, but getting backlinks to your website from other websites is another great way to improve your SEO. The more “authority” the website linking to yours has, the better. You also get tons of clicks to your website if the blog has a lot of viewers.
Getting Discovered. When you get featured in local blogs and magazines, a lot of local couples, who use those blogs and magazines for inspiration, will discover you and your work! It’s a great way to reach local couples who have the potential to hire you.
Now let’s talk about HOW to get your work published. You can find lists online of every wedding blog and magazine. You can go to their websites, find the ones that are a good fit, and submit photos that way. You can also use a service like Two Bright Lights or Matchology where you can submit photos for publications to multiple blogs at once. These services also help to match you with the publications that are the best fit for the session/wedding and for your photography style.
Here’s a few quick tips in order to have higher chances of getting your photos published:
Focus on shooting more vertical photos as opposed to horizontal. Most blogs and magazines prefer vertical photos both for graphic design/layout purposes and for optimizing photos for Pinterest.
Focus on detail photos. I know that your favorite photos are probably the bride and groom photos, but blogs and magazines need to publish photos that inspire engaged couples, their ideal audience. These couples are looking for things like reception floral inspiration, invitation inspiration, wedding shoe inspiration, etc. So focus more on submitting those detail photos than bride and groom photos.
Only submit to blogs/magazines that are a good fit. Some blogs and magazines prefer dark and moody photos. Some only accept images taken on film cameras. Some publish classic weddings while some publish alternative weddings. Make sure you find the publications that are the perfect fit for both the style of your work and the style of the wedding.
Treat Your Current Clients Like Gold
With all of this being said, please don’t get so caught up on finding your next clients that you forget to treat your current clients well. Not only do they deserve it, but it’s also great for marketing. Word of mouth marketing is the best form of marketing that your business can have. When your clients have an amazing experience with you, they will tell all of their friends about you and leave you amazing, raving reviews. Treating your clients well is one of the best things you can do for your business.
I hope you found all of the information helpful! Tell me, photographer friend, what is the first thing you’re going to do this week to start marketing your wedding photography business for free??
Would you rather watch this in video format? Here is a link to the YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UR7MNEGLStw
How to Build Your Photography Business During Covid-19
I think every photographer and small business owner started feeling the anxiety set in when all of the government mandates started being announced, and the number of people who are allowed to be in a room together started decreasing very quickly from 250 to 50 to 10 in a matter of hours.
As a wedding photographer, my heart BREAKS for my brides and grooms who have had to cancel and postpone weddings. My first thoughts, of course, were for my couples. I spent those first few days helping all of my couples who are getting married in the next 8 weeks reschedule their weddings. Luckily all of my couples were absolutely amazing, their vendor teams were flexible, and they were all able to reschedule easily and handled the situation as gracefully as can be expected. My heart goes out to my sweet couples who have been looking forward to getting married for so long and have had to push back marrying the love of their life (or at least the celebration part).
After the craziness of helping my couples reschedule their weddings passed, the reality set in that I now won’t be able to shoot weddings or engagement sessions for the next 8 weeks. I will admit, I had a moment of panic and considered applying for jobs stocking shelves at a grocery story, but after I calmed down, I realized that the best thing I can do during this time is focus on my business. How many times during the last year have I wanted to do things for my business but I kept saying to myself “I don’t have time for that” or “I’ll work on that when I have more time.” Well, now, all we have is time, right? And the photographers who work on their businesses during this down time are the ones who will thrive when the economy bounces back after all of this.
I’ve put together a list below of a few things you can do for your photography business during these months of quarantine to help you get through this down time.
Practice New Skills
Do you have any new skills that you just haven’t had time to practice? Now is the perfect time to practice any skills that don’t involve other people. It might not be the best time to work on large group posing skills, but it IS the perfect time to work on using your camera in manual mode if that is something that you struggle with. Take a daily walk outside and take photos of all the flowers that are starting to pop up now that spring is starting to arrive. Take photos of your kids, significant other, or roommate in different lighting scenarios inside your home.
Maybe you are already super comfortable shooting in manual, but you need to work on your low light skills. Now is a great time to work on using your off-camera flash! Off-camera flash can be super intimidating when you first decide that you want to step up your flash game. I promise it’s not as hard as it seems, and you CAN master it during this down time. Early in the morning before the sun rises or later in the evening after the sun sets, set up some light stands and take some photos of your pets. When we finally get to start shooting weddings again, your couples will be so impressed at how much your reception photos have improved once you master your flash skills!
Build Your Online Presence
Are you someone who totally forgets to post on Instagram when your busy season hits? Or maybe you haven’t updated your blog in months? Now is the perfect time for all of those social media and online tasks that you’ve been putting off. Here’s a few ways to build your online presence while we can’t shoot weddings and sessions:
Post on Instagram at least once a day.
Update your portfolio on your website with your favorite recent photos.
Post all of your recent weddings and sessions on your blog.
Take some new headshots in your home, and introduce yourself to your audience.
Work on growing your Pinterest audience.
Submit your work for publications in blogs and magazines.
Support other small businesses by commenting on their photos and sharing their work.
Work On the Back End of Your Business
If you’re like most photographers, you probably view yourself as an artist more so than you view yourself as an entrepreneur or business owner. I’m in the minority where I actually feel the opposite. That’s because I majored in finance and economics, and I have a background in financial analysis as well as auditing insurance companies. I do love creativity too, but I’m someone who loves BOTH aspects of owning a photography business. I realize that that’s not the case for most photographers though. Most photographers hate figuring out the financial side of the business, the legal side, and the back end technical side. I totally understand that it’s easy to procrastinate the tasks in our business that we won’t enjoy as much. But while we’re not shooting, we don’t have an excuse to procrastinate these tasks. Here’s a few ways you can improve the back end of your business.
Set up your business legally if you haven’t already! Each state is different, so look up the steps you need to take to legally set up your business in your state (or country).
Get professional contracts that better protect both you and your clients. If you can’t afford to hire a lawyer to personally write your contracts for you, my favorite legal resources for photographers are the LawTog and the Legal Paige.
Get a CRM to improve your client experience. I personally use and love Dubsado. You can use this link for 20 percent off. Dubsado allows your clients to sign contracts online, pay invoices online, and fill out questionnaires for you. It keeps track of your bookkeeping, your calendar, sets up workflows to send things out automatically for you and SO much more!
Set up a business bank account and separate your business finances from your personal finances.
Figure out your Cost of Doing Business, so you can make sure your business is profitable.
Learn With Online Education
No matter what stage you are in in your business, we all still need to be constantly growing and improving through continuing education. No matter what career you have, continuing education along with real world experience is so important if you want to grow, improve, and get better at what you do. What better time is there than now to learn and grow in our photography careers through online education? My favorite educators are Katelyn James and Amy and Jordan. However, I realize that this is a difficult time economically for a lot of people, including photographers, if you are looking for free education, SkillShare is giving away two months of membership for free here. They have tons of photography and editing classes. I’m also working on developing free educational content for you here on my blog as well as over on my YouTube channel. If you have any specific questions or content that you would like to see from me, DM me over on Instagram and let me know!
I know this is a difficult time for all of us, and it can be so easy to give into fear and anxiety. Instead of focusing on the fact that we can’t go out and shoot right now, let’s focus on what we CAN do! I hope this list helps you! Let me know, what will YOU be doing to grow your business during Covid-19!
