5 Ways to Advance Your Photography Business in 2020
It's the start of a new year, and everyone is looking for resolutions. Here are a few ideas that might help you push your photography business a little further along this year.
1. Be more social
To maintain a thriving photography business, being active on social media is crucial. Many successful photographers are active on at least 3 forms of social media daily. Whether it's Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Linkedin each platform offers you a channel to engage with your existing customers as well as reach new customers! It's not enough to post once a month, once a week, or even once a day! To make the most of the complex algorithms these platforms are constantly adjusting, you're going to have to post high-quality content multiple times a day! BUT WAIT! That doesn't mean you should spam your followers, or you may end up doing more harm than good! Two to three quality posts, including highlights from your recent photography sessions and some brief but witty banter, will go a long way towards reaching new potential clients. On Facebook, for example, once they have liked one of your posts you can invite them to like your page!
2. Be more confident
2020 is going to be YOUR year! Enough wishing you were booking more sessions, and enough wishing your sessions turned out better! It's time to take action and make some changes! Believe it or not, a lot of successful photographers reach the point where they can turn away more and more of the work they don't want to be doing to make room for doing more of what they love! Look into a photography mentorship, or traveling out of your area to do a small group photography seminar. Pursuing one of these opportunities will provide value for years to come, and will bolster your confidence like you couldn't imagine, and it will show throughout every one of your photography sessions. If you follow a photographer long enough, you'll be able to notice these changes in their work as they progress throughout their career. Also, if you want to feel better about the quality of your work in 2020, just look back at your work from 2015 and make sure to have a good laugh at your own expense.
3. Be more responsive
If a potential client reaches out to you, they may not be expecting immediate answers within seconds, but it will knock their socks off if you are THAT responsive! Autoresponders just to reassure your inquiring customer that you did receive their message and you will respond at your earliest convenience put you ahead of other photographers that are slow to respond. Don't stop at the autoresponse though, if you follow up within an hour or two, you will still impress your potential client and start the stream of communication that will inevitably lead to the booking you for a newborn session, or maybe senior pics.
4. Be more organized
We've all been there before. We get in a hurry, have the best of intentions that we will write down that important bit of information, and then we never think about it again... until the phone rings and an unhappy client is wondering where we are or why we never got back to them with pricing information. Sheesh! Stop relying on the fact that the information is probably somewhere between your text messages, voicemails, emails, sticky notes, spreadsheets or written on a napkin that is probably in the back pocket of your jeans at the bottom of the laundry basket. Simplient can help you keep all of the important information in one place, accessible from your phone or computer, and always easily found. It's time to get organized and stop stressing!
5. Be more focused
What distracts you? Did you even read this far, or did you jump back over to Facebook to see what someone you went to elementary school with just posted? With the internet at our fingertips, it's so easy to become distracted when we should be knocking out edits, shooting off emails and delivering galleries to make sure our clients are happy. So the next time you sit down to start culling a newborn session or trying to get caught up on your fall mini sessions that were supposed to be delivered last week, be intentional about staying off of social media. There's a time for that like we discussed above, but it's not during your editing time. Be more intentional about your time and you will feel more productive all around.