How to Make Money in Freelance Photography - Senior Portraits

If you're reading this I'll assume that you're similar to me, constantly looking for ways to increase and grow your photography business. Through my 10+ years of freelancing I've discovered that I wasn't the greatest business man, but I was great at turning out products and pictures that my clients were extremely happy with. My problem, as is the case in most freelance artists, was my lack of self promotion. It can be draining to be a one man show, playing the part of secretary, designer, photographer, and accountant can lead to a lack in the marketing side of your business, which is your bread and butter, your money maker.

So why do most of us fail at this? We fail because we're artists, not marketers. Our passion lies in creating, not in promoting. This is where we separate successful photographers from ones that fade away. I see more photographers with far superior skill get upstaged by less talented photographers all the time, and it all comes back to self promotion.

So how do you successfully market yourself? As we all know advertising in the Yellow Pages is expensive, it opens up you to a broad audience, but doesn't always mean big business. So lets start small and work our way up. So what is your niche? Think about what your focus is and target that audience on a smaller and more direct scale. Let's take senior pictures for example.

#1- With marketing materials in hand, approach a school and ask if you may leave your fliers/brochures for senior pictures. This should always be done at the very beginning of the school year, as most schools have a short deadline for the yearbook. If you run into trouble with this, use one of the following three steps to work your way around it, some schools have so many photographers vying for promotion that they instantly shut off when they hear another photographer wanting free promotion.

#2- Coordinate with a leadership group at the school. Most leadership groups are responsible for raising money for senior class trips and parties, so if you offer a small kickback to the leadership committee, 5%-10% of your picture sales, for every person recommended and distribution of your materials it's a win/win.

#3- Approach the yearbook and/or photography class at a school. Find out if you can come in and teach a seminar on how to take better photographs, how to use PhotoShop/lightroom to improve photographs, how to shoot indoors, etc. This is something I do to keep a closer relationship with a school, which is important for future relations with that particular school.

#4- Most high schools run some sort of school publication or paper, approach the school directly or by phone and let them know that you're interested in advertising in their school paper. Most school publications are inexpensive to advertise in, and target the exact audience you want. Make sure your advertising hits on your "unique selling point". "What separates me from Joe Blow Photography"? Ask yourself that question and implement it into your advertising.

It's up to you how successful you want to be at each school you approach, but you're bound to be more successful if you attempt even one of these steps. My recommendation is to follow all four.