Like most businesses within the freelancer genre, setting up a photography business is incredibly simple provided you have the required skills. While expert advice would be a clever investment at the later stages, the initial months of a photography business simply require the skill to take photos that people will pay for and a few small business decisions. Here are the first four steps required to start your business.
Choose a specialty
Here you need to consider both your skills and the demand that is present for them. If you are particularly good at taking photos of cats for example, though fun this is sadly not a business. There are however many categories in which there is sufficient demand and you simply need to figure out which you are best at and which you most enjoy. Many photographers specialise in areas such as weddings, product photography and portraits. Of course many also concentrate on the more artistic side of photography but setting up this form of business is an entirely different ball game. It is also worth noting that choosing a particular specialty does not prevent you from working outside it. It is just useful to advertise a particular genre as it gives the impression of expertise within it.
Set a reasonable rate
This is all about research. If you are planning on setting up a photography business that specialises in weddings for example, you simply need to search for ads put up by similar businesses. Remember though that offering a slightly lower price to compensate for your lack of experience is perfectly sensible but offering the service for a significantly lower rate is usually a bad move. Many people hire photographers because they are willing to pay for professionally taken photos. Offering a very low price says the exact opposite about your business and is therefore not to be recommended even for potential short term gains.
Set up a website
Before advertising your services it is important that you have a showcase for your portfolio. A website is both the easiest and the most effective means of doing so. There are many platforms just a Google away that will allow you to set up a small website for free and with practically no technical knowledge. In the long term a professionally designed site complete with your own domain name can be a great investment but during the initial months, it is not really necessary.
Advertise
The key thing to remember is that any money that goes out on advertising muse be recouped before you make a profit. Therefore in the early stages, investing too heavily in advertising can be a mistake. The best place to start therefore is to simply place ads in local newspaper. They are cheap because of their narrow reach but they are effective because they reach those that you are targeting. Another cheap but effective form of advertising is business cards. Bought in bulk they border on free and are a very good way of increasing the effectiveness of people recommending you to friends.
