When I first drafted my photography business plan, I knew marketing was going to be an important piece of the puzzle if the business was going to be successful.
And with me only working very part-time (since my sweet twins were under a year old), I knew every minute spent in my studio had to be profitable.
Now, I didn’t have a lot of time or money to spend on marketing. The business was new and I was just starting out—so I needed to keep costs low. But I put together a focused plan that helped me hit $40,000 in sales that very first year.
So what was so great about this piece of my photography business plan?
- It helped me find out how many sessions I needed to book each month.
- It told me the average order I needed from each session.
- It defined my marketing budget.
- It helped me choose marketing activities that would bring clients in at the right pace (so I wasn’t overloaded or too slow.)
- It forced me to track my efforts so I wasn’t wasting precious resources on tactics that didn’t work.
This strategy involved actual calculations (not just general ideas) that helped me find hard numbers I could work from.
For example, take a look at numbers 1-3 on that list. The calculation that accomplishes those goals loos like this:
# of clients per year
+ estimated average sale of each session
+ estimated sales per month (based of historic data)
Annual Income goal
From there, you can determine your marketing budget (based on real numbers—not just a guesstimate.)
I used those numbers within my photography business plan…and it worked! That initial plan has helped me build my studio into one of the most profitable in the U.S.
How you can create your own marketing plan:
If I could wrap that marketing strategy into a nice little package and send it to all of you, I would. But each of our photography businesses has different needs, markets, clients, and budgets—so that wouldn’t really make sense anyway.
Instead, I put together a five part video training series (for FREE, thanks to our friends at WHCC) that will walk you through the steps of creating a unique marketing strategy that fits your photography business plan.
By the time you finish this training series, you’ll have a real marketing plan—a plan that’s both strategic and allows you to track progress over the course of the year.
Why not kick off your business with a new plan that helps you work smarter, not harder? Start watching the videos now.
