2014 booking ideas

I'm seeing that a lot of photographers are having trouble making money with weddings.

 

Well here are a few places where you can advertise.

 

A lot of the fellow readers have heard of Davids Bridal. They are pretty much in every major city and often smaller

towns. Well they of course charge around $400 a month, but you should be able to book 5 or more weddings a

month. After you book 1 weding the rest are bonus free referrals.

 

You should join your local Chamber. This is kind of cool because there is often 200 to 1000 members in this group

and when you join you give out your business cards. The members also do the same. Well where else can you get

200 to 1000 employees for free? This works. If you only get 1 wedding out of this you've paid for the yearly fee. Every

booking after this is total profit.

 

You can do fun things like Mary Key makeovers! Take a photo before they put on makeup and then after. Now thats

easy! Charge $30 for an 8X10. There must be around 15 stores in cities and 5 in the towns, so twice a year you shoot

these on a weekday. If there are 15 people there well you profit about $450 without reorders which isn't very common.

If you can book one of these every a month or so you have made around $5000. 2 of these a month is $10,000 or so.

Easy money! Remember you can advertise in other towns and cities near you. You take about 5 shots and let the

person pick their favorite'(s).

 

Company parties! This too is easy money. Remember you joined the Chamber? Well alot of the members have fairly

fairly large businesses and have holiday parties. You simply set up a background, 2 lights, and charge $25 for an

8X10. If you shoot just 30 people at the party you made $750 for just a few hours of work. So book about 5 of these

and you've made around $3700.

 

Golfing events! Go to the golfing pro shop and ask them about large events, often company events. Lets say it's a

small event consisting of only 100 people. You charge the company $10 for a 5X7. Well there are 100 people playing.

That comes to $1000. Again this is such easy money. By the way there was a person there that worked for Playboy

and I now get to photograph a few Playboy events now. No Nudes. Well that adds up too.

 

OK let's add up some of these very easy jobs. 4 weddings from Davids Bridal a month. Lets say just $4000. You get

a few parties and wedding from the Chamber. Maybe 10 events at $1000. Thats less than 1 wedding a month and you

charge $1000. Mary Kay (Key) spelling -$10,000. 15 gofing events, thats at least $15,000.

 

Davids Bridal Weddings $10,000

 

The Chamber 5 weddings $5000

 

Company parties $4000

 

Golfing 10 a year $10,000

 

Well this is around $30,000

 

This doesn't include referrals and your own personal wedding and portrait bookings. You have to add at least another

$20,000.

 

$50,000

 

As a part-time business and at a very low estimate $50,000 for around 15 hours of work a week.

 

You can hit that $100,000 with a lot of extra work.

 

Hope this helps a bit.

Well, that's a good marketing plan and if one hustles

enough and knows how to talk to people, I totally believe a

smart photographer can make what you say they can

make. However, IMO, it's not "easy money". 4-5 weddings a

month is back breaking, high pressure, endless hours of

work, then throw some corporate and social events into the

mix and you'll pretty much be working 15 hrs a day 7 days a

week.

I have a little part time PJ gig with a local newspaper

shooting a few events almost every weekend. It's hours of

work for little pay, but it's made me realize just how much

more work and pressure it must be to shoot weddings that I

plan on not taking my professional photography any further

than this small PJ gig!

<p>Good, stimulating and invigorating post Bob, thank you.</p>

<p>Another point is, for every company party, golfing event or similar event you do, there is likely one or two wedding enquires that you will get.</p>

<p>I think a lot of business owners (not just Wedding and Event Photographers) do not realize that there is still money out there, maybe not as much as ten years ago, but there is still a lot of disposable income around: and one way to get that money flowing into one's business, is to get out there each day, <em><strong>face to face</strong></em>, with the people who have it to spend. </p>

<p>WW<br>

</p>

Hi Thomas. Good point about 4 or 5 weddings a month. I can't shoot all of them. I hire some top pros in

the area that don't have any work to do. I've slowed down this year and I did about 38 I think. I have a

photo partner so he of course gets at least half of the bookings, probably more. We did book about 95

to 100 weddings this year. Then all of the added events. Some of them we worked together on. I still

consider this easy money because I'm only putting in about 20 hours of work a week. I like to get about

$100 per hour or more. Thats about $2000 a week. I don't shoot 2000 shots per wedding. My average is

about 600 to 800 quality images per wedding and about 2 to 3 hours of editing. I don't shoot 2000, 3000

or even 5000 images per wedding; some people do. Yep 5000 images per wedding, 2 photographers,

and probably 35 hours of editing. It would take the bride and groom about a week to watch all of these

on 5 DVD's! Most of which are duplicates.

 

WW, I agree! Shooting weddings and events is so easy. For me it's finding the clients. This is why we

are in 2 Chambers, my foto partner Craig is in one too and you do get a lot of referrals. from the events.

 

We strongly believe to never look at Craigslist! Let those photographers fight over the $300 or less

weddings! So if you book a $300 wedding, thats about 8 hours working at the wedding and maybe 5

hours of photoshop work. $23 per hour. That's not bad if it were full-time but you can't live on $300 a

week.

<p>I like your enthusiasm and drive Bob and what you are saying is correct. I will admit, a few years ago I tried to dip into the Craigslist market. I hope I don't offend anyone, but the people who shop via Craigslist (for the most part) are bottom feeders and want things for pennies. I would think even medium priced photographers will have problems trying to book via Craigslist.</p>

Thanks for sharing Bob

If other photographers have ways to add profit kindly post them!

 

By the way, for the people just starting off I think Craigslist is a wonderful way to make up an ablum, get

samples, and make a website. Even shoot the first one or 2 for $100 or even for free, just to have images to

show clients. I actually shot a friends wedding for free and used the samples for 2 years! Just one wedding

did the trick!

 

I hope this New Year is safe, prosperous, and great health and fun for everyone.

<p>Great post. As far as making more profit goes... this year we are focusing on making more per wedding as opposed to just shooting more weddings. We have set up gift registries for all of our 2014 clients which is cool because we are actually already seeing money come in for weddings that won't happen for 9+ months.</p>

One more comment: on the Craigslist issue, I couldn't agree more. Unless you are brand new and desperately need to

build your portfolio, you will probably find nothing but headaches on CL. Did it once several years ago when starting out,

and although it was good for the experience shooting, a cranky bride with very little pay left a sour taste in my mouth

regarding weddings. Not saying that all CL gigs will be like this, but that was my only experience with one.

<p>Hi Bob, whilst some of those ideas might be workable in some localities, it appears the figures you've quoted represent 'turnover' and not <em>profit</em>. In fact once you factor in your fixed costs per job, and add your variable costs per job (travel, printing, postage costs, the prints etc, make-up artists, the cut the host will take, assistant etc) it can in fact be very difficult if not impossible at times to meet your margin. Whilst there is always the hope that clients will purchase more than the bottom line, it can end up being a very costly waste of your time unfortunately. Event photography has suffered hugely here in the UK due to declining price points and fewer and fewer customers making a purchase - and those who do will often complain about having to spend £15 on a professionally printed and mounted photograph. Whilst they are good ideas on the surface there does need to be cautious approach in my opinion.</p>

<p>I will say however that photographing certain events on an informal basis can be a very good idea because there are indirect benefits in the form of socially driven networking - this is something I have done many times (at auto club gatherings for instance where there are likely to be plenty of like-minded and well-heeled attendees who will then find their way to one's website - I am already 'one of them' so there is no ice to break) - the key thing is that you minimise your own overhead and you are not tied to somebody else's terms. There are plenty of social activities which could help to get you some relevant exposure.</p>

<p>Aligning yourself with the right charity is, in my opinion, more satisfying and probably much more lucrative than trying to eke out some profit at events (where people have already spent money getting there, buy a ticket, and dressing up). If you choose your charity wisely you can form a good relationship. For example what sort of people will most charities encounter? People who are making donations of course - in other words people who have a disposable income and are generous in their mindset. The charity can reward high donors with one of your beautifully presented gift vouchers where they obtain a complimentary shoot and a complimentary desk print. Alternatively they can offer the voucher at 50% of its usual cost, and the charity sells it and keeps the proceeds. There is no obligation on the client to spend any more once they go through your doors, but given the type of people which you have obviously <em>targeted</em>, it is in fact very likely that they will. </p>

<p>Whilst I appreciate there will be geographical and cultural differences, in the UK business networking groups tend to have a generally poor reputation for being of benefit to photographers. They tend to favour business to business networking rather than business to client situations. There is also a great deal of pressure placed upon members to bring in leads for other members, which again in a business to customer environment can be extremely difficult for a photographer to do. You're generally tied by their terms into attending the weekly meetings (mostly to exchange leads) or your membership can be terminated if you fail to do so - for photographers who can't work regular hours that is another downside. I am a great believer in organic networking rather than something which is structured and based on lead generation, which is the basis of most of the networking groups I have looked at.</p>

<p>I think the best way for wedding photographers to increase their income is to improve their services and ensure they stay abreast with the times we live in, and most importantly can set themselves apart from their competitors. I cannot stress that enough.</p>

<p>Forming affiliations with local photographers may not be something many wedding photographers are prepared to do, but it can be extremely helpful. We all get assignments which we can't take on, perhaps because the client's budget doesn't align with our product, or perhaps because we are already committed on that day - there is great benefit to passing on these customers and some photographers are able to do so and gain a financial reward which makes the benefit quantifiable rather than perceived.</p>

<p>I'm a great believer in diversification, but only if the profits make it worthwhile. In that respect commercial photography or offering tuition to newer photographers can be better. If you have particular expertise in certain areas then writing features for the better-known photography journals can also add to your income stream in a very useful way.</p>