How can I expand my professional photo editing business?
Hi everyone,
I hope you are all doing well. I'm an owner, photographer and graphic designer for a company called Offshore Clipping Path. We offer high-quality professional photo editing services.
I want to build up my photography and photo editing company but I don't know where to begin. I'd love to hear your experience, both positive and negative, with expanding a business. Please share your ideas and tips below.
Thanks,
Shelley
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Dec 10, 2019
Hi Shelley.
I'm a regional partner at an app development company, and our business is pretty young - it started out about two years ago. We used aggressive marketing and growth hacking to get our business to where it is today. Here's what worked for us, I hope it can be helpful to you as well:
1. Heavy focus on social media to connect with your audience - widens your reach and increases brand awareness.
2. Frequent email campaigns - a great way to provide exclusive discounts, packages and customized offers to a selected clientele.
3. Focus on quality - enables us to run for industry-related awards, ratings, and listings.
4. Participation in events where prospective clients are likely to be present.
5. Establishing yourself as a thought leader in your industry.
Other than these, of course, the usual would be to get listed on sites and applications where people will be looking for your services. And work on having an impressive website created to showcase your portfolio, and gain access to potential clients.
Good luck!
Dec 26, 2019
Hi Shelley,
In order for you to be able to find clients you need to find the best way to market your services and BE FOUND, not everyone has a huge budget for marketing, so I suggest that you start with your website. If you have one, get your website done nicely to reflect what you do, a visitor to your website needs to stay on home page for a while and click somewhere to go to another page, you need to find a way to hook them to stay on your site, you never want them to click the back button, try to post the best work you have done, if you do photo editing then show before and after, show your work and so much of it, show how much do you charge per service or the approximate as the visitor needs to see everything before they contact you and once they contact you they already liked your work and liked your prices, so they are somehow half there to order from you.
Now the question is how will these visitors find your website? You need to optimize your website SEO (search engine optimization) for photography, photo editing, keywords, this is the most important thing you need to start doing now, plus use social media to your advantage, get accounts on all big social media and post your work on DAILY bases.
I suggest that you try to find a niche in your photography and photo editing service. You can't just try to be all. Let's say you do best with pets photography, try to get an Instagram account with dogs' names for example and try to convince your friends, neighbors, to get them free photos of their pets and get their permission to post it on your Instagram/Facebook/Pinterest accounts. Try to make these photos interesting like a dog with a ball in his mouth, use hashtags to get your message across. Connect your website with all of your social media accounts.
Also if you do a pro work get an account with Behance and show off your work. Behance is the best for pro photographers, you need to be active there for customers to find you, it may take months before you get noticed.
You need to put some strategies/plans on papers on what you will be doing in the next 6-12 months, work on it daily based, don't expect to get clients right away, be patient and never give up.
The thing is, you need to show how good you are in what you do.
P.S. Your current business name does not match the services you offer :)
Dec 3, 2019
Having social media provides a good start for starting your photo editing business.
Instagram account: post pictures that would be relevant to your work whether its nature or cool effects in photo composition. This will attract users through the Instagram search feed to might look at your photo. It will provide a user base as more and more people start to follow your account.
Other ways might be submitting your work to websites that provide stock photo images as this provides another outlet of income.
Dec 10, 2019
Thanks, Kevin Tan. Actually, I have a lot of plans to optimize Instagram.
Feb 14, 2020
I don't understand this. https://www.offshoreclippingpath.com/about-us/ says 500 clients by 2014, and 90 employees by 2013. Is this same company and when was this question first posted?
Mar 9, 2020
First, make a portfolio of your editing work. Then make a brochure. Then make yourself known to the professional community by joining local organizations such a PPA and the affiliate guilds, ASMP, local modeling agencies, etc. Send brochures and email pieces. Find out what others are charging. Charge accordingly with a printed price sheet.
Work hard. Remember this is a business, not a hobby.
I treasure and adore my retoucher. He makes me look better than I am. For you to break in you need to prove you are better too.
Nov 24, 2020
hi Shelley
great question.
With my personal experience, I suggest you should be paid marketing in the photo editing business. just like Google AdWords, Facebook advertising. and do social media marketing,
Dec 28, 2020
Learn how to start your own Photo Editing Business and whether it is the right fit for you.
Start a Photo Editing Business by following these 9 steps:
You have found the perfect business idea, and now you are ready to take the next step. There is more to starting a business than just registering it with the state. We have put together this simple guide to starting your Photo Editing Business. These steps will ensure that your new business is well planned out, registered properly and legally compliant.
STEP 1: Plan your business
A clear plan is essential for success as an entrepreneur. It will help you map out the specifics of your business and discover some unknowns.
What are the costs involved in opening a Photo Editing Business?
The cost of opening your photo editing business is directly commensurate with its scale and location. The most efficient way to start the business is as a photo editing business that you run from your own home. This drastically reduces overhead and ensures you can open your business for $5,000 or less. Of that money, $2,500 should go towards buying a computer to help edit photos, and $500 should go towards buying any additional photo editing software that you don't already have. The remaining $2,000 should go towards advertising, with $500 going towards a professional-looking website and the rest going towards a mixture of traditional advertising (radio, newspaper, etc.) and social media advertising.
What are the ongoing expenses for a Photo Editing Business?
If you are running your business from home, then your ongoing expenses are truly minimal. You will pay less than $100 a year to maintain your website, and you may pay postage to email CDs or DVDs of photos to customers that prefer using some form of physical media. Likewise, you may periodically pay more to run more advertisements. However, you should not have to pay any additional upkeep for hardware, software, or anything else related to your business.
Who is the target market?
While younger demographers may desire your services for things like social media profiles and yearbook photo edits, your primary demographic remains young families: they are likeliest to have the most professional photos taken and to therefore require editing services most often.
How does a Photo Editing Business make money?
At the most basic level, a photo editing business makes money by selling edited photos. Your business may choose to charge by the photo, by the album, or to offer a mixture of the two.
How much can you charge customers?
How much you charge is usually dependent on your level of experience, how extensive the edit is, your local economy, and whether they are purchasing multiple photos or not. For single-photo edits, you may charge anywhere between five and fifty dollars. One good pricing trick is to offer lower prices for simple edits (such as removing a single blemish) and higher prices for more extensive editing.
STEP 2: Form a legal entity
The most common business structure types are the sole proprietorship, partnership, limited liability company (LLC), and corporation.
Establishing a legal business entity such as an LLC or corporation protects you from being held personally liable if your Photo Editing Business is sued.
Thanks, Ryan Shirzadi.