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5 Tips To Build A Sustainable Wedding Photography Business

1. Make A Concrete Plan

Like any other business, a wedding photography business needs a solid plan or a sustainable business model to get off the ground and thrive. This can include your marketing plan, the services you will offer, how you are going to manage different tasks, etc. Now, while this plan is going to help you at the beginning of your career, it can also guide you in the later stages. The best part is that you can also modify or improve it later. As time progresses and there are changes in the industry, you can always come back to tweak your plan to ensure your business’s longevity. Before you know it, your TDLs will get longer and in the middle of all the photo shoots and pre and post-production work, there might be times where you lose the future vision of your business. This concrete plan can help you out when you feel like you or your business is not moving forward. 

2. Build Your Network

Networking is a crucial part of setting up and running a sustainable business. It’s going to help you in the beginning and in the later stages of your business too. It might take some time to feel comfortable being out there, but you also have to remember that networking doesn’t just mean building business contacts. While that and getting more referrals is the primary goal, you might even end up making some lifelong friends while networking with other vendors and even wedding photographers. So even if it feels a little uncomfortable in the beginning, you will eventually get used to seeing familiar faces at different networking events. 

Related Read: Why Networking With Wedding Vendors Is Important For Business

3. Hone And Upgrade

Nothing can replace your creative skills. That’s what’s going to attract people to your brand. So it’s important to keep learning, developing, and enhancing your wedding photography skills. The industry is constantly changing, and even if you have a very specific target audience who like a specific style of wedding photography, it can’t hurt to try new things that are currently trending. You might not have had drone photography in your list of services when you started out, but as you progress in your journey as a wedding photographer, learning the ins and outs of drone photography and adding it to your services might enable you to attract a different kind of audience too. Whether it’s your creative or communication skills, honing and upgrading your skills is a part of your personal and professional development, so try to make it a part of your sustainable business strategy.

Suggested Read: A Beginner’s Guide To Wedding Photography Basics

4. Provide Incomparable Customer Service

Excellent customer service is one of the sustainable business practices that can help your business to stand out from the rest. It’s the backbone of your business and it’s something that helps build your brand reputation too. You have probably experienced bad customer service at least once or twice (or more times) in your life before, and let’s be honest, there’s no excuse for it. A bad customer experience with your brand means that they are very likely to pass on the same bad review to their friends, family members, and possibly leave the same on your website or anywhere else on the internet where other potential clients could also read it. And no matter how good your social media or portfolio looks, that’s going to be a big red flag for potential clients. To build a sustainable business, you must ensure that you keep coming up with ways to make your customers happy; to give them the best experience – from the beginning to the end. 

Related Read: How To Ensure Excellent Customer Service: A Wedding Photographer’s Guide

5. Outsource What You Can

While many wedding photographers are nervous to let go of that control, to build a sustainable business for the long run, it’s important that you consider outsourcing tasks that don’t require your constant attention. For example, if editing takes a large chunk of your time on a daily basis, time that you could otherwise spend with your clients, then that’s something you could consider outsourcing to experts like us. Similarly, blogs are also an important part of your website and wedding photography business, but if you constantly find yourself pushing that task to the end and find writing daunting, then you could consider outsourcing blogging to professionals like Fotoskribe. Just like these two, there are other tasks that you could outsource to experts to not only lighten your workload, but also try to find that work-life balance and spend time doing the things you love most.

Related Read: Top Reasons You Need To Outsource Photography Editing

Sustainable Businesses Take Time To Set Up

Building a sustainable business takes time and a lot of hard work. And it’s crucial to set the foundation right from the beginning. Starting with creating a solid plan that can guide you toward your goals. There are so many tasks that you have to handle as a wedding photographer on a daily basis that you sometimes might forget the big picture, and when that happens, this plan can come to your rescue. Therefore, modify and tweak it according to your needs. Networking is going to benefit you – as a beginner and as someone who has clocked in years in the industry as well. It’s a never-ending task on your TDL that brings both professional and personal benefits. 

While you might have built a strong clientele, try getting out of your comfort zone from time to time. Learn new things, acquire new skills. Focus on your customer service – always. No matter who your client is, ensure that they get the best experience with your brand. And lastly, building a sustainable business means that you need to stay away from burning out, which is why you could consider outsourcing tasks that don’t need your input. Once you set up effective systems and make a list of goals that you want to focus on each year, it’s relatively easier to build a successful business for the long run.

Further Read: How To Use Google My Business For Your Photography Business

At ShootDotEdit, we are passionate about helping you grow as a wedding photographer. We know how precious time is for you and to lighten your post-production workload, we take editing off your plate with our professional photo editing services. To learn more about how we can help, check out our pricing plans.