Photography Business Tools: 5 Easy Things to Thrive Your Business

We are all on the same page when it comes to wanting more business. There's no magic bullet for instantly growing your photography business. But there are tools that can help!

In this blog post, we break down the top ones and tell you how they work best when used together with a sprinkle of strategy and our community's insider tips to make them work even better.

Professional Photography

Photography as a profession is pretty broad. You can specialize in almost anything really depending on your interests, skills and what you already own that might help the business succeed.

Sometimes it's just a matter of looking at your daily life through photographer glasses to see where there are photo opportunities everywhere!

There are three main types of photography businesses: event, commercial & portrait photographers.

If you're great at capturing life's special moments event photographers are the best fit. Or if your business is all about selling products to customers, commercial photography can be a lucrative career for you too!

Portrait Photographers capture people in their finest form with studio or outdoor portraits. They're often the ones you see on every street corner and inside shopping malls.

Photography Business Tools

There's a lot of tools and apps that you can use to help grow your business. These are the most popular ones:

1. Social Media

You won't get far without social media in today’s world! Social media is by far the best way to reach new customers at such an affordable cost. But it also requires some planning.

• Instagram Stories

This new feature allows you to share 24-hour long stories on your Instagram account. Viewers get a notification when you start posting one and can watch all the way until it expires in 24 hours!

This is great for showing behind-the scenes of an event or sharing special moments with fans. The downside? Your audience gets notified if they follow you and it's a 24-hour video without the ability to save for later.

• Pinterest

With over 100 million monthly active users, Pinterest is an increasingly popular platform and one that also makes great use of visuals.

This social network allows business owners like us to create boards with our own pins which can include anything from photos, quotes or infographics.

• Facebook

Facebook is the biggest social network in the world and it has over two million active businesses who use their service to interact with customers.

Facebook ads can be a great way to get your business out there for potential customers that haven't heard of you before!

2. Task Management

Tasks are the building blocks of every project. Whether you're working on a photography shoot or writing content for your blog, task management is an essential tool that keeps everything in order and helps you get things done no matter how busy life gets!

The most popular ones include Trello , Basecamp & Slack . They all serve different purposes and can make life a whole lot easier. Here's how they work:

• Trello

A project management tool that allows you to create lists of tasks, upload files, collaborate with others on projects & track progress within the app itself.

Trello is incredibly flexible and works great for teams or individuals who need to keep track of a lot of different projects.

• Basecamp

This is great for team collaboration and communication, especially while working on an ongoing project together. Basecamp allows you to send messages within the app itself that will get delivered via email too so your whole team stays up to date!

You can upload images & files as well which makes it a pretty convenient tool to have in your photographer business.

• Slack

This is another popular app that works well for teams and individuals who want a simple way to stay connected with friends, family or coworkers in real time!

Slack allows you to upload files too so it's great when you need an easy file sharing solution which means no more emailing back & forth.

There's also a lot of different integrations available to make your life easier too like Dropbox, Google Drive and Twitter!

3. Project Online Portfolio

If you're looking for a great way to showcase your work, check out the online options. These tool helps you build an online portfolio in minutes where visitors can browse through different galleries of projects.

Not only does the platform help promote your photography services but it also makes it easy for customers to find what they need!

Portfolio is an essential piece of your branding strategy. Your portfolio should be a reflection of who you are as an individual and what makes you stand out from the competition! Build it with the goal of becoming the photographer you've always wanted to be.

After creating it, be sure to share your portfolio everywhere you can. You want people to find it so include a link in your email signature, on social media accounts like Instagram & Facebook and anywhere else people might come across it when searching for photography services online!

4. Grow Your Client List with Lead Management Tools

It can be difficult to manage your time when you have a lot of leads coming in at once. That's why lead management tools are so helpful because they help us stay organized and make sure we never miss any opportunities!

Whether it’s tracking which clients submitted their inquiries through an online form or getting notifications for new messages, email & phone calls, you can manage everything from one convenient place.

There are many tools to choose from but the most popular ones include Leadsius, Assistly & Freshsales.

They all offer a unique set of benefits that makes it easy for users to sort through leads and follow up accordingly. The tools offer different benefits like:

• Leadsius

A platform that helps you easily sort through leads and stay organized with the help of a dedicated account manager.

You can set up different forms to use on your website or create ads in minutes so it's quick & easy to get started!

It also allows users to follow-up automatically after specific time intervals so you can keep leads moving forward & turn them into opportunities.

• Assistly

This is great for team collaboration and communication, especially while working on an ongoing project together.

Assistly allows you to send messages within the app itself that will get delivered via email too so your whole team stays up to date!

You can upload images & files as well which makes it a pretty convenient tool to have in your photographer business.

• Freshsales

This is another popular app that works well for teams and individuals who want a simple way to stay connected with friends, family or coworkers in real time!

Freshsales allows you to upload files too so it's great when you need an easy file sharing solution which means no more emailing back & forth.

There's also a lot of different integrations available to make your life easier too like Dropbox, Google Drive and Twitter!

5. Email Automation

If you're looking for a fast and easy way to automate your business, check out email automation. This is one of the easiest ways to automatically follow up with leads that come into your inbox because it sends them information they want (like more info on pricing or another session date).

It's like getting personal assistant help without paying someone! By including a project-type field in your contact form, you can easily create follow up emails by project type.

For example, if you offer services for weddings and corporate events, you’ll need to create two separate emails.

Include examples of weddings that clients have inquired about when working with wedding inquiries and corporate event photos to send to corporate inquiry leads.

Customizing the response is the best way to stand out and build a relationship with your new leads. It also helps you figure out the best time of day for them so that they’re not overwhelmed by an influx of emails!

Make Use of the Tools to Achieve your goal

There are so many tools out there that it can be difficult to choose just one. That’s why we recommend starting off with a free trial and checking what the best fit is for your business!

For example, Assistly works well when you need help managing multiple inquiries while Freshsales has lots of integrations which makes sharing information easy.

Lead management tools are a great way to help you grow your business and track your leads, so be sure to check them out today!

Conclusion

A Professional Success is  more than just taking photos. You also need to make sure you’re using the right tools for your business so that you can get ahead of the competition, increase efficiency & help grow your brand!

A tool is just an enabler, but it takes a lot of work to get the most out of each one. Stay top of mind with your leads using email automation, follow up with the right messages and make use of tools to help you get more bookings!