Which strategies are you using to keep your business afloat? Let's share and discuss so everybody can learn :)

I will admit, my business failed. But it was a fun 5 years and I have great memories. My specialty was creative portraits, custom black and whites. I did the photography, developing and printing. I heard old fashioned black and white is coming back. I might start up again.

@katjafeldmeier

11 ай бұрын

Thank you for sharing this. Yes, film is having a come back for sure.

Helpful but not easy. Marketing is by far the most challenging.

@katjafeldmeier

11 ай бұрын

True. Do you have any specific questions regarding marketing? Might make a video on that in the future…

I like to do photography photography.

I think this percentage can vary a lot depending on the country, but I still believe it's high in all of them. I'm from Brazil, and I have the feeling that it's more difficult here, mainly because of the costs to start a career, even when using entry-level equipment

@katjafeldmeier

11 ай бұрын

yeah, I can believe that it’s much harder in some countries. Thank you for sharing.

@velobecker

10 ай бұрын

not just that. there's a lot of competition in capital cities (Porto Alegre here).

Such a great content, thank you!

Hi Katja, thank you so much for sharing with us all these useful and interesting tips that you have learned so far. May I ask you, what do you consider "too many niche"? It's also a bit hard to not niche right away since it's kinda tricky to live fully from Photography at the beginning. If a client approach me asking me if I can shoot his weeding and I tell him "No, sorry, I only do fashion photography" I would be losing the opportunity to eat that month (not even so methaphorically) but I completely understand and I agree with your point, I heard this suggestion from many other photographers and videographers. I'm a videographer as well, mostly videographer I would say, so I'm used to work withing a large range of products/services. So far I only have found interests on: Portraits and Architecture, I noticed I have not many other photos beside these two. Would expertise in these two genres of photography "too much" or should I truly choose just one out of these two? I hope I asked my question properly.

@katjafeldmeier

9 ай бұрын

Hi Alessandro, Thank you for asking your question. I wanna try to answer it and explain it as best as I can and I understand your struggle because I have it too :) I wanna give you an analogy. Let’s say, you want to open a physical store to sell vacuum cleaner robots. Because you love vacuum cleaner robots, know a lot about them and you also know that people are willing to pay good money for such a robot and you can make a profit on every sale. This is your niche. If now somebody asks you if you also want to sell shoes in your store, of course you could say yes, but you would spend (your time on it, probably make less money because the margins for shoes are smaller, you would need to learn about shoes, you would confuse your customers who think you are a vacuum robot expert and not a shoe expert etc. etc. In the end, yes you can also make a little money with shoes but actually it harms your actual business in many ways which is marketing and selling robot vacuum cleaners and only dealing with customers who want to buy robot vacuum cleaners. Ok, now think about it the same way for your photography business. You are opening a store. What product do you want to sell? What customer do you want to deal with? Which product is truly profitable? Get very very clear on this. Once you have it clear, your marketing (Instagram, portfolio, website) should be talking only about this product, because that way you will attract the right customer, who is looking for what you are offering. Now, picking a profitable niche is crucial in this. Because you need to eat every month. Fashion is not profitable unless you are booked to shoot a big campaign for Gucci. Look at niches where other photographers are making good money like weddings, like business / corporate photography like product photography. Ok, now back to my analogy. Once you have your super successful vacuum robot business up and running, you can open another store selling I don’t know shoes if you really want to.

@katjafeldmeier

9 ай бұрын

ps: I think architecture could be a great niche to focus on first. Imagine you pick that niche. Now think of potential clients in your city or your area. Architecture offices, realtors, developers etc. Look up photographers who do this kind of work. Make a portfolio and start pitching to these clients. Picking one thing will focus your efforts, clarify your strategy and make the whole thing easier for you.

@alessandrocwilliam

9 ай бұрын

@katjafeldmeier Hi Katja, first of all I want to thank you for having replied to my message and gave me such a deep and detailed answer. In so many years commenting on KZread I think I never had such a nice, helpful and detailed reply to one comment of mine as you did. I was watching your video on 10 genres/paths of photography to choose from and I was just finishing your "6 unexpected things I learned as a Photographer" videos when I received your reply. If anybody has the same questions as I do, I would highly recommend him to watch those two videos of yours too, also because I think you give a similar deep answer to my same question. Your analogy/example of the vacuum, robots store it's a perfect one to be honest and it's easy to understand. My only problem with starting to get into the architectural niche is that I'm currently living in a small town and my nearest city, (although is not ugly) it doesn't have so much to offer architecturally speaking as bigger cities. Ironically enough, I bought yesterday a 13mm (20mm equivalent on my APS-C sensor) lens for architecture and real state-indoors opportunities I might get ahead. If my plans of moving to Barcelona (Spain) this next year come true, then I'll definitely enlarge my architectural niche for sure. I might need to focus on portraits for now because of my location and also because I'm plenty of photos I could use into my portfolio from those, as you suggested in one of your videos "show also the photos you took/like to take, not only your business/client's photos". Hoping I'm not disturbing you, I have other two questions which I would love to know your opinion about: I'm redesigning my website currently. Is having my portofolio divided in two sections (videos work / photography) enough or would you recommend me to completely separate these worlds? Even having another website with a different branding/name. It's kinda hard to stick at only one genre of videography for example. And going back to the photography world: If I start to take portraits now and once I feel confident, with enough time and interest to also open my portoflio for architecture projects: Should I simply create another division on my website's portfolio or should I create another website and double my social media accounts to accomodate each one to that genre of client you tell us about to focus? I'm simply in the right moment to build my website and portoflio from scratch in the right way, that's why I don't want to mess up! Grazie mille Katja! (Thank you very much!)

I just made some business cards to help me gain some clients.

This was so helpful thank you!✨

@sergiofranco-to5kg

11 ай бұрын

I follow you too 😊

@katjafeldmeier

11 ай бұрын

I’m glad, you found it helpful 🤗thanks a lot

@ArchiesLens

11 ай бұрын

@@katjafeldmeier 🫶🏾🫶🏾

@ArchiesLens

11 ай бұрын

@@sergiofranco-to5kg amazing! thank you for the support 😄✨

Thanks for all the business tips… personally, my niche is the exhibition and selling prints… I took a small camera with me when I Go out dancing and shoot while dancing… that came out to be a profitable thing for me… sold tons of prints

@katjafeldmeier

11 ай бұрын

That’s so great! I’m also slowly moving in that direction. Unfortunately very very few art photographers I know can solely live from exhibitions and print sales. Most have to offer some kind of shoots, keep another day job or do teaching. Are you able to completely live of your art?

@MIZRAIM1906

11 ай бұрын

@@katjafeldmeier I do live from my art although it doesn’t provide much financial income, I would die if I stopped 😏😃

I'm also having issues with my niche. I love both portrait, nature and landscape photography. I have a website for my portrait work but how do I incorporate the others? Do I need to make a whole different website for nature? Are you mentoring? I need some help. Lol

@katjafeldmeier

10 ай бұрын

Yeah, it can be tricky. I do offer mentoring. Best to drop me a dm on my Instagram @katjafeldmeier You can include a link to your website / portfolio and I will have a look.

@Apollo_Of_The_Arts

10 ай бұрын

@katjafeldmeier you are truly amazing! Thank you for taking the time to reply to my comment and thank you again for wanting to help me.

great video! could you provide some examples for profitable niches?

@katjafeldmeier

11 ай бұрын

Yes, I’m publishing a video with lots of examples tomorrow

@taddygirl11

11 ай бұрын

@@katjafeldmeier nice, can't wait! :)

@Apollo_Of_The_Arts

10 ай бұрын

Definitely weddings

50% is business and 50% is photography, from which not even 50% again is making the actuall photos. So less than 25% of your photography business is making photos.

@katjafeldmeier

11 ай бұрын

Very true.