Have you been looking for additional income streams you can have as a brand photographer? Or ways to make additional revenue in your brand photography business right now? I’m hearing a lot of photographers talk about how this season in business feels slower than in the past. That bookings aren’t rolling in as easily as before. But on top of that, summer can be a slower time for business bookings. There’s a lot of travel happening, family time, and in general businesses aren’t pushing big launches or marketing campaigns. 

If you’re feeling the pressure of a summer slump or need to increase profits and revenue right now, then here are 10 revenue producing offers that I’ve either implemented in my own brand photography business or I personally know other brand photographers who have offered this successfully. Be sure to comment and share if you’re inspired to offer one of these in your own business!

 

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10 Ways To Make More Revenue In Your Brand Photography Business

Are you ready to streamline and grow your brand photography business? This episode is brought to you by The Brand Photography Shop. You can find resources, templates and digital downloads to grow your business- like the Brand Photoshoot Creative Brief Planning Template. This planning template is perfect for outlining your photoshoot timeline, shot list and mood board so it’s shared with your clients in a professional and elevated way. Be sure to read until the very end of this post because the last idea is my personal favorite, and the easiest way to get some more income into your business right now! 

Brand and Marketing Parallel Offers to Brand Photography

If you’re a brand photographer the first way that you can bring in additional revenue is by adding parallel services to your packages—that is, offers that naturally compliment your core skill set and bring in additional income without requiring a ton of additional time, energy, and money on your part.

A parallel offer or service is a kind of service that someone who is investing in brand photography may naturally need alongside their photography. Some popular offers are social media management, Instagram grid creation, marketing consulting, web design, brand design, copywriting, just to name a few. 

I know several photographers that specialize in two types of branding services. For example, photography and website design, or photography and logo design. And if you have that skill set, then that’s an amazing way to stand out and lean into a unique value that not every photographer has.

Personally from that list of ideas for parallel services, I’ve offered Instagram grid creation and I currently offer marketing consulting for SEO and Pinterest, and I love when I’m able to serve clients in a larger capacity than just photos or video.

How Parallel Offers Can Help You Book More Brand Photoshoots

Several years ago when I first launched my Instagram grid creation package, I created that offer because I noticed that clients were investing in photos but then they were very slow to implement them online. They updated their website and would post some on social media, but they weren’t going to invest in photos consistently if they didn’t feel that they had an active need for them. I hired someone on my team that could execute that offer to my clients, and then we launched it to past clients and suddenly had an offer that not only brought in monthly recurring revenue, but also allowed us to reach out to the clients and let them know when it would be a good time to refresh their gallery and create more content together. 

While I don’t offer grid creation anymore, but I definitely think there is a need for marketing consulting, brand and web design, and even reels content creation or content planning. I think the important thing to keep in mind, is that your business can offer these services even if you’re not the one executing them. You can take on an agency-model and have someone on your team to partner with to offer additional branding and marketing services to your brand photography clients.

• Social media management
• Instagram grid creation
• Marketing consulting
• Web and Brand design
• Ads Management
• Copywriting

 

Brand Audits and Strategy Calls

On a similar note, another way that you can make more revenue as a brand photographer is by offering one off brand audits and strategy calls. I love these offers because they’re a great way to be introduced to someone that you could form a long-term relationship with. I’ve booked many brand photoshoots after sitting down and having a marketing strategy call with someone.

I have a business coach that often says that the hardest thing to do is have someone open their wallet to you the first time. Once someone has spent money with you, they are more likely to trust you and the quality of your services to do it again. Audits and strategy calls are a way to serve new clients and help them see the gaps in their brand and marketing, but it’s also a great way to serve clients who have already invested in photos with you and need some help coming up with an implementation plan. 

This offer is perfect for brand photographers who are more branding and marketing minded, and naturally have a vision for how clients could use their imagery and brand collateral. 

 

 

Mobile Editing Presets

The third thing you could sell to add additional revenue to your brand photography business are mobile editing presets. Mobile presets can be used on Lightroom Mobile to easily color correct and edit photos taken on a phone. I created and started selling editing presets in 2020, and my brand photography clients absolutely love them! I sell my presets for $50 and have found that it’s a great way for my clients to blend their iPhone pictures with the brand photos we’ve taken together when they post on Instagram. 

How to Sell Mobile Editing Presets As a Photographer

This is a digital product so there is a very low cost to maintain and I don’t have to physically ship anything to buyers. If you haven’t created and sold a digital product yet, it would be helpful to know that you’ll want to use a platform like Shopify or Send Owl to collect payments and deliver the preset files automatically. I pay a small monthly fee to upkeep my digital shop, but if you don’t want to sell products through a digital store, you could even sell and deliver presets manually using your CRM for an invoice and delivering with Dropbox or Google Drive. 

Mobile editing presets are perfect for brand photographers to sell because it really does allow a seamless implementation of professional and non-professional photos on social media. When I send my pricing guide to leads that are inquiring about brand photography, I have a blurb about my editing presets on the very last page. I have had multiple leads that weren’t ready to book a photoshoot yet because of the investment, but they did go ahead and buy my presets which is still a huge win to me because I know their goal is to invest in professional photography down the line. Presets are a great entry-level offer and are also perfect for up-selling to past clients who may not be ready for another round of photos yet.

 

Themed or Industry Specific Stock Photos Bundles

If you’re a photographer you could sell stock photos online for business owners to use for social media, their website and more. You can make your stock photos stand out by creating and selling them in bundles by industry or by theme. I have yet to do this  myself, but for years I’ve wanted to create a bundle of stock photos for women in real estate. That is a niche that I work with a lot, so I thought it would be perfect to create content just for realtors that I could sell to that niche. 

If you aren’t inspired by the idea of creating stock content for specific industries, then I also love the idea of selling images by theme. So you could create summer stock photos and bundle them together as a summer theme (images by the pool, drinks and beach totes, sandals and a tote bag, etc.). Or around the holidays you could create stock imagery that focuses on Black Friday, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years, and bundle them all into 1 holiday pack of stock photos. 

This honestly is still on my list, and I think bundled stock photos or videos will still be something I offer and sell down the line. So you and I may be creating them together at the same time, and I would love it if this plants that seed for you and inspires you to launch a stock shop for your past clients to purchase from!

 

Professional Print Services for Business Owners

The 5th offer you could add to your brand photography business to generate more revenue is to offer print products and services to your business clients. I’ve mentioned before how traditional IPS doesn’t necessarily work for brand photography because the clients need access to digital images and not printed albums or wall art, but the exception here is if you offer printed marketing collateral. Business cards, flyers, postcard mailers, and wall art for an office or restaurant could be a great way to make IPS work for brand photography. 

My favorite option for prints would be to offer printed photos for a brand’s place of business. A lot of medical professionals have wall art and canvases, as well as hotels and restaurants.

 

Brand Videography Add-On

An additional revenue stream for brand photographers is to offer videography services to their clients as an add-on to the photoshoot package. I’ve talked about offering videography in past episodes, so this idea isn’t new, but it’s worth a reminder if you’ve been contemplating adding it as a service. 

I absolutely love offering video add-ons to my clients, and I know it’s given me the upper hand when it comes to selling my services to leads that are inquiring with multiple photographers. 

Videography is truly the perfect upsell for photographers, and it’s not as hard to learn if you’re familiar with camera settings, composition and storytelling. 

Video add on can be as simple as providing professional b-roll clips for your clients to use on social media, but it can be as in depth as filming interview videos, client testimonials, about me videos for a website and more! 

 

Photography Studio or Hourly Rental Space for Photoshoots

The next way to add an additional income stream to your brand photography business is to leverage a photography studio or rental space. Personally I have not done this, but I do have friends who have studios they rent out, and it’s a great income stream if you have a studio space already. 

A photography studio can bring in additional revenue because you can rent it out by the hour to other photographers and their clients. Business owners also search for event spaces and rentals for networking and corporate events, so there’s just a lot of opportunity to market the space and get a return on your investment. 

If you’re like me and don’t have a studio space, then another idea is to list your office or home on photoshoot rental sites. I know this won’t be for everyone, but brand photography clients always need the right location for their photoshoots. An aesthetic space can be rented out by the hour and used for headshots, product photos and brand photos. 

My favorite websites for hourly rentals are Avvay, Home Studio List and Peerspace. I’ve had many clients “borrow” their friend’s homes for photoshoots, so I definitely think a pretty home-office or living room can go a long way for a photoshoot. 

 

Brand Photography Membership or Online Memberships for Business Owners

Another thing you can offer to your brand photography clients to generate more revenue in your business is a monthly membership. Memberships are huge right now in the online business community, and your membership could be online or be a recurring photography service in person.

Let’s talk first about online memberships. They are normally a lower monthly investment and offer some kind of education, resource, coaching, community or deliverable. I’m in a couple of monthly memberships right now that are all under $99 per month and offer some aspect of community (video calls, member to member hotseats, etc.) as well as education from the business owner. 

As a brand photographer, your monthly membership group could offer monthly marketing strategy, monthly content ideas, monthly social posts. It could be a place where you create a content calendar for your members with fill in the blank captions or ideas for DIY reels. There are so many angles that you could try with a membership. You could also offer a marketing membership where each month you teach a workshop on a different marketing topic or you can invite guest speakers to teach in your group on a different topic every month. 

Monthly memberships can be a great way to stay top of mind with your clients and it’s also an amazing way to serve them on a recurring basis. 

Aside from an online membership, as a brand photographer, you can also offer monthly photoshoot packages. I love retainer packages and have talked about them in past episodes. I have several clients that I work with on a recurring basis throughout the year, and if you have a client that tends to need fresh content more consistently, then a monthly or quarterly photoshoot membership could be perfect! 

 

Upsell Brand Photography Galleries

My last 2 ideas for how to up your revenue are not new services or products that you need to develop to offer, instead they are ways you can make more money right now through brand photography by tapping into your current offerings and serving your current customers.

The first idea is to upsell your galleries if you limit the amount of pictures that are delivered or provided to the client. Normally you would try to make the sale right after the photoshoot, but I would encourage you to reach back out to old clients and offer them the opportunity to purchase more images individually, or upsell to the whole gallery of images. About every 6 months I will send out an email to my clients with limited-gallery packages and I offer them the opportunity to upgrade for more pictures. 

I love doing this 6 months down the line because at that point the client is probably feeling the need for some fresh imagery. This typically opens the door for them to either book another photoshoot for fresh content, or they opt to buy a few additional images from their old gallery. 

 

Resell to Your Past Brand Photography Clients

The other way you can tap into your current network of clients, and also my last idea for ways to generate more revenue in your brand photography business, is by reselling to your past clients. This may feel like a no-brainer, but how often do we make ourselves busy by marketing and trying to generate new leads when we have a database of paying clients who know our skill set and trust our results? You can always pitch your services to past clients.

Why You Should Pitch Your Brand Photography Services For More Sales

The easiest person to make a sale to is someone who has already worked with you and knows, likes and trusts you. You’ve already done the heavy lifting of selling them on your product or services once, so now they just need to be reminded when it may be a good time to partner with you again. 

Last month four of my photoshoots were for repeat clients. Two of those were booked because I sent an email to my past clients. For this month I just landed a $10,000 project that is also with a repeat client that I worked with in 2022 and they are ready for new photos. 

Don’t underestimate the power of staying connected with the businesses you’ve already served well, of emailing them, and periodically checking in to see if there are any new offers or launches in their business that they need photos for. 

When work is slow and my bookings are down, I love sending a marketing email to my list of past clients and reminding them of how we can work together. If you don’t have an email list yet, then you can easily pitch your past clients by sending personalized DMs or 1:1 emails directly to your past favorite customers. 

Out of this list of 10 ways to make additional revenue in your brand photography business, this idea of engaging with past clients is the easiest way to boost your revenue ASAP.

 

Are you ready to streamline and grow your brand photography business?

This content is brought to you by The Brand Photography Shop. You can find free and paid resources, templates and digital downloads to grow your business. These are all created by a brand photographer for brand photographers. Go to the shop to learn more today!

To recap, the 10 additional revenue streams you can add to your brand photography business are:

• Parallel Offers for branding and marketing
• Brand audits and strategy calls
• Mobile editing presets
• Industry specific or themed stock photos
• Print services (business cards, flyers, restaurant prints)
• Videography add ons 
• Studio rentals
• Memberships for clients
• Upsell galleries if limited downloads are provided
• Resell to your past client (pitch them)

And if you’re newer to brand photography and you’re still working on streamlining your systems and figuring out how to create an exceptional brand photography client experience that keeps your clients coming back for more, then you can find my favorite brand photography resources, templates, and digital downloads at The Brand Photography Shop.

 

CHECK THIS OUT NEXT!

• Struggling to generate leads in your brand photography business? Read this blog post for 8 marketing strategies you can implement to book more paying clients!
• Looking for brand photography email templates, a brand photography client workflow or photoshoot planning questionnaire? Purchase The Brand Photography Starter Kit for all the resources and tools I use to run my own brand photography business!
• Listen to the Become A Brand Photography podcast for actionable tips and resources for photographers growing their business. You don’t have to be a brand photographer to tune in, but if you have been thinking about pivoting into branding, or if you’re already established as a brand photographer and you just want to see what conversations are happening in the industry, then you’re in the right place.