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If you’re wondering how you can continue to grow your business, even in a slow photography off-season, this blog post is for you! Today we’re breaking down our Top-10 list of everything you can not just survive, but thrive during a season where it’s too cold or too hot or too whatever for you to get out and shoot.

 

Now, if you’re reading this blog the week it comes out, it’s the middle of February. And where we live in the mid-Atlantic in the US, this is the slow season for weddings and portrait sessions, since it’s cold outside and most people don’t want to have their family or their engagement session or the wedding when it’s all cold and grey outside.

 

But that doesn’t mean that we, as full-time photographers, just take 4 months off. For us, winter is the time to do all the things that you have to do to run a business, but maybe fall by the wayside during our busy shooting season. So this week, we’re pausing our current series, all about shooting in manual mode on your DSLR or mirrorless camera, so we can share 10 things you can do to keep growing your portrait or wedding photography business, even during a slow booking season. So let’s jump in!

 

 

1. Review Last Year

The first way you can spend some of your winter down-time is to look back over the prior year. And by the way, if you live in a really warm place where winter is a great time to shoot, but summers are dead because it’s blazing hot, then maybe the “year” that you review can be from July to the following June.

 

The important thing is to spend some serious time looking back on the prior year, in all areas of your business. You want to look at your photography work and how it grew, as well as your business numbers and how your finances did. And if you have time to dive deeper, you can analyze your social media presence,  your marketing avenues and lead sources, how you spent your time as a photographer, the effectiveness of your website, and so much more.

 

Then, once you’ve looked back, use all of this information to look forward, setting goals for the coming year. And by the way, if you need help looking back on last year and setting goals for the coming year, check out our blog/video from late last year all about reflecting and setting goals for the coming year.

 

 

2. Update Your Pricing

Speaking of looking back and using that information to set future goals… one of the most important areas of your business to do this in is your pricing! Pricing your portrait or wedding photography services incorrectly almost always leads to one of two things: barely booking ANY jobs and stunting the growth of your business, or booking WAY too much and burning yourself out.

 

You guys hopefully know by now that we are all about helping photographers build businesses that are both profitable AND sustainable, which is impossible if you’ve priced your products and services incorrectly. So if you feel like now is the time to invest some time and energy into improving your pricing, we have a workshop ALL about helping photographers find the perfect price point for them, based on their skill level, the market they shoot in, and how busy they want to be.

 

If you think that you might need some help in nailing your perfect price point, use that link above to learn more about our pricing workshop. But either way, the start of a new year is a great time to take a long, hard look at your pricing structure!

 

 

3. Update Your Portfolio and Website

Our third task for your photography off-season is updating your portfolio and website with your best and newest imagery. Way back in Part 1 of our series “10 Free Marketing Tactics for Photographers”, we taught you guys about why an up-to-date portfolio is SO important, and how you are ONLY as valuable to potential clients as your website and portfolio show that you are.

 

So if your website and your portfolio haven’t been updated in 6 months or a year, then potential clients will see you as the photographer you were 6 months or a year ago. And we’d bet that you’ve grown a LOT since then!

 

And of course, if you don’t have a basic portfolio or a beginner website yet, build your first one! Platforms like Pixieset make hosting galleries and even building beginner websites incredibly easy, and super affordable!

 

 

4. Grow Your Arsenal of Gear

The next way you can spend some time during this slow season is by expanding your collection of lenses and flashes, or by upgrading your camera body. Or at the very least, you can spend some time doing the research, so as soon as money starts coming in from this upcoming year’s weddings or portrait sessions, you can pull the trigger on some new gear!

 

Of course, what gear makes sense for you is going to depend a lot on what you’re shooting. What a natural light portrait photographer needs to grow their arsenal is pretty simple, but a wedding photographer needs a whole arsenal of equipment at their disposal to be ready for every situation.

 

If you need some guidance on what you should consider as your next lens or what camera body you should upgrade, our very first video series was ALL about what we think are the “Camera Bag Essentials” for any portrait or wedding photography!

 

On the other hand, if you’re just getting ready to buy your first camera, or move from your starter camera to your first professional camera, we have a video breaking down DSLR vs. mirrorless, crop-sensor vs. full-frame, and even Nikon vs. Canon vs. Sony and how much you might expect to spend on any of these cameras.

 

 

5. Begin Marketing for this Year

Our 5th tip for spending the slow season is to begin working on your marketing strategy for the coming year. Just because your clients aren’t interested in shooting now doesn’t mean they aren’t think about when they might want to scheduling that family or engagement session!

 

If you already have a handful of marketing avenues that you pursue — ways that you invest your time and energy into drumming up new leads — then the off-season is a great time to press into those and hopefully turn up the volume on leads coming into your website or your inbox. And if you don’t have any ideas for how to drum up new leads, then check out our  “10 Free Marketing Tactics for Photographers” series that we mentioned earlier in this post!

 

We covered everything from networking with other photographers to direct outreach methods, and even racking up reviews from past clients. So at least one of those methods is bound to be a good fit for you and your business!

 

 

6. Improve your Workflow

Another way you can spend some of your down time is by improving your workflow. If you don’t have a consistent client experience that you bring your clients through each and every time, you’re probably creating a lot of extra work for yourself.

 

And while we really love using a client relationship management or “CRM” software like Honeybook, it’s possible to have a client workflow without paying for fancy software. It may be as simple as writing down, step-by-step, what you want your clients to experience with you, then writing up some templates for any part of that process that is repeatable, like introductory emails, or instructions on how to fill out an invoice.

 

And while we don’t have any resources on workflow just yet, it is on our list of workshops that we plan to host at some point in 2023. But for now, just dive in and start standardizing that client experience!

 

 

7. Fill Your Feeds

Now, if you’re like some of our photography students who don’t like interacting with social media and posting their work, and it easily falls by the wayside in the busy season, the slower times are great for catching up.

 

Post some of your photography to social media from earlier this year that you never posted, or re-post images from old sessions to keep your followers engaged through the winter months. If you do this right, by the time the spring comes and the weather is nice again, people will be messaging you left and right ready to have their photos taken!

 

And if you need more advice on starting your social media pages, then this video is the best place to start. But if you already have a FB Page and an Instagram for your photography business, then this video will help you turn more of your personal network into photography clients!

 

 

8. Practice, Practice, Practice!

If it’s your photography or your confidence as a photographer or directing clients that you feel like needs to keep growing during this down season, then sometimes the very best thing you can do is just get out there and shoot.

 

We posted a video last year about fighting imposter syndrome and growing your confidence as a photographer, but in that video, we also touched on ALLLL the benefits you get from getting out and practicing your photography, especially for those who are new to their photography business. Although, if you’re BRAND new to photography and still learning to shoot in manual, then our series on shooting in manual is probably the best place to start.

 

And of course, these practice shoots don’t need to be with paying clients. Beg your friends and your family and people you know from work or from school or from church or your book club. Anything to get subjects in front of our camera so you can keep growing as a photographer!

 

 

9. Write Blogs for Your Ideal Client

If you have a somewhat established business, but want to continue growing your client base without spending a ton of money on paid marketing, SEO is a great way to do this! And while we don’t claim to be SEO experts, we do know that writing blogs that appeal to our ideal client has helped us book jobs and stay in front of our clients, and has lead to tens of thousands of dollars in weddings and portrait bookings!

 

The key to this is just understanding who your ideal client is, and what they’re interested in. We spoke a ton about this in a video called “4 Reasons to Start a Photography Blog Today“, so check that out if you’re interested!

 

 

10. Make your Business Official

And finally, our 10th way that you can effectively use your off season is to make your business official, if you haven’t already. If you live in the US and your photography business made or will likely make more than $600 in a single calendar year, then you need to establish your business officially with both state and federal governments. And in some places, you may need to file for business license with your city or town as well.

 

So if you fit in the category of “Oh crap I’ve made more than $600 and don’t want to be accidentally committing tax fraud”, don’t worry. We hosted a 2-hour workshop last summer where we covered every single step that a new photography business would need to take in order to become both legal AND legit in the eyes of your local, state, and federal government. So if you’re interested in learning more about that, check out this video here  (0:00 link).

 

 

Want More?

 

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