This month I’m doing a series on Brand Photography for other Photographers looking to get started in Brand Photography or to add it to what they already offer their clients.

When I start something new, I LOVE looking at stats!!! I’m still a tried and true gut follower…my intuition is always loud and clear and I’ve learned to trust it…but I’ve also always been interested to see if I can find the data to back up what I know to be true. This harkens back to my days in education. I could always tell if a student needed extra help in an area of learning, but of course I had to have supporting data. So while I learned to trust my gut, I also learned to start searching for the measurable data.

I’ve always loved working with female entrepreneurs throughout the years. Brand photography isn’t something that I just started in the last two years, but throughout the pandemic, I watched the mass exodus of women leaving the workforce. Many had to so they could help with online learning and step in when their childcare options began to close down. Some were blessed with flexible work environments, but not everyone could say that.

What I did see were lots of women (and men too) starting businesses. The pandemic forced their hand. They may have been forced to change the way they did life and work…or maybe they took the opportunity to make a change because the world felt so crazy. Since then, I’ve watched tons of people I know start side hustles or open their own businesses. And while some businesses didn’t survive the pandemic, others were launched during it.

Let’s look at some of the data, According to smallbusinessblog.net,

“In the first quarter of 2022 alone, over 1.4 million new businesses were created.

There are currently over 30 million small businesses in the United States, which includes new businesses started in 2021 & 2022.

Gen X-ers have the most new businesses at 46.5%.

Baby boomers have the second most new businesses at 45.5%. Surprisingly Millennials only have 7% of the market share of new businesses.”

HELLLOOOOO….whoa….that’s a lot of business!!!!

And what else I found interesting (which I already knew) was that “small business owners with an online presence and solid marketing strategies are apt to generate more revenue, resulting in higher income. “

Yep!!! We knew that would be found in the data didn’t we?!?!?

So what can we do as photographers with this data and our own intuition and skill set?

We lean into serving a market that really needs our help. As photographers, WE ARE SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS!!! We understand how important an online presence is and how important it is to be authentic and connect with people in your marketing and messaging.

We also know how hard it is if you don’t have amazing images to match that written content…oh wait, maybe we don’t realize it because WE have beautiful images at our fingertips every time we go to post. But that’s only because that’s what we do for a living.

So imagine if all small business owners also had libraries of images showing their work and what they do for their clients and how fun it is to work with them and how they work so hard to serve their clientele…..and guess what, as a brand photographer we get to do just that.

We get to help small business owners create a branded online presence and give them images for those solid marketing strategies, therefore helping them generate more revenue that results in higher incomes!!

And while yes, some small business owners can take their own images…what we do is like giving them the fast track to website and content creation. They don’t have to worry about sizes of files and high resolution images and to think about how they will need portrait AND landscape images for their websites. Or to even look ahead into the next two quarters of business and imagine what images they might need for that launch they are wanting to do. We take all of that off their shoulders and check that box on their business to-do list.

If you are wanting to get started in Brand Photography, hop onto my email list (join here) where I’ll be sharing three easy ways to get started!!! Also, check back here on the blog next week when I’ll be sharing what to make sure you are offering your branding clients. And continue to follow along for this month’s Brand Photography Series: The Trends.

Have a great week friend,

Corry