Last updated on August 18th, 2021 at 12:44 pm
As a service provider, it might seem like there are not a lot of businesses that can benefit from serving the B2B world as easily as they sell to B2C customers. Indeed, it can be hard to find any product or service that would suit the needs of both sectors, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any. In particular, photography is a skill that can certainly help you land clients in both spaces. So, if you’re running a photography business that, at the moment, serves the needs of consumers, what can you do to target business owners and leaders, instead?
Event photography
Businesses of all kinds will throw a myriad of events during a busy year. This can include brand launches, product launches, award ceremonies, conferences, team meetings, and so on. In many cases, they will want to publicize and promote these events or, at the very least, to preserve them internally. To that end, they are likely to hire event photographers to make sure that the memories of the day, evening, or several days can be captured in the best light possible for sharing. Event photographers are there to help bolster the brand’s image, the prestige of the event, and to help the subjects look as ready for publication and to be shared as possible and websites like Snappr.com can help you learn how to take better event photographs, as both staging scenes appropriately and taking action shots are important skills in this particular field.
Business portraits
Just as there are those who want photographers to capture events in the best possible light, there are business owners, entrepreneurs, and other professionals who need to make sure their individual images are captured in the best light, possible. Business portraits tend to come in two kinds: there are the team photos that are there to help serve as a reminder of workmate solidarity and to establish a visual representation of company culture. The second kind is the individual photo and usually involves taking photos that are designed to be used for social media, online profiles, press relations, blog posts, and website branding.
Product photography
In the world of B2B photography, the product is worthy of just as much attention as the person. Product photography is an entirely different field of work that relies on being able to develop a strong idea of how to best frame the object for photography, as well as the audience that you are selling it to and what they want to see about it. There is product photography for the sake of marketing, which typically relies more on making the product look as aesthetically pleasing as possible, and there is also product photography for the sake of ecommerce and selling. The latter type also requires that a product looks good but it depends first and foremost on your ability to capture all the necessary visual details and functionality of the product, selling it as accurately as possible.
Brand photography
Of course, photography can help businesses do more than simply capture an image of what is there. It can also help paint an image of what the business wants to convey. Brand imagery is an important part of just about any kind of successful digital marketing campaign. Some businesses may rely on stock photos, but more are willing to pay to get a unique look for their business. If you have a more artistic eye, then you could sell marketing photography services that help brands capture the imagery that they want to convey the spirit of their brand.
Landscape photography
The people, products, and events that a business deals in are important but, to many businesses, the location is just as important. A locally based business may want photography that effectively establishes its location, while a business that has an impressive office might want to show it off. Lifestyle and hospitality businesses such as golf courses, resorts, and the like can have plenty of use for drone photography, so the latest equipment shown at sites like DrDrone.ca can help you establish your niche. Of course, drone photography is a new skill if you’re used to taking handheld shots, but it is one that is growing in demand, so it might be a profitable new niche to grow towards.
Surveying and inspections
There is another kind of drone photography used by B2B businesses that typically do not fall within the purview of the professional photographer because it is often paired with more technical skills they do not usually know. This can include aerial photographed inspections of commercial properties, interior and exterior, using drones to get images of areas that a human might not easily be able to reach. It can also include surveying of exterior properties, as drone photography is often used in fields like agriculture to help landowners see potential issues with the land to be addressed. Sites like DroneBlog.com look at the ways you can better suit your drone photography skills to this particular line of work.
Find and focus on your niche
Regardless of what line of work you get into, you need to make sure that you choose any niche (or multiple niches, if need be) and build it up and sell it separately from any other photography service you might need. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you should set up a new website or brand, but you should make sure that your niche services get a level of individualized attention on them. For instance, you can use sites like Format.com to build a specific portfolio for your B2B photography work. This way, your potential clients do not have to sift through services and examples of work that are not relevant to their specific needs from you.
Consider yourself a solution provider, not a photographer
Creativity will always be your strong suit as an artist but it is important to recognize that most B2B clients are not aware they are looking for creativity. An exception to this is in the world of brand photography which is inherently artistic. However, when it comes to portraits, events, or products, most business owners or decision-makers are looking for someone who can competently complete a task for them. As such, it’s wise to make sure that the marketing language that you use and how you pitch your services is that you are able to effectively, efficiently, and at cost provide the specific services that the clients are looking for. Examples and portfolios are always good, but put a little more emphasis on the service side of what you do, too.
Should you sell stock photos?
There is another option out there for photographers who want to expand their professional offerings. There are plenty of stock photo websites like Shutterstock.com that are willing to pay you for photos, especially those that fit certain criteria or keywords that are heavily trafficked at the time. While this can be a good way to sell photos that you have no professional use for, you should take note that these websites will never pay as much as an actual client, so if you do make it a primary source of income, you may find yourself having to do more to earn as much as you need to keep the business running.
There are plenty of ways that you can use your photography skills to either provide services directly to businesses or to work with other service providers who can use them in their own services. Hopefully, the tips above give you some idea of where you could begin.
