Business planning (planning our business)

The Business idea 


                               under construction

My Colleague James Woodings and I are in the early stages of setting up a part-time bespoke wedding photography business


The business will provide a different bespoke type of wedding photography tailored more to the customer's individual needs but set in our style of our photography 

Our  aim is to target a niche market away from the run of the mill traditional wedding photography where the client wants something different which is unique and the photography  stands out from the rest. Some of our photography ideas we hope to include in our styles include,retro,available light,textured, pastel colour popping, montages and dream fantasy 


A lot of our work will be post processed using the software "Photoshop" a photography tool that Jim and myself are both conversant with where we hope to add most of the effects to our photography

The competition,local and national photographers

We are under no illusions this will be tough, it’s been done a thousand times before and there are far better photographers out there that can produce much better photography than we can.


So how do we compete? We have to provide a better product, a different product, a more unique product that nobody else in this area is doing or will try to emulate. It has to be different, something that will sell our product and hopefully attract potential clients to our style of wedding photography

Our skills 


Good photographers

Both of us are very pro-active to find work,customers,models etc 


Reasonably good business and marketing skills

We have a yearning to take our photography to the next level

Excellent Photoshop and software skills


Confident with a will to suceed

Business planning

We both know that this will be an extremely challenging operation as the market is already saturated with a variety of wedding phtogrphers in our area


The first step in our planning is researching the market to see if we have a viable product that people want to buy. We are checking other photographers websites,wedding websites,studying bride and wedding magazines and visiting bridal fairs as I speak

Marketing:

We are in the process of buying some web space and hosting services to build a website to promote our products. It is absolutely paramount to get your marketing right from the outset. The marketing needs to be slick, precise and up to date.


We will need to stand out from our competiters so a good website with excellent photographic content will be our main marketing tool. It’s absolutely imperative that we have an excellent product upfront, which will be our photography, this has to be of very of very high quality so we need to up our game and produce better images than what we are producing at the moment  

We intend to produce  portfolios of our images to a high very standard of photography

which we will show to potential customers or clients,these are a great marketing tool an an excellent way of showing off our work or products. We hope to build these up over the next couple of months

We are sourcing models  for our initial photo shoot which will supply the main images for our website. As I speak Jim and I are both pro-active in our search for such models

Jim is sourcing models from online model agencies,some of which are free,they provide a ”time for prints” service where the models provide the acting and we provide the photography
Some of these agencies/websites include, Model Mayem, Pure Storm and Star now

I work for the local college here in Burton and we have a large amount of courses delivered that could provide potential models to assist us in our photography. These departments include,dance,drama,hair dressing,beauty classes,makeup,textile etc. All of these classes could help us to provide valuable contacts which could help us to shoot our photography.


I am in the process of emailing these departments today for portential models/contacts etc   which may help to contribute to our photography

We also have an excellent photographic studio here in college which we have access to, this is where we hope to photograph some of our marketing material for the website. On Saturday mornings we have a range of hair and beauty classes taking place in the college. I hope to liaise with these departments to provide make up and hair stylists who want to gain some experience of making up a photographic model


Your reputation is another major marking tool, this is of paramount importance to us, as it is this that sells your business. One bad job with poor photography and your reputation is in tatters. We will have to prove ourselves and gradually build up a credible reputation as time goes by, it won't come over night and could take years before you become reputable. Hopefully a lot of our work will come from our reputation and  word of mouth so it’s critical that we provide a high quality service from the outset

Branding:

We need to think up a name for the photography business as soon as possible
We are at present checking out the competion locally,their prices, techniques and styles
We have local wedding fairs penciled into our diaries whch we will be visiting shortly to get a look at the competition and get a general feel of the industry
We will be designing business cards shortly to promote our website when it is complete
Our website will be our main advertising tool with our name and business outline shown here

Advertising     under construction  We will be promoting our buiness

Marketting tools

Website

Buiness cards

Publicity


Brochures


Stationary


Word of mouth

Setup costs

We will initially have to provide funds up front from our own pockets to get the business up and running. We have a lot of the equipment already in our possession but will be adding to the business as we go along and make profits.purchasedSome of these costs will includ:


Website,
Webspace,
Domain name 
Marketing and publicity
Model hire,
Wedding dresses and suits for our initial models
Business cards
Printing,brochures,stationary
Equipment
Photography shoot venue


Venues for marketing shoot

We are at present sourcing a nice location for the initial website marketing photographic shoot. We want this to be a unique venue, one which shows a little class and style but not over the top

These include:........................

I am in the process of talking  to these venue’s to try and a rrange a phtogrphy shoot at there premises...................