How I Grew My Senior Portrait Business Without A Rep Program, and Why They Aren't Necessary | Photography Mentoring | Business Mentor | Traveling Senior Portrait Photographer | Tips for Photographers
How I Grew My Senior Portrait Business Without a Rep Program, and Why They Aren’t Necessary
5 years ago I launched my senior portrait photography business practically overnight. I went from having 5 senior clients the previous year, to over 30 the next....and I did it WITHOUT a senior rep program! To this day I'm a firm believer in senior rep programs being both totally unnecessary to having a successful senior portrait business, and a pretty bad idea to attempt before you have an established senior client business. I've been specializing in high school senior portraits for 5 years, and doubling or tripling my business every single year, without ever having a rep program, and I can promise you that I'll never do one in the future either! Some photographers have been extremely successful with rep programs and push the idea that you can't be successful in this specialty without one, so I'm here to let you guys know that that's completely untrue!
To begin, senior rep programs, when not done EXACTLY right, will cost you a LOT of time, money, and headaches, and have no guarantee of generating a sustainable profit. Many photographers make the mistake of making their rep program session fees free for their senior reps, and hoping they will either purchase display art and/or digitals afterwards, and refer a lot of their friends their way. If you're thinking this is a great way to have your seniors do all your marketing and promoting for you, then you're in for a big disappointment for a few reasons. Firstly, seniors (and most clients to be honest) don't value free services. If they aren't paying anything to participate in your rep program, or if they're getting a discounted fee, then usually they tend to not take it seriously at all. I can't tell you how many times I've heard photographers complain that their reps either aren't promoting them, they're missing group shoots, not bothering to purchase any products or images, and actually paying to book with OTHER photographers for another senior session. More often than not, these are the photographers who made their rep session fees free or deeply discounted to attract seniors. Secondly, seniors DO. NOT. SELL. TO. THEIR. FRIENDS. Okay, go back and read that again, because it's true and a big reason why it's so hard to get referral programs to work well with seniors. High school seniors consider having to "sell" and be sales-y to their friends tacky, and they just won't do it. When seniors love a product or service, they won't purposefully ask their friends to book it or buy it too, they'll simply post about it on social media and show it off to their followers.
So, if you're wondering how to launch and grow a successful senior portrait business without a rep program, I'll tell you a little about how I did it 5 years ago!
1. I started finding and following high school juniors and seniors on instagram that fit my target client profile. I did this by searching for the locations of local high schools, and seeing who made posts with their high schools tagged. Once I found one junior or senior for each school, I followed them, and then went into their follower lists and followed all of their friends too! The more I genuinely interacted with them by liking and commenting on posts, the more junior and seniors followed me back. This is how to grow your instagram following with all POTENTIAL CLIENTS rather than just other photographers or people who know you personally. A following full of ideal and potential clients will be your biggest asset to getting real bookings from Instagram.
2. After growing a small following of potential clients, I searched through all of my new followers and found 2 current juniors at local schools during the spring semester (around March), who had large followings (at least 1,000 followers or more) and seemed to fit my target client profile.
3. Then, I DMed each girl offering them the opportunity of modeling for a styled shoot for me. The way you word this message is SO SO SO important to getting them to agree to model for you. If you make it seem like they'd be doing you a favor for modeling for you, they will either decline or not take it seriously at all. Instead, word it like a special opportunity to participate in a session styled completely by you, and they'll get to receive professional portraits of themselves in exchange for their time.
4. Next I styled two separate shoots with each girl. One girl had a casual look with ripped jeans, and the other had a formal look with a gorgeous maxi dress. It's important to make sure they understand they have to comply with your outfit requests and vision for the session, because it's not a free session for THEM, its a styled shoot to be used for YOUR marketing, so the images have to represent the exact type of portraits you want to create with paying clients. To do this, I made Pinterest inspiration boards with examples of the look I wanted for each session, and the girls would text me outfit options they had that fit those looks.
5. Once we had the shoots planned and executed them, we ended up with GORGEOUS images that fit my style perfectly, and would also be very popular among high schoolers. The girls who modeled for me LOVED the images and posted them again and again on their instagrams, which meant my photos were now being seen by THOUSANDS of potential clients.
6. In addition to myself and my models posting our favorite photos on Instagram, I began pinning the images on Pinterest as well. This not only drove tons of traffic to my website, it greatly improved my SEO ranking on Google searches, and these images went Pinterest viral with millions of pins all over the world.
After taking these steps, I was now known as THE photographer to go to in Maryland for senior portraits, with only 1 official year in business! My inbox was filling with inquiries, and I booked 90% of the seniors I was able to get in for an in-person consult (that's a whole other topic!)
This strategy was SO MUCH easier, less costly, less time consuming, and MORE successful than trying to launch a rep program right away. If you're ready to break into the senior portrait industry and wanting one-on-one guidance, LET'S DO IT! Book a Zoom mentoring session with me to set yourself up for success.
Follow @thebeccamathews on Instagram for more photography and business education. I’d love to connect with you!
Becca Mathews
Traveling Portrait Photographer, Private Photo Editor, and Business Mentor