How Photographers Can Survive the COVID-19 Pandemic

These are frustrating and uncertain times for everyone right now. The COVID-19 outbreak seems to be having a huge impact on several things around the world, including businesses. We want you to survive the COVID-19 pandemic and feel secure with your business. Find out how photographers plan to survive the COVID-19 pandemic.

Photographers across several online photography community groups are talking about the impact of this outbreak to their businesses this week. From weddings being cancelled, travel restrictions, hospital restrictions that prohibit birth and fresh 48 sessions, to clients cancelling as a precaution.

You are not alone feeling this impact, frustration, and uncertainty. While things may be slow over the next several weeks, you can still be doing some things for the benefit your business or maybe just your sanity. We have compiled a short list of things you can do now to help you move forward and hopefully help you when the waters calm again.

Online Presence

With all of the social distancing, closures, and quarantines happening, everyone will likely be on social media a lot more. Here's a chance to increase your virtual presence and maybe boost the SEO on your website.

• Post daily and plan out your social media posts for the next month or two. Don't be afraid to re-share favorites or dig into some of those older galleries to share some work you haven't before.
• Blog. This is a great time to focus on your blogging skills. Find some blog ideas here: The Big List of Blog Topics
• Update your website with fresh work, current pricing, or an updated bio while you finally have the time to sit down and do it properly.
• Create or work on your email marketing list, so you have a warm audience ready to hear from you the moment bookings pick back up.

The Mundane Tasks

There will likely be some slow weeks ahead of us and lots of time at home. Make use of this time to get caught up on those mundane business tasks.

• Update pricing guides
• Catch up on editing
• Clean your equipment
• Organize your studio or office space
• Go through your memory cards to test functionality, save images, and format them
• Organize your computer files and work on ensuring everything is backed up properly
• Work on updating or creating new email templates, workflows, and questionnaires
• These are the tasks that always get pushed to "later" during a normal busy season. A slow stretch is the perfect time to finally get to them.
  
  

Educate Yourself

Having some down time is always great for learning new things or focusing on perfecting your craft.

• Check out some online courses
• Learn a new technique or skill from YouTube
  
  

Get Creative

Lots of photographers out there are getting creative with ways to keep momentum up and finding sources of income during these times.

• Have another skill set that could benefit others? Offer some website designing, outsource editing for other photographers, logo design, content writing, etc.
• Offer gift cards for clients to use later in the year, giving them a way to support your business now even if they cannot book a session yet.
• Reopen expired galleries for print sales, giving past clients another chance to order prints or products they may have missed the first time around.

Non-business Related

Use this as an opportunity to slow down and take time for yourself and your family. We all know once the busy season hits us we will barely have time to rest, spend quality time with our family, or focus on our mental health. Work on forming some new healthy habits for yourself and having some uninterrupted and unplugged family time.

We would love to hear your plan for keeping your business running to survive the COVID-19 pandemic. Share in the comments below.



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