The holiday season is anything but time off if you’re a photographer who knows how to sell photos.

It can be your most profitable time of the year if you leverage your talent, resources, and a bit of business savvy together.

A good holiday season means you can make enough to buy yourself a new bit of equipment and gift it to yourself.

In this post, we’ll look at how to sell photos over the holiday season and close your year out in style.

1. Start as Early as Possible

Remember when you were a kid and thought about Christmas in August? You need to enter this headspace again.

Start your planning months in advance. Everything needs to be ready going into the holiday season, not during the holiday season.

If you’re not 100% ready when the season of giving starts, you’re gift-wrapping your business for other photographers.

2. Optimize Your Website to Sell

Take away everything on your website that stands between your customers and a sale.

We recommend gutting your site of any other buttons or links aside from “Buy.” It’s a simple principle in web design and knowing how to sell photos.

Simply put, it means every page on your site should have one goal. There only needs to be one button for your customers to push.

If you add a “Join Our Mailing List” button, your “Buy” button is now getting half of the attention it deserves. If you add a special coupon button, it’s now getting one-third of the attention.

Get the idea?

Mailing lists are great (more on them later), but they should never be built at the expense of an actual sale. If your pages have too much going on, that’s exactly what will happen.

3. Reach Out to Former Clients

The cost of earning a new customer is five to ten times higher than retaining an existing one.

So tap into your fleet of satisfied buyers. Treat them to a discount or promotion of your choosing.

If these people aren’t quite ready to buy, you’re at least keeping your name in their minds. This way, they can recommend you to their family and friends.

4. Embrace Direct Marketing

Don’t be afraid to reach out to them on both new school and old school fronts. Use email and traditional mail. Yes, snail mail.

It’s not just for pizza coupons. Direct mail is far from being the campaign of Christmas Past. In fact, the ROI for direct mail campaigns is the highest it’s been in years.

Meanwhile, email marketing brings in an ROI of $44 for every $1 spent. So send an e-blast to your existing customers with a special promo code.

5. Use Specialized Landing Pages

Our final tip involves specialized landing pages for the holidays.

Don’t forget to send the traffic from both campaigns to dedicated landing pages with a simple URL (i.e. yourdomain/hohoho).

You should also include messaging that matches the postcard and email so you can measure the results.

6. Use Social Media

Pairing the power of effective social media marketing with any of these other tips and tricks is sure to increase your online photo sales.

Find out where your clients are, and go there. A good rule of thumb is to have at least Facebook and Instagram accounts that showcase the best your photography business has to offer.

Let Us Show You How to Sell Photos

After implementing these 6 tips, your online photo sales should be steady through the season.

Have fun with your selling strategies at this time of year and make the most out of every sale.

The first step in learning how to sell photos is making a beautiful website with a simple online store.

We can help you build both!

You can click here to sign up. Alternately, you can view our pricing.

MorePhotos offers online solutions that include professional websites and a powerful e-commerce shopping cart. With our friendly and knowledgeable staff, we can assist you in creating an online presence that will attract traffic to your photography website.

Let’s face it. You’re not the only photography website on the web. 

So how do you stand out from the over-saturated crowd and get exposure for your photography website?

Getting noticed is the single most important thing you’ll do for your photography business. 

Keep reading to learn how to set yourself apart.

1. Create a Photography Blog on your Website

Why do you need a blog to sell photos online?

There are many benefits to having a maintained blog on your business website.

Here are a few: 

• It shows your expertise in photography.

• It will bring more people to your website, and ultimately help convert them into customers.

• It’ll be easier for clients to find your work. Websites with blogs rank higher in search engines.

The key is to not just post random content. Make sure it is quality content that will serve some benefit to your readers. Address ideas that your customers are curious about. This will keep them coming back for more – and your photos will sell!

2) Sell Photos Online with Social Media

Do you want to get more exposure for your photography business? If so, social media is the way to go. 

Start by creating a Facebook business page, a Twitter profile and a LinkedIn profile. Instagram is also wonderful for photographers because it’s a visual platform. 

Social media is an excellent place to network, attract visitors to your website and get more clients. 

Once you have a blog up and running, put your blog posts on social media to expand your reach. Make sure to post consistently and have your website URL on each platform. 

With over 2 billion people using social media globally, you’d have to be crazy to not take advantage of it!

3) Dare to Be Different

It’s no secret that photographers are on every street corner (and every corner of the web). Ask yourself, what makes your business stand out? 

If you can answer this, you’re well on your way to getting noticed!

If you want to sell photos online, you’re going to have to get creative and take a unique approach. 

This means having distinct branding that sets you apart from the rest.

Another way to stand out is to focus your expertise in one area. Instead of being a general photographer, be a wedding photographer, a styled stock photo photographer or a landscape/outdoors photographer. 

Clients want experts, not generalists. 

Final Thoughts 

If you want to make it in the photography business, you need to set yourself apart from the crowd. 

Only having a website doesn’t cut it anymore. Social media is such a vital tool for any business. You also need a blog that attracts and helps convert your readers into customers as well as quality content that your audience will learn from. Establish your own style to sell photos online. People don’t want drab and boring photography. Produce awe-inspiring images that catch your customer’s eye.

Try to utilize these tips in order to expose your photography business!

What tricks do you use in your photography business to increase traction? Join the conversation in the comments section below!