Are You Selling A Service or Are You Selling Photos?

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 6. October 2008 - 23:00

What are you selling? Are you selling a service or are you selling photos?

If you are selling photos, you sold the photo and now the transaction is closed. There may be another transaction with the same photo but that's stock. With today's prices, selling stock will get you from $1 to $10 per photo, if you are lucky, many photographers are getting less than $1 per photo.

If you are selling a service, you can sell "anything". Of course, you still have to deliver the photos:

  • When you sell memories such as weddings, birthdays, events. You can sell albums, prints, LCD panels with JPEGs pre-loaded... You can resell the same photos to the same person in a different format or print size.
  • When you sell solutions to real estate agents, restaurants, hotels... they need to show how good they look. The photos need to be replaced every few month or whenever they do any change, so it can be reflected in their marketing.
  • When you sell full editorial packages, including the story and the photos for a magazine. As a travel photographer, you can hope to be paid a couple of hundred for your 3 or 4 photos, depending on the location. If you can write or team with a writer, you value significantly goes up.

What does your competition sell? Photos or services? My bet is that your most successful competitors sell services. When you sell services, it's not just a one time use, you can even sell subscriptions. Think about it, monthly payments and the customer comes back for more photos.

Service, service! Here I come.