Real-Estate Photography is a fairly competitive niche. Not because there is not enough demand, but because the supplier market has skill differences. Clients will only go for a new photographer for three reasons. They don’t have a high budget, the photographer will do it for free, and finally, because the beginner’s quality is the same as experienced photographers.
Here is how you can get clients:
Choose the Right Gear
The first thing you need to know is that the gear you have matters; skills can only get you so far in this industry. Here is a short list of things you will need:
Editing Software
Learn about as many picture editing software as you can. Just taking good photographs is not enough; you need to know how to make them look even better with a little bit of tweaking. This step should not be too hard because there is a large number of applications available online. Although, you need to dedicate some time to learning how to use these programs.
Camera
A lot of photographers make the mistake of spending most of their budget on a camera. That is not necessary; you can use that money on the other things on this list. For Real-Estate Photography, you should get a modern, good high ISO performance camera. The reason is, some clients want you to take pictures at night and you will be taking exterior photographs around twilight anyway.
If you have already bought a modern digital SLR camera, you should be fine for a long time without upgrading it in this niche.
Lenses
Camera Lenses are necessary for every photography job. For real-estate photography, in particular, you should go for a wide-angle lens. To show off the entire room in the same photograph, you will need a wide-angle lens. This lens will also help make the customers feel as if they are in the room. You can make a room look more spacious if you take the picture from a corner and use this lens.
Also, get a tilt-shift lens. Most of the furniture people own forms imaginary vertical lines with the ceiling. You can have difficulty getting the lines perpendicular to the floor; a tilt-shift lens can make that job much simpler.
Remember, your job is to make the location look as appealing as possible. Buying a few lenses will make your photographs look more aesthetically pleasing, which will, in turn, help you get more work.
Tripod
This should be a priority for you, a tripod. We mentioned before that you will take photographs at night; a tripod will make that much easier. A tripod allows you to use a long exposure which is a faster shutter speed. This way, if you use a flash, the background will not come out as too dark, which it often does.
Now we can move on to how you can convince clients.
Polish up your skills
Now that you have the right gear, you need to know how to use it. You can work on your skills without having to find work. Just take photographs of you, your friends and your relatives’ houses and edit them to make them look as good as possible. Once you have enough pictures, you can add them to your portfolio and use them as evidence the next time a client contacts you. This will get you ahead of the competition.
Learn from the Competition
Find a list of all of the completed sales and houses up-for-sale in your area of operation. Look through the top-ranked of each category and find out what works and what does not. Try and recreate the photographs on your own. Once you are sure that your pictures are of the same quality or better, you will be much more ready to find clients.
Create a Photography Portfolio
The best way to find a client could be to advertise your photography portfolio website, although, to do this, you need to have a website in the first place. Your website should showcase all of your best photographs. Not just any that you have done. Make sure you post both exterior and interior shots to show that you are proficient at both.
Although your website should focus on showcasing your best works, you can include a page with your services and price. This will make it easier for clients to decide whether or not they want to hire you. Make sure you add a little call to action on that page; to give them that extra push.
Ask for referrals
This is especially tough for beginners because they feel shy about asking people to spread their work. This is something you will have to overcome sooner or later. You might get rejected a few times but there will be people that will recommend you to others.
If you are uncertain about this, you can begin with your friends and family. Once you gather up the confidence, contact a real estate agent you know or worked for before and ask him to refer you to other agents. This is one of the best ways to get your name out there.
Contact Real-Estate Agents yourself
This is very intimidating, we admit, but it makes getting work in the future much easier. First, research real-estate agencies in your area, and once you find a popular one, gather information about the agents. You are looking for someone that is using non-professional photographs to market the houses for sale.
Once you are ready, give them a brief introduction about yourself and mention that you saw the house they are trying to sell. Tell them you noticed that it had been up for a while and that you are a photographer interested in helping them market the house by taking professional photographs. Try not to be too pushy; you want to convince them to hire you, not sell a one-time product. In some cases, the realtor will be happy that you contacted them because they do not have to spend time looking for a photographer themselves.
Try To Find High-Value Clients
Once you know you have enough experience and are getting a steady flow of work, you can move on to high-value clients. Find an area that has a high property price and a lot of demand. After that, do some research and find any potential clients that are selling a house.
Try to be fast and thorough about the research because if the area is in demand, other photographers will notice the same thing and the competition will drastically increase. After you contact potential clients, advertise yourself in a way similar to how you would a real estate agent.
Finally, we will move on to how you can advertise yourself as a Real-Estate Photographer.
Business Cards and Flyers
This is a great way to advertise your work because you can give it to clients you have worked for or just a real estate agent that you want to work with. Having these ready to go is great; you can hand them to the clients as you leave.
The cards and flyers should include a link to your portfolio website, your name and a way to contact you. You can also use a picture you took on the card to showcase your skills without the clients having to visit your website.
Utilize social media
Pick one or two platforms and start posting your pictures onto them. Only the good ones, obviously, but not all of them. Add a link that leads to your portfolio website with every post to drive traffic to it. Not only will you find potential clients through these platforms, but your website will also move up the ranks of search engines and let more people discover your work.
Be consistent with your uploads; people lose interest quickly and move on to other content. To get to the top, you need to start following similar users and commenting on their posts to build your connections; this will eventually get you even more followers.
Advertise/Optimize your Website
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a big deal for every type of website. If a website is not optimized, it will not rank high up in the Search Engine Results. This is bad news for you because that means people won’t discover your work. This is something the website developer/designer should know. Something that you can do is write blogs. Blogs that include keywords can get traffic to the website; if written consistently. A website with new content every week that uses keywords will rank higher than others.
If you are sure that your website is Optimized but you are still not getting the results. You can advertise your website on search engines for money. Your website will show up at the top for the search result of any keywords that you choose.
This is not a fast method but it has proven to work many times.
If you follow all of these steps, you should build up a steady flow of work that will keep you busy. Real-Estate Photography is a market where you have to put in hard work to get more. You do not need to worry; you will reap the benefits of this effort when the work starts rolling in.