Owning and running your own photo booth business as with any business is both challenging and rewarding at the same time. The extra income could be the little extra you need to take the trip of a life time or maybe a way to get out of a job you dislike. Whatever your motives here a few key points you need to know.
Market Research
- Check the competition for existing companies
- What type of booth do they have
- Find how much they are charging, prices may vary by quite a lot
- Check out their most successful Facebook posts, website and any other marketing materials
Logistics
- How far are you willing to travel for a gig?
- Will the booth fit in your current transport?
- Are you happy to be working weekends as this is when most bookings happen?
- How much will you need to charge?
- What is your desired income ?
What’s your name
- Think of a name and remember you need to stand out and be memorable but relevant.
- Check that you can buy the domain name
Shop Around – Choose a photo booth to suit you
- Very important you pick the correct booth
see what’s around, many booths are saturating the market making it difficult to stand out - Pick a booth that’s easy to setup and run
- Don’t pick a booth that will break your back at every event
- Time is money, don’t pick a booth that will take a long time putting together adding hours to every hire. With the wrong booth you could turn a 3 hour hire into a 8/9 hour ordeal if you factor loading/travel/unloading/setup…..
Other considerations
- Logo
- Website
- SEO, even if you contract this it’s worth understanding the basics.
- Facebook page
- Google places
- Business cards
Test your booth until you know it inside out
- Test and test again, don’t turn up to your first event and look like an amateur that’s never done it before..
What extras do you need
- Props
- Guest books
Launch your company
Contact venues that are local to you to be put on the suppliers list
Speak to any wedding suppliers or event planners to build your network
Do some free events
- Do some free charity events, they will love the gesture and you get to show off your booth and hopefully pick up some bookings.
- Always take business cards everywhere you go
Get good at advertising
You could have the best booth in the world and offer the best service at the best price but if no one know you exist none of this matters. Google AdWords is excellent on getting traffic to your site but only if done correctly.
Facebook advertising is brilliant at targeting people, but again you need to swat up on this for it to be effective.
