“How do I grow my photo booth business?” This is the question that every boother has. Whether you are running a part-time photo booth business or a full time one, every owner has a goal: Get more bookings and a higher revenue per event. Have you already tried some methods and are not satisfied with the result? Or are you a bit lost and don’t know where to start to get your business to the next level? Don’t panic, we are here. 🙂

1. Attract corporate clients

Our first advice is to attract as many corporate clients as possible. Why? The answer is simple: a bigger business means having a larger budget. They can ask for your services for one of their corporate events, retail promotions or as part of a new long-term marketing campaign. Either way, it will help you gain more market visibility and potentially find other corporate clients during those events.

You may offer the first couple of events for free to quickly win valuable references and build your network. You can then use the references you gathered and compile them in a portfolio that you can send to potentials new clients. And once you find a corporate client, be very attentive to their needs. If everything goes well, the client might book you on a regular basis!

You might ask us: “But how do I find my first corporate client?”. Well, we have a few tips for that too.

Focus on a special target group. If you love sports for example, go out and talk to the sponsors of your local football team. The common topic will help you to build a relationship with your client and better understand their needs. Now, put yourself into the position of your target group and what they are looking for: GIF booths, green screen technology, Hashtag printing, virtual reality, digital props, data capture… Think of how you can provide value to their business.

Then, it’s just a matter of getting an internet presence. You will need a website to display your service, show off the features of your booth, get client recommendations… Basically, you need to show what you can do to the world. You don’t know much about creating a website? Don’t worry, there are some cool tools out there that guide you through every step. Some make a design for you and let you personalize everything after. You should go take a look at Wix, Jimdo or Squarespace!

And don’t hesitate to use LinkedIn! You can create a business page for free, advertise your business there and find people who are searching for a photo booth to rent.

2. Create layouts for your clients

You might offer your clients the opportunity to customize their photo booth campaign to match their corporate identity or the theme of the event. Corporate clients are ready to pay more if they don’t have to do the customization work themselves.
To be sure that your design fits their expectations, you will have to make sure to understand their needs and objectives by booking a photo booth. Then you will have to discuss their expectations towards the design with them: Is there a special theme you have to adopt? How shall the overlays look like?
Once you have all the information, you can create the assets. If you don’t have the know-how to make those designs yourself, you can still outsource it to Fiverr, an online market place for freelance services.

3. Run multiple events at the same time

We saw a lot of photo booth business owners limiting themselves to one event at a time. You should not hesitate and accept as many deals as you can, even if they take place on the same day! Christmas, summer festivals, Halloweens parties or even during the Super Bowl… Those are great opportunities to grow your revenue! Accepting deals, even if they take part on the same day will only help you spread your brand on the market and get more visibility over time. Having iPad booths is also a good way to grow your business. Those booths are lighter than other bulky booths, easily transportable and setting them up is also simple. On top of that, using a cloud-based software like Onebooth to run your booth will allow you to manage your campaign, even if you are not on site.

4. A CRM system is essential

By following all the tips above, you will realize that in the end, the key point of every business is a good customer relationship management. There are plenty of great CRM systems out there like Pipedrive or Hubspot. Thanks to it, you will gain a good overview of your business, but also lots of data on your customers. You can then use those data in order to optimize your sales and marketing strategy. This will ultimately lead to customer retention and sales growth.