Contents:

- Branding
- Albums
- Check captions & descriptions
- Finishing touches and checks
- Set a date for the launch
- Use social media to make an announcement
- Tell your friends and family
- Your first image buyer

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Note:

For the purpose of this guide, we'll look at how you can quickly and simply set up your store with the store builder solution (like Picfair Stores), but you can apply the vast majority of these tips to any platform you choose to sell your photography.

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Branding

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When you're getting ready to launch your store, having a consistent, branded image across all your places and communications is essential and a sure-fire way to help you stand out from the sea of amateurs and hobbyists.

Create a branding identity that you use consistently throughout whatever platforms you promote yourself-your website or blog, Picfair Store, and social media.

Ideally, hire a professional, or get a friend with graphic design knowledge to help you develop an eye-catching, modern and simple logo that communicates everything about your business and what you can offer. Spend a lot of time researching how other similar photographers use their branding, paying particular attention to colours, shapes and even words. Of course, you don’t want something too similar to a rival, but you’re likely to be in roughly the same area.

Once you have a logo and branding identity, use it everywhere to reinforce your store. Use it on your Instagram, Facebook, website, Picfair Store, Twitter, TikTok, business cards - pretty much anywhere you might be promoting your business. Soon, clients won’t need to think twice when they see your branding; they’ll know it’s you.
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Further reading:

Learn more about how you can make your photography stand out from the crowd with our dedicated guide.

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Albums

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We recommend sorting your images into albums or sets when selling them - this way, you can clearly distinguish between your different works and showcase your various projects (and, for example, you may want to price images differently for each project).

Having albums also adds order and value to your store, giving the impression that you're busy working across many different projects. It seems small but showing you are busy can help build up your image as a dedicated photographer and subsequently help you get more sales in the long run.

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Check captions & descriptions

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Make sure all your captions, album titles, tags, descriptions, and other text displayed on your store are clear, legible and free of spelling or grammar mistakes. It looks professional and will make the browsing experience for customers just that little bit more enjoyable.

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Finishing touches and checks

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Include a short bio about yourself where appropriate and brief descriptions for your albums or series to describe your work. Customers like to know a bit about the photographer they are buying from.

Make sure all of your social profiles and anything else you're linking to, such as a blog or additional sites (which we recommend), have working links - it's off-putting to navigate through a store to find that a link doesn't work.

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Set a date for the launch

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Once all the finishing touches are applied to your store, it's time to launch!

For this, we'd recommend setting a date to help with your planning. It doesn't mean that you should keep your store offline and publish on the same day (unless you'd like to), it's more the day you tell people about your store. And that's the key - for a successful launch, you need tell people people about your store!

Use social media to make an announcement

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Social media marketing is a powerful tool for promoting your photography and is ideally suites to launching your store too.

If your social media is primarily personal at the moment, consider setting up dedicated accounts for your photography, which extends your brand. It can be a good idea to build up your social media presence before you even have a product to launch and sell so that you already have an existing community ready to pitch to.

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Instagram is probably the place to concentrate most of your efforts as a photographer, but don’t be afraid to explore Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and other platforms, too - look at what other photographers are doing for a better understanding.

Make your announcement concise and engaging; tell people you've launched a store with your photos, where it's easy to support you by buying your work. Don't be afraid to add a little background information about your photos to to give them a little context - customers love to know the story behind a body of work. In your social posts, include a clear link to your store; even better, you use a custom domain.
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Further reading:

Read more about custom domains for your photography store - it'll make your store address far more memorable.

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Tell your friends and family

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When you're ready to shout about your new photography business - make sure your friends and family know about it too. They'll want to support your new venture, so make sure they know your plans.

When starting out, your friends and family will likely form most of your existing customer network. And you could find that as much as supporting you, they can help spread the word about your business within their networks and even become your first customers.

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Your first image buyer

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When starting out, your friends and family will likely form most of your existing customer network. And you could find that as much as supporting you; they can help spread the word about your business within their networks and even become your first customers.

Picking up that all-important first photography sale can be a big challenge, and the time before finding your first buyer can be nerve-wracking. With the enormous competition out there, you’ll find that you’re going to rely on your existing network to pitch your wares to (like your friends and family) to start with, so it’s essential to let them know about your new ventures. And by following a coherent marketing plan and keeping the momentum for your business (which we’ll cover in the next section). You could soon have that first sale from an unexpected customer - and it’s one you’ll never forget
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Further reading:
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Find more detailed information on finding your first image buyer with our guide.