Location Location Location – Is It Everything For A Photography Business?

“I’m in the stage now that I need an actual location. My question to you is how important is the actual location of the studio? The reason I ask is because I fell in love with this particular building and the price is right but the location isn’t too great. It’s outside the city a couple miles and off the beaten trail so I wouldn’t get any drive by business. I have excellent marketing skills and ideas though. Would that be enough? Or is my business going to fail before it even has a chance because of the bad location?” ~Heather

Great question Heather. There are actually several ways to look at this, and you made several references in your email that I will address to help you along your process.

Is location important?

If you talk to anyone in real estate, they tell you the only important thing is location, location, location. And I agree.

But different businesses have different ways of addressing the location issue.

A fast food restaurant, for instance, depends on quantity. They need as many people as possible coming through their drive thru every single day. If they aren’t near a large area of population with easy access to the main thoroughfare, they won’t stay in business.

Yet for photography businesses, it’s completely different.

Is drive by traffic important?

The first thing to think about is if you really want drive by business. If you are running your business like a big box store, where you need an ever-flowing client base coming through your doors, this is important. But if you plan on keeping your photography business very customized, working with just a few select clients a day, drive by traffic loses its value. [Read more…]