Are you a makeup artist hoping to get recurring contract for video shoots? If YES, here are 9 sure tips on how to get makeup artist contracts for photo shoot. As a makeup artist, for your business to move forward, you have to secure photo shoot contracts and securing photo shoot contracts means that you should employ all the marketing and sales strategies within your disposal to win these contracts.
Why Should You Add Photo Shoot Jobs to your Makeup Portfolio?
The truth is that if you don’t have regular photo shoot contracts from modelling agencies, photo studios or related businesses, you are going to struggle to grow your business and if you are not proactive, the business may pack up sooner than you expect.
The fact that makeup artists play a very important role in photo shoot sessions shows that there is a large market for the makeup artist business. They provide essential services that make photo shoots come out excellent especially when modeling and advertising is the main purpose of the photo shoot. As matter of fact, makeup artists are indispensable in the modelling and photography industry.
If you run a makeup studio business or you are a freelance makeup artist, you should know that your skills will not be enough to keep you in the business, you must go all out to market your services or else you won’t get any reasonable contracts.
If you run a standard makeup artist studio/company, then you should ensure that much more than having reliable and gifted makeup artists under your payroll, your marketing and sales team must be core professionals who are on top of their games and who know how to secure photo shoot contracts and to meet their target. Here are some of the steps you need to take if you want to continue to get photo shoot makeup contracts.
9 Tips on How to Get Makeup Artist Contracts for Photo Shoot
1. Choose a Good Location for Your Makeup Artist Studio/Company
The first and perhaps one of the most important things to put in place as a freelance makeup artists or a makeup artist studio/company owner if you want to continue to get makeup artist contracts for photo shoots from both corporate and individual clients is to ensure that you position your business in the right location.
It cannot be over emphasized that the success of any business lies in the location you choose to locate the business. For example, you will get it all wrong to locate a barbeque business in a location with a demography that consist of over 90 percent vegetarians.
In essence, if you want to continue to get makeup artist contracts, then you should ensure that you locate your business close to places like photo studios, modelling agencies and hubs of entertainments in your city et al. No doubt makeup studios that share office facility with photo studios or modelling agencies are expected to stay busy and experience increase in revenue.
2. Make Use of Reliable and Talented Makeup Artists
It is one thing to choose a good location for your makeup studio and it is a different kettle of fish to possess the capacity to deliver on the job. If you want to continue to get makeup artist contracts, then you should ensure that you have only reliable and talented makeup artists under your payroll. What is the point of going all out to secure a makeup contracts only for your makeup artist to disappoint in terms of output of the job?
Running a makeup artist business with reliable and gifted makeup artists will give you an edge over your competitors. You are certain of getting referrals for more photoshoot contracts if your clients are satisfied with the output of your job. In essence, the output of your job can help you get more contracts.
3. Make Your Makeup Artist Business Superior to Your Competitions
Come to think of it, people and organizations will always patronize a business that appears to be superior to others. In a nutshell, in order to keep getting makeup artist contracts, you should project your company to be superior to that of your competitors not only in appearance but also in service delivery. Your unique selling point as a freelance makeup artist should be your vast industrial experience and solid reputation.
So also trust, honesty, good network and excellent relationship management, strong management, user friendly makeup kits, direct access to major players in related businesses such as modelling agencies and photo studios. We are not ruling out the fact that your size advantage, cost advantage, creativity and uniqueness, customer loyalty and strong reputation amongst domestic industry players will count a lot for you in this regard.
4. Build Good Business Network
Another avenue to get makeup artist contracts for photo shoot is to build good business network. It is a known secret that networking is perhaps one of the most effective and creative marketing ideas needed to build your clientele base and you have to leverage on all your networks if you truly want to do well as a makeup artist.
In view of that, you should look out for gatherings where you can network with models, modelling agencies, advertising and branding agencies and of course players in the photography industry. As a matter of fact, your first port of call will be to connect with the nearest association of photographers and modelling agencies; you are likely going to get your first major deal from them.
5. Get Your Makeup Artists and Other Employees Involved in Marketing Your Services
As a freelance makeup artist, part of what you need to do if you want to continue to get makeup artist contracts for photo shoots, is to ensure that all your employees (not only marketing and sales executives) are directly or indirectly involved in the sales and marketing of your services.
Just ensure that you create provision for your employees to earn commissions when they bring in business (photo shoot contracts) for the organization, if you truly want them to help you win photo shoot contracts. You can as well create a Business model that will enable freelancers to work with your organization especially as it relates to bringing in photo shoot contract; whenever they refer clients to your organization, they will earn a percentage of the deal.
6. Build a Makeup Artist Business That Will Serve Both Big and Small Clients
Another idea that will help you get makeup artist contracts for photo shoots is to ensure that you design your business in such a way that you can comfortably work with both individuals who may want to do family or smaller capacity photo shoots and also big modelling agencies and photo studios who are involved in massive photo shoots. The truth is that some big – time makeup artists miss out of contracts because they are either too big to attend to smaller clients or too small to execute larger photo shoot contracts.
7. Form Strategic Marketing Alliance with Your Competitors in the Industry
As a freelance makeup artist, if you want to continue to get makeup artist contracts for photo shoots, then you should look towards forming strategic marketing alliance with your competitors in the industry. Good enough, there are opportunities for makeup studios to form strategic marketing alliance with other competitors in the industry due to the fact that some freelance makeup artists or even makeup studios may lack the capacity to handle certain photo shoot contracts.
For example, a makeup artist that is based in Los Angeles may secure a contract to carry out makeup for photo shoots in New York, and due to lack of capacity and distance barrier, would want to sublet the contract to another makeup artist that has the capacity or that is in same location. With this type of arrangement, you are not expected to get 100 percent of the contract fee, but at least, you will have reasonable profits from the deal.
Another example of forming strategic marketing alliance in the industry is between a makeup artist studio and freelance makeup artist. The truth is that, at certain stages of your business, you might not have the financial capacity and structure to keep under your payroll all the staff members that you would need hence the need to form strategic marketing alliance with freelance makeup artists.
This is how it works, you can allow a freelance makeup artist to leverage on your brand name to source for makeup contracts, and once they secure the deal, you can either choose to deploy your workforce to execute the contract and pay them commission or you can send support to them to execute the contract and then pay them commission as agreed. It is always a win – win for both parties.
8. Create Brand Identity for Your Business
You will quite agree that customers go for products or service providers that are always in front of them. In the business world, it is called promotion and branding. So, if you want to continue to get makeup artist contracts for photo shoots, then you should be ready to create a brand identity for your makeup artist studio or as a freelance makeup artist.
It is a fact that any business that wants to grow beyond the corner of the street they are operating from must be ready and willing to utilize every available means (both conventional and non – conventional means) to advertise and promote the business. Boosting your brand awareness as a makeup artist will a go a long way to endear you to the available market.
You can work with branding consultants to help you map out publicity and advertising strategies that will help you walk your way into the heart of your target market. If your brand is visible and well communicated, you will be able to work with different classes of clients within and outside your business location.
9. Work on Your Retentions Strategies (Improve Your Customer Experience)
Another means of getting makeup artist contracts for photo shoots is to work on your retention strategies, i.e. improve your customer experience. A company that is good with marketing and winning contract but not good with generating repeated sales from their existing customers will always struggle to maximize profits in the business.
You cannot keep welcoming customers from your front door and watch them leave via your back door and expect to generate enough revenue for your business.
As a makeup artist business owner or even freelance makeup artist, if you want to continue to get makeup artist contracts for photo shoots from both corporate and individual clients, then you should ensure that you put in place a workable customer retention strategy and also continuously improve your customer experience.
Part of the retention strategies you need to adopt as a new entrant into the industry is to ensure that you leverage on price to win over customers; your prices should be affordable and negotiable. The fact that your business door is open means that you should have different price range for different category of clients.
You are in the makeup artistry business because you want to make money and you know that you cannot make money without having customers patronize your business, hence you should able to map out strategies to not only get contract for photo shoots, but also to ensure that you retain them and make them your loyal customers.
In order to improve on your customer experience, you should make provisions to give out discounts to your customers from time to time, make available flexible payment options for your clients, make use of effective customer relationship management (CRM) software to effectively manage your clientele base and ensure that you carry your clients along when making decisions that directly affect them.
In conclusion, as a makeup artist business owner, if you can adopt the above tips when running your makeup business, then you will continue to get makeup artist contracts for photo shoots from clients within and outside the location where your business is domicile.