Wondering what numbers to track in your photography business? In this episode of the Book More Clients Photography Podcast, I’m sharing the data to keep up with to measure your success.

What Should You Track in Your Photography Business?

Let’s talk about the numbers in your photography business. Maybe you the numbers in your business make you nervous or you just don’t like dealing with them. Or maybe you’re like me and you geek out about the numbers and data in your business. Either way, it’s so important to let the numbers drive your business decisions rather than your emotions.

At the end of each month, you should know whether you hit your goals or not. If you’re not setting any goals or tracking what you’re doing in your photography business, how do you know if your month was successful or not? In order to help you, I want to share a list of all the numbers you should track in your photography business depending on what you use, and what season of business you are in.

End of the Month Reflection

At the end of every month, look back and reflect on what happened in your business. Look back at everything that happened and write down some of your wins. What were some of the things that you did? Did you crash your project? Finish your website? Crush a sales goal? Hit your bookings for the month?

Create an overview of how the month went for you. What were some of the wins and the positive things that happened? What were some of the things that didn’t work well or wasn’t a great experience? Reflect on the month as a whole. This is a good opportunity to get your feelings out about how the month went. Write them down or journal about them.

Data to Track in Your Photography Business

There are two types of numbers to track in your photography business. Some are from a revenue perspective. Others deal with your marketing numbers. Both are important! Here is a list of numbers to track in your photography business:

Revenue Numbers to Track in Your Photography Business

Conversion Rate

First, you should keep track of the number of leads that are coming into your business on a regular basis. A lead is anybody who fills out your contact form and is inquiring to work with you. This could also ve anybody that sends you an Instagram DM or a message on Facebook. Any way that they are reaching out to you, and inquiring about your services, counts as a lead. Track the total amount of leads that you had for the month.

You should also track how many of those leads booked with you. Both of those numbers will tell you your conversion rate. Your conversion rate is all the people that expressed interest in working with you and how many of those actually booked you.

You want 40% or higher to work with you. If you have a low conversion rate, then that tells you there’s a red flag. Maybe it’s in the way that you are communicating your services to your potential client. Or maybe your packages are not making sense, or your pricing is off. If you see a red flag but you’re not sure how to address it or where the problem lies, I offer coaching and strategy calls to help with just that.

Bookings

The next number to track in your photography business is your bookings as a whole. How many bookings did you have? Did you hit your booking goal for the month? Did you have less? How far off are you?

Profit

Then you want to look at your numbers, your actual sales, revenue, and profit. How much money came into your business? How much money went out? Did you reinvest? Did you have to pay for a subscription? How much money went out of your business? What was leftover?

Upsells

After you know what your sales were and how much money you brought in, let’s go even further. Were you able to upsell anybody on anything? Did you take them from one package to another? Were you able to sell an additional set of images? Were you able to sell prints and products?

What Clients Are Booking

Keep track of the specific things or packages that your clients are booking. If you have more than one package, make sure that you are keeping track of what are people booking so that at the end of the month, and the end of the year, you know what your number one package is.

You can also look for red flags. Is one package selling but others are not? Why aren’t the other ones selling? Is it your lowest package? Where’s the missing link? Your data is going to help you make better business decisions.

Marketing Numbers to Track in Your Photography Business

The second set of numbers to track in your photography business is anything that has to do with marketing. These are things like email marketing, your website, Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, anything like that.

Email Marketing

If you are using email marketing, even if you’re only sending one email a month, I want you to track it. How many emails did you send for the month? How many of those emails were opened? What was the percentage? Or the exact number? Then, track how many people clicked the link or booked a session from that email.

Website Analytics

Make sure that you are checking your analytics on your website. You usually can’t see that from your website hosting platform, you may have to register your website through the Google Search Console or something like that. Track your website views. How many people came onto your website? How long did they stay? Are they local to you? This is an advanced strategy that we talk about in The Blueprint.

Social Media

So now we’re going to get into the different types of what I’m going to group into social media. I know Pinterest is not considered social media, but it still is going to be clumped in that category for me. If you’re using Pinterest, look at the analytics on your analytics board. Is it improving month after month? Are you active and consistently pinning new things so that people can find you? Are you using correct SEO?

Look at your analytics. Otherwise, you’re going to be pouring all your time and attention into platforms that may be stealing your time and money when you could figure out your number one marketing funnel and double down on it.

The next one is going to be Instagram and Facebook. So specifically, if you are on Instagram, I want you to keep track of your Instagram followers. Go back and look at what you posted. What were your most popular posts? Look at the analytics, because what your people are responding to, that’s what you need to do to create similar content.

Then track your website or your link clicks on your social media. Are people clicking on them? What was the most popular story that converted the most people into clicking that link?

Then for Facebook, if you are marketing your business on Facebook, track your Facebook group members. So if you have your own Facebook group, I want you to be tracking how many members are coming in? What is the engagement rate of your group? Anything between 30 to 50% is great. I know it’s hard to believe but 30 to 50% of engagement in your Facebook group is absolutely amazing. Anything above 50% You’re doing phenomenal. Also track your Facebook page followers and likes.

Let The Numbers You Track Determine Your Business Decisions

Those are the numbers to track in your photography business each month. Pick and choose what works for you. The revenue numbers are especially important. Things like conversion rate and bookings. Do not let how you feel dictate how you run your business.

If you feel defeated, go back and look at your data. Maybe everything has increased, and you landed six out of eight bookings that you wanted for the month. You’re in a great place and you can defeat that feeling of failure when you know that your business is doing well. Remember, let data drive your business decisions, not how you feel about your business.

Come join us in the Blueprint Program to learn more about the running the back end of your photography business and more!

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