The simple answer is, very profitable. Exact figures are not easy to give as there are many variables. We’re going to look in detail as to How Profitable is a Photo Booth Business?
In this article:
- Photo Booth Variety
- Photo Booth Market
- Marketing your Photo Booth Business
- Event Pricing
- Booth Extras
- Your capacity
- Profitability
Photo Booth Variety
We supply custom vintage-style photo booths. Our photo booths can be made to fit in with a venue décor or a particular theme. Photo booths can also be ‘wrapped’ for branding at events.
Photo Booth Market
Renting out a photo booth is a straightforward business. The variety of events that benefit from one is huge, from weddings and birthday parties to corporate parties and product launches to permanent locations in nightclubs and bars. Finding the right spot for a permanent location takes some thought, hiring out your photo booth for events takes less thought! Once your marketing is in place then customers will come to you.
Marketing your Photo Booth Business
Marketing is simply about making money. For a photo booth operator that is going to mean marketing over various channels. The first is the venue you place your photo booth as they will do a lot of heavy lifting. Marketing for events is another matter. Will you go niche? Will you go after the wedding market (which is very profitable) or some other niche like corporate business?
The channels you market on will require some form of expenditure in time and budget. An easy-to-use website is a must. Building an email list for follow-up business is also vital. Do spend money on a stable and quick website heavy in imagery and video.
Add articles and news at regular intervals aimed at what people will search for. This will attract what is known as ‘organic traffic.’
Use social channels, a photo booth business lends itself to this channel as you will gain regular, ‘fresh’ imagery. This will help you create ‘word-of-mouth’ around your business.
Collaboration and partnerships are another route. Which complementary businesses can you team up with? The obvious ones are event planners. What can you offer them? Is it worth paying to be on their email newsletter or social channels?
Event Pricing
First, do you know your costs? Transporting a photo booth is an obvious cost. How far will you be willing to travel? A booth attendant is another overhead that has to be taken into consideration. Assets like ink and photographic paper are also going to be a constant.
Once you have included the rate for your time you will be able to work out how much each event is going to cost. Now we come to your margins and how to price your photo booth event.
Price Comparisons
It is important to do your research. What packages are other businesses offering in the area and market you have identified?
Or do you choose a unique or rare product to maximise spend per event – retro/vintage booths are rare in the UK marketplace and offer the opportunity for a much higher sale price than say a pop-up plastic booth or a mirror booth, they also give you access to the vintage wedding market in general the per wedding spend on a vintage wedding style is 30-40% higher than standard wedding market.
You can then go with a fixed package cost or you can go down the route of providing quotes.
Your market is going to dictate your prices. A simple sum to work out the margin of your Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) versus your pricing. Do remember to build in a percentage for wear and tear plus the props.
Booth Extras
What else can you offer with the booth? A collection of props is a must, everyone does it, so what makes your collection of props different? We’ve seen glow sticks, giant light-up words and even a wind machine. Think about making your booth different.
Your Capacity
If your business is a solo one, then what is your capacity and what is your availability? For a fixed venue you may have to attend to maintain the booth, although software glitches may be fixable using remote software. What about event attendance if it is just you? Most of these are going to be weekends and evenings. Think about how many days and hours you have available. Once you have made the initial investment in creating a photo booth business
Profitability
The more often you book your photo booth, the better your Return on Investment (RoI).
The more events you can book your photo booth, the more money you make, which is why most photo booth businesses buy a second photo booth within their first year.
If you have more than one photo booth, you can book more than one event per date and your profit increases.
It’s simple, having multiple photo booths allows you to reach more customers and grow your business faster.
Start your photo booth business with Retro-me today.
All the best,
The Retro-Me Team
