Which TX city is best for small photography businesses?

[adonia]

My business partner and I currently reside in Seattle, WA and we'll be relocating to TX sometime this summer. We originally were thinking San Antonio but we've heard the market in that city isnt that great for small business owners doing photography. Do any of you know which TX city is the best when it comes to this? Any info would be great!

[sbug_adam]

hi, welcome to the board.. what brings you to texas?

adam

[eurotrash]

why texas?

[adonia]

Hello to both of you! I lived down by Houston about 3 years ago and absolutely adored it! Ive wanted to go back since I left.

[cmalana]

Depends no what type of photography you shoot. I would guess that either Houston, Austin or Dallas would work. If it's a small business, it's not like you would be able to service a ton of clients anyway.

Having visited Seattle several times, I thought it was a great place and reminded me of San Francisco.

[eurotrash]

yeah i love seattle

[adonia]

Seattle is nice, but I was born and raised here, that fact added onto the fact that I have almost zero cold temp tolerance makes me ready to move! We have about 2 montha of warm weather here. Plus the people in Texas areby far friendlier than Washingtonians and I prefer southern hospitality over Washington eccentric snobby-ism lol

[exposedmedia]

Don't do a studio, put a pro photo shop here lol. You would only be competing with one other store that is cornering the market with high prices. They don't even have half of the selection that precision camera does in Austin.

[adonia]

Oh ya? Only one? Holy cow. There's about 10 camera stores within 30 miles from me, thats just 30 miles! The competition is huge here. Sheesh.

[steve817]

In the DFW area. We have some that are doing well and some doing not so well. It's all in the marketing.

[Steelsun]

I would hazard to guess that any of the main cities in Texas would be just about the same as any of the main cities elsewhere in the US. It's all in marketing and skill (in that order, unfortunatly). Probably your best chances, due to size of populations and therefor opportunity, would be Houston (4th largest city in US) and Dallas/Ft Worth.

If you speak spanish and can market to the Hispanic market, you would get a bigger plus in Houston and San Antonio, for things like the Quincentera (sp?) etc.

Best of luck.

[bullsparade]

I have a little different opinion than the others here. I think you should avoid the largest cities due to the over abundance of Photogs in those markets. You will find yourself at such an early stage in business and photgraphy competing based on price.

My advice would be to locate out of a large city in a medium sized city with less photgraphy comptetition. Get your business growing then expand into the larger markets. I suggested Marble Falls or Spicewood...those are very near Austin but far enough out to grow your business.

[Shane]

I have to agree about the big cities . . . oversaturated! But, the mid size cities have lots of opportunity with a lot less competition. New talent is always appreciated - welcome to the board!

[AjP]

well, I afraid I'll disappoint you but with DSLRs rapidly coming to market competition in photography business get higher and higher, no matter if you are in small city or big... it is a little easier to get client in small city but not as much opportunities as in big city, in same time in big city you really need to compete and build client network...

[bullsparade]

Oh marketing is key...but look at advertising dollar in big city vs. smaller city. I can reach a much larger audience with more frequency in a smaller city using less advertising dollars.

For example, if I had $2000 (very small budget) to spend on 1 months of advertising.

In Houuston that would buy me what? 1 very small (2" x 2") ad in the Chronicle.

Small City, Texas that same $2000 would buy me 2 weeks worth of ads in ther local paper which gives me more "frequency" but with same exposure. I could also Double my ad size to maybe 4" x4" for 1 week and still get more frequency than the larger city AND more notice.

Another good example that I just dealt with recently. I purchased $2000 worth of Radio for our company. It gave me 10 :20 commercials on 5 of the company's stations. Thats 50 commercials! It also spread over different demographics...country music, classic rock, and top 40.

We are 60-70 miles from Houston...the Houston radio station wanted to offer 3 :10 commercials on one station. That left us with limited demographic (no reach) and very few repetitions (frequency).

This is Marketing 101 but everyone isnt a marketing student so thought I would share the info. I will also note that I would rather have 20% of a captive audience in a city of 100,000 than .02% of 1,000,000

Big and small cities both have their pros and cons its just with smaller cities your resources tend to go further thereby giving you more network opportunity.