The ease and intuitiveness of Google products makes them a no-brainer for growing our business.
Ben Childers
Owner
Kentucky native Ben Childers is one of those lucky people who’s turned his passion into a business. When he got a drone for Christmas as a high school junior in 2016, the avid hiker and photographer posted footage of local attraction Cumberland Falls on YouTube and got 180,000 views in two days. Within a week, local real estate agents had asked him to shoot similar videos for their properties. “They wanted to pay me to do what I was already doing for fun,” he says. “I decided to embrace it and create an actual business.” When he launched Ben Childers Photography in 2017, he’d already been using Google tools for years. “The ease and intuitiveness of Google products makes them a no-brainer for growing our business,” he says.
With help from Ben’s two YouTube channels, revenue grew by 40 percent in 2021 and another 25 percent in 2022. One channel is a hub for client work; the second shares his own photography, reaching potential clients worldwide, like agencies in California or overseas who need shots of Kentucky. “The ROI on our YouTube channels is immense,” he says. “Every week, I have people from tourism agencies and production companies asking to license content.” Ben and his five employees also make heavy use of Google Workspace tools like Gmail, Calendar, and Drive. “Google Drive lets us share content with each other quickly and efficiently,” he says. Clients collect their final videos from Google Drive as well. “We have 3.15 terabytes of data stored on Drive,” Ben says. “It gives us capabilities we wouldn’t have with other options.” Ben hopes to double the size of Ben Childers Photography in the next few years by expanding into new geographic areas and new services. Google Ads will be a big part of that strategy. “We’ll use Google Ads to put our brand in front of new eyes and break into new markets,” he says.