5 Ways to Expand Your Tattoo Business

Tattoo artists are great and all, but if you’re a studio manager or owner, it can help to diversify your business by bringing in artists and small businesses of other kinds!

From piercing to tooth gems, here are the five best kinds of business to incorporate into your tattoo studio!

Body Piercing

Piercing is a classic sidekick to tattooing, as there’s so much crossover between potential customers! Piercings are much cheaper, easier and quicker than tattoos, so they’re a convenient upsell or something you can pitch at your customers’ friends while they wait.

It’s also a convenient side business in the sense that piercers need a similarly sterile environment to tattoo artists. They can share some equipment like hygiene solutions and autoclaves - all of which can be bought at the same time as tattoo supplies on Killer Ink - and any specialist equipment like piercing needles and instruments take up a small amount of space compared with tattoo supplies!

A relatively busy piercer can make a fair amount of money, especially in a studio with a lot of walk-ins, and it’s another way to get potential customers through the door - especially if your piercer also sells jewellery direct to the public.

Laser Tattoo Removal

The perfect way to get them coming and going! While at some point in tattoo history it might have been considered bad form to promote tattoo removal alongside tattooing, now we know that they go hand in hand.

After all, laser removal isn’t just for erasing your ex’s name - it’s also perfect for redoing tattoos or creating a lighter base for blackout and blastover work, which makes it a perfect upsell where these treatments might be needed before the customer can get the tattoo of their dreams.

Plus, those suffering from tattoo regret might prefer to have theirs removed in an accepting environment, and it’ll give them inspiration for their next piece - hopefully with one of your artists!

Tooth Gems

The nineties are back, baby, and tooth gems are in style once again!

These dainty alternatives to grills are semi-permanent, and only require some dental-grade adhesive and a UV light source. Specially-selected gems and high-quality gold are chosen for their ability to pass through the body without harm, and the same PPE - including gloves and face masks - used by your tattoo artists and piercers can also be equipped by a tooth gem technician!

Permanent Make-up and Scalp Micropigmentation

PMU and SMP artists use a lot of the same tools and supplies as tattoo artists, making them the perfect addition to your studio. The health and safety requirements are just as strict as they are for tattoos, so by inviting a PMU artist in you’ll have another member of the team who knows how to avoid cross-contamination and use a sharps bin!

And while at one time there might not have been much crossover in clients, in modern times it’s huge - plenty of people who have tattoos also have permanent make-up, and you might even convince an SMP, PMU or microblading client to get their first tattoo!

Original Art & Prints

Why limit yourself to just selling body art? By opening up your business to include a store front of original pieces of art and prints, you can bring a whole new clientele through your door and introduce your artists to a new audience!

You don’t have to restrict yourself to showcasing art by your tattoo artists, either - put the call out for local artists, giving them the opportunity to display their art for sale in exchange for a cut or a fixed price for “rental” of the wall space.

This is a pretty passive way of generating extra income for your studio, ingratiates you with the local artist community, and gets more bodies through your door without having to pay any additional wages!