Growing a business can seem like a pipe dream. It can feel like there are so many ways to do it, with each being a crappy way of taking photos. Before moving into a commercial food photographer, I ran a successful marketing agency. Let me share with you some tips to reach your ideal customers and grow your business.
Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to live in a big city to grow your business and be successful. In fact, if you have the right technology in place, you will find agents in larger centers who can contact you. But this won’t happen if you’re not focused or if you’re putting your resources into low-return efforts.
Don’t waste money on social media
Unless you can afford to spend many thousands of dollars, social media advertising is always more effective than successful when it comes to reaching new customers. In time, you might want to think about retargeting your ads as people organically reach your site because those ads have a better return on investment (ROI). Even then, it can be a crap because that ad is not what will sell your services. There is a “rule” in the buying journey that someone needs to encounter a new brand at least five times before making it part of a buying decision.
Ad targeting also varies widely depending on country and privacy laws. The more rural you are, the harder it is to target ads, as the social media company doesn’t have good data.
If you are a commercial photographer, you also need to know that it is very rare that you land any worthwhile work thanks to social media.
Make a business plan
It always amazes me how many business owners don’t have a business plan. Many people think of a business plan as something that people only need if they want to get a business loan. The business plan is there to guide your business through actionable tactics, dictated by strategies, that lead to goals or objectives. Each goal should have its own strategy and tactics. Your business plan should have no more than five goals. Five goals are driving it in terms of successful management.
Your business plan should also include personalities for each of your target customers. And it should have a clear description of the customer journey. The customer journey begins when they know your brand and should include avenues to research your services, contact you, “calls”, pricing decisions, delivery You need to really spend some time thinking about every step your customer will take.
Your business plan should also include marketing strategies, review dates, and things to watch out for to let you know that you might be stuck and it’s time to make a new plan. Don’t forget to include personality for both your direct and indirect competitors. Don’t forget to include the review date in your calendar as an action item.
Join your community
Word of mouth is still the number one way for potential customers to learn about you. There is word of mouth from satisfied customers who have referred you. There’s also the word of mouth that comes from your involvement in the things that matter to your customer base. When you create customer characters in your business plan, their values should be part of that.
An easy example from my own business is that my customers appreciate locally produced items and/or value added products created from locally grown produce. local when possible. My business participates in a farmer’s cooperative, as a buyer and helper in guiding the growing seasons based on the needs of my business. My clients see me as an active part of an initiative they appreciate, so they hire me because they see our values aligned.
Spend some time figuring out what the above will look like for your business.
Join your local Chamber of Commerce
There are many benefits to joining your local Chamber. It’s not just about networking events or discounts on things like business insurance. With multiple Chambers, you have the opportunity to do targeted advertising at an extremely low cost. These could include B2B newsletters, your business being part of a package welcoming new people to the city, rack spaces in tourist centers, etc. All are just a fraction of the cost. Social media advertising fees may or may not be aimed at your target audience.
Implement targeted mail drop
We all love to complain about unsolicited mail. However, the truth is that it works. Mailers with the best ROI at low cost-per-thousand impressions. As a bonus, you can use the envelope to showcase your work in a way that doesn’t translate to digital media. If you create a well-designed envelope, potential customers will keep it for a long time. How many of you have a pad from a broker in the bulk mail?
Postal services of some countries make it easier than others. In Canada, it’s easy with Canada Post doing everything from design help to printing and mailing to desired postal codes. In other countries, there are services available to help, if needed, with each step of the process.
Charge more
Many photographers charge lower because they think they are competing with all the photographers instead of a handful of photographers who are direct competitors. Unless you’re shooting in a shopping mall or are in the shoot-and-record genre, you’re not going to compete with those types of photographers. If you’ve done your homework while planning your business, you’ve identified that a handful of photographers have similar quality work in the same niche. Those are your competitors.
If they are a personal service photographer, you may be tempted to compare competitor prices. Do not. Your valuation is based on the cost of doing business and how much you want to earn in a year. If you’re really good, get out of the world of commercial photography and don’t set prices on your website. If a potential customer needs to know the cost before initiating contact, they will never pay you or appreciate your work to begin with. You can’t lose a customer you’ll never get. Not showing prices is a great way to pre-screen customers.
If you provide commercial services and have listed prices, remove them. Commercial work is priced based on the scope of a job. You won’t know that range until you get a call and ask all the questions. The price listing will lead to many predatory questions that will try to tell you $20.00 per social media image or “shoot for exposure”. Visible prices signal someone is green or desperate for work.
Let your portfolio convince potential customers that you are worth whatever the final cost will be.
Find Your Niche
Finding clients is a lot easier when you know exactly what you’re doing. You also reduce the odds of direct competition. The less direct competition you have, the more demand you will have. The more demand you have, the more you can charge. Even in broad categories like portraiture on the personal service side, or food on the commercial side, there are hundreds of niches.
If you do the above, you’ll have a solid foundation on which to grow your business effectively and efficiently, regardless of the size of your community service.
