Finding a target audience for your photography business is an important first step.
It’s also difficult when you don’t know where to start.
Most people will say, find a niche. That’s easier said than done.
Luckily, you have done more work doing product photography, wedding photography or even pet photography. This will be helpful as you start defining your audience.
Let’s cover a few actionable items that you can do right now.
Establish Your Value as a Photographer First
An issue you likely are having is that you’re only talking about what you do in a very generic way.
What types of problems are you solving for your customer?
A great first step is to try and uncover the emotional core of an idea. This method is presented in the book Contagious: Why Things Catch On.
The ‘Three Whys’.
Start by answering why you believe people are doing something. Then ask ‘Why is ____ important?’ 3 times to uncover the emotion behind it.
For example, let’s talk about wedding photography.
‘Why are wedding photographs so important to a bride?’
A: Because it’s a once in a lifetime event and it needs to be captured.
‘Why is it important to capture so many of these moments and why would they need so many photos?’
A: It’s so they can have a big album of photos of every single moment from the day even if it seems unimportant at the time.
‘Why is this album important to them?’
A: The bride wants to be able to share them on social media, with family and friends and would love to brag about how the photos captured how beautiful she looks. She wants to be able to talk about these moments, with these visuals forever. These moments make her feel like she’s taken back to wedding day every time she looks at them.
You’re not just a photographer. You help people capture moments that make the couple feel extremely happy every time they look back at them.
The message you send to your target audience should be specific about the type of value you’re providing. Don’t sell yourself short!
How to Find Your Target Audience & Niche
Now that you’ve established how you can help your customers understand the value you’re providing, you can do some quick research.
This is necessary if you have an existing website or looking to create one as a part of your business.
A quick Google search for ‘professional photographer los angeles’ reveals the following related topics:
From here, spend some time thinking about search intent.
Your intention is to obviously find people who are considering hiring a photographer (you), rather than looking for photos as inspiration.
If you’re a family photographer, you’re in luck! There’s definitely demand for someone like you as shown in the search results.
It’s also important to note here that the example above makes use of geo-targeting. I’m in Los Angeles and included that in my query.
Above is a screenshot from Semrush (but you could use a free tool like wordtracker). As you can see, there are 110 monthly searches for ‘professional photographer los angeles’.
With just a short amount of research, you can see there is demand for this keyword even though the KD% (keyword difficulty score) is a bit higher, it might be difficult to rank for.
In any case, you could continue doing this until you have found your specialty / niche.
Market Yourself By Thinking Small
The concept of the ‘smallest viable market’ by Seth Godin is an important one to live by especially for small businesses.
It is the smallest possible market you can serve and that can sustain your business as it grows.
Every successful company has started out with the smallest viable market.
That means you can start with your close friends and even existing customers.
After you’ve established the value you’re providing, a stronger sense of your niche by being more specific of what you’re offering, you can focus your energy on your smallest viable market.
The biggest advantage you gain from this is that you are able to create a much stronger message.
Most Americans in urban areas are exposed to more than four thousand ad messages per day.
Bly, Robert W.. The Copywriter’s Handbook (p. 20)
This is insane.
Too often we want to jump in and grab the attention of everyone we can by blasting our social media timelines with our message.
But it’s ineffective because most people don’t care or don’t have time to stop on your message because they’re hit with 4,000 per day. It’s exhausting.
Bring your focus to speaking to that small circle to build up your target audience.
How to Develop Content That Appeals To Your Niche
Whether you’re crafting content for social media or copywriting for your website, you’re going to need to create content.
It should be straight to the point and connect with your target audience immediately because it’s a noisy world.
The best thing you can do to develop content is start by thinking only about your customer.
They’re only interested in their benefits and rightfully so.
Practice by writing for someone specific.
A great way to do that is to use Semrush’s free persona tool.
Here’s an example:
Your content should address some of the objections the customer might have.
Get to the root of why they need to buy and tap into that emotion.
Now that you have a persona built out, you can get in the mindset of speaking to this person directly in your copywriting.
Add value and strength to your message!
Start Practicing This Now
Now that you’re established your strengths as a photographer, you’ll start to see how you’re able to understand your ideal target audience.
You won’t need to worry about competitors if you’re specialized in a specific type of photography.
- Find the emotion / establish pain points of your customer with empathy
- Start small. The ‘bigger’ you think, the easier it is for your target audience to miss your message
- Use your content to speak to ‘someone’
