Building An Audience
Building an audience of potential clients who may want the style of work you shoot requires a combination of strong personal branding and relationship-building.
To be sustainable as a photographer today, building a client base relies on you developing a compelling and unique brand around what is authentic to you that clients can get to know and trust. You will catch people’s attention when you have the visual language and confidence to marry up your photographic skills with personal passions that are important to you.
Your uniqueness is a powerful combination of what you shoot, how you shoot it and why you shoot it. It is an amalgam of your artistry, expertise, interests and skill set. Being an expert is highly attractive to potential clients, both in terms of your knowledge base and your photographic competence.
It can take time to understand where your unique viewpoint and position really lies. Sometimes it can mean releasing yourself from the clutches of a particular way of doing things or facing up to the fact that a high proportion of the work that comes to you is circumstantial rather than by design. Recognising this and ensuring you aren’t working within a comfort zone and without direction are good starting points. Additionally, it is helpful to have confidence that some ‘mistakes’ can inform your direction and be very healthy to your creativity. Your personal style is likely to develop and evolve throughout your career, taking twists and turns that you couldn’t necessarily have foreseen.
Getting noticed by potential clients is tougher than it has ever been. Yes, as a photographer you can get your work in front of many people at low cost via your website and other marketing channels. But by the same token clients have become huge consumers of content both from a personal and professional standpoint; they are busy and they are looking at more imagery than ever before.
While social media is a vital and very effective means of being visible, it cannot replace the invaluable in-person encounters that purposeful networking provides. It should be seen as a complementary means of connecting with your client group and collaborators, not the only means by which you establish meaningful relationships.
In practice, this means meeting people in person as often as possible; being sociable and networking within your creative peer group and subject arena.
Keeping your expectations in check is vital as is having faith that these social events and encounters will give a return if you are consistently dedicated to participating and finding ones where your potential clients and other industry professionals might hang out. Expect it to be a slow burn: you may encounter someone you met at an industry awards one year and then again twelve months later at a portfolio review which in turn may ignite something that yields a job a further year after that.
Building relationships takes time if they are to be trusted. Whether it is networking, sending out regular mailers, direct mail or social media, it is important not to be disheartened if you don’t get the kind of response you had hoped for in the timescale you had imagined.
So long as you have done your research and are focused towards the right client base: keep a consistent, upbeat and updated presence work is likely to follow in due course.
To be sustainable as a photographer today, building a client base relies on you developing a compelling and unique brand around what is authentic to you that clients can get to know and trust. You will catch people’s attention when you have the visual language and confidence to marry up your photographic skills with personal passions that are important to you.
Your uniqueness is a powerful combination of what you shoot, how you shoot it and why you shoot it. It is an amalgam of your artistry, expertise, interests and skill set. Being an expert is highly attractive to potential clients, both in terms of your knowledge base and your photographic competence.
It can take time to understand where your unique viewpoint and position really lies. Sometimes it can mean releasing yourself from the clutches of a particular way of doing things or facing up to the fact that a high proportion of the work that comes to you is circumstantial rather than by design. Recognising this and ensuring you aren’t working within a comfort zone and without direction are good starting points. Additionally, it is helpful to have confidence that some ‘mistakes’ can inform your direction and be very healthy to your creativity. Your personal style is likely to develop and evolve throughout your career, taking twists and turns that you couldn’t necessarily have foreseen.
Getting noticed by potential clients is tougher than it has ever been. Yes, as a photographer you can get your work in front of many people at low cost via your website and other marketing channels. But by the same token clients have become huge consumers of content both from a personal and professional standpoint; they are busy and they are looking at more imagery than ever before.
While social media is a vital and very effective means of being visible, it cannot replace the invaluable in-person encounters that purposeful networking provides. It should be seen as a complementary means of connecting with your client group and collaborators, not the only means by which you establish meaningful relationships.
In practice, this means meeting people in person as often as possible; being sociable and networking within your creative peer group and subject arena.
Keeping your expectations in check is vital as is having faith that these social events and encounters will give a return if you are consistently dedicated to participating and finding ones where your potential clients and other industry professionals might hang out. Expect it to be a slow burn: you may encounter someone you met at an industry awards one year and then again twelve months later at a portfolio review which in turn may ignite something that yields a job a further year after that.
Building relationships takes time if they are to be trusted. Whether it is networking, sending out regular mailers, direct mail or social media, it is important not to be disheartened if you don’t get the kind of response you had hoped for in the timescale you had imagined.
So long as you have done your research and are focused towards the right client base: keep a consistent, upbeat and updated presence work is likely to follow in due course.