Defining Your Target Market
To be hired as a commercial photographer you need to be visible to potential clients who need the style of content you create and are passionate about. Working out who those clients are, how they operate and what their expectations are is crucial if you are to connect in a way for them take notice.
Here are some tips to help define your market:
1. Be clear about your own visual style and why you do what you do. Explore the visual language that defines your work as a photographer and the personal motivations behind your chosen specialty. How would you describe your strengths? If you haven’t yet found a niche, it might be time to work hard to prune back the breadth of your reach and consider which areas particularly inspires you. Point 3 might help you get there, as can an independent consultant who can help draw out your essential motivations and talents as a photographer.
2. Is your portfolio ready and relevant to show these clients? If not, then notice where the gaps are and think about how best to develop your work so that it would speak to them and get noticed. This can take time and will need a proactive approach to shooting personal work that is meaningful to you while at the same time appeal to your chosen sector.
Don’t forget that the functionality of your website is important as it is easy to alienate a potential client if it is a muddle and difficult to navigate.
You might find that realistically you have to re-think whether you are truly ready to approach these dream clients and instead target a different tier of client for the time being. Keep your ultimate goal in mind but recognise where you sit with regard to your level of experience and the competition around you.
If you are clear about your style and creative direction, your job is to find clients who tend to use the style of work you produce.
3. Who would be your ideal client(s) - what draws you to them? Try to understand and deconstruct the type of imagery they use and commission and what it is about their brand values and aspirations that resonates with you. Research their business in depth including an analysis of their audience and the tone they use in their marketing. It’s important to know everything you possibly can about who you’re approaching before you approach them so you can communicate meaningfully and with genuine knowledge.
4. Who, specifically, should you target? Once you have understood the sector where your work could best fit, you will need to dig deep into the marketing materials of these prospective clients to find out who was responsible for its creation. It is these people you will want to target your marketing towards. If it’s a well-known consumer brand, you’ll be looking for names of art directors, creative directors, art buyers, etc at the agencies who created the work. Comb through credits on awards websites and inspect the credits on specialist magazines within your arena to find the names of editors, creatives, producers, etc. Who is in charge of commissioning? This is for you to find out.
If your work is more suited to the editorial arena, gather the names of all the picture editors in your sector. LinkedIn can be a great tool to find the names and job titles of relevant contacts.
Once you have specific names, get to know their world: check their feeds on social media, comment (positively) on their posts when you genuinely have something to say – make it meaningful and you may get noticed and followed back. This is all part of the art of relationship-building in a hectic creative space and will tell you more about whether that client is a good fit for your ethos and style of photography.
It is possible to buy ready-made client lists but I would always recommend creating your own spreadsheet in the first instance so you get to know your client sector and the invaluable information you will glean as a result of your research.
5. Update and expand your spreadsheet regularly. It is a good idea to segment your list into current clients, hot prospects and dream clients so that you can monitor how and when to move them from one category to another. Your marketing approach should be different depending in which category they sit.
Developing and growing your marketing lists requires hard graft but is essential. As well as adding names to your list from networking events etc, you will need to schedule regular time for research. Little and often…build it into your weekly/monthly schedule. Through this process you will absorb invaluable knowledge about your client base and find it is time well spent. If you’ve done your homework you will build more meaningful relationships which in turn may well one day result in the phone ringing for a potential commission.
Here are some tips to help define your market:
1. Be clear about your own visual style and why you do what you do. Explore the visual language that defines your work as a photographer and the personal motivations behind your chosen specialty. How would you describe your strengths? If you haven’t yet found a niche, it might be time to work hard to prune back the breadth of your reach and consider which areas particularly inspires you. Point 3 might help you get there, as can an independent consultant who can help draw out your essential motivations and talents as a photographer.
2. Is your portfolio ready and relevant to show these clients? If not, then notice where the gaps are and think about how best to develop your work so that it would speak to them and get noticed. This can take time and will need a proactive approach to shooting personal work that is meaningful to you while at the same time appeal to your chosen sector.
Don’t forget that the functionality of your website is important as it is easy to alienate a potential client if it is a muddle and difficult to navigate.
You might find that realistically you have to re-think whether you are truly ready to approach these dream clients and instead target a different tier of client for the time being. Keep your ultimate goal in mind but recognise where you sit with regard to your level of experience and the competition around you.
If you are clear about your style and creative direction, your job is to find clients who tend to use the style of work you produce.
3. Who would be your ideal client(s) - what draws you to them? Try to understand and deconstruct the type of imagery they use and commission and what it is about their brand values and aspirations that resonates with you. Research their business in depth including an analysis of their audience and the tone they use in their marketing. It’s important to know everything you possibly can about who you’re approaching before you approach them so you can communicate meaningfully and with genuine knowledge.
4. Who, specifically, should you target? Once you have understood the sector where your work could best fit, you will need to dig deep into the marketing materials of these prospective clients to find out who was responsible for its creation. It is these people you will want to target your marketing towards. If it’s a well-known consumer brand, you’ll be looking for names of art directors, creative directors, art buyers, etc at the agencies who created the work. Comb through credits on awards websites and inspect the credits on specialist magazines within your arena to find the names of editors, creatives, producers, etc. Who is in charge of commissioning? This is for you to find out.
If your work is more suited to the editorial arena, gather the names of all the picture editors in your sector. LinkedIn can be a great tool to find the names and job titles of relevant contacts.
Once you have specific names, get to know their world: check their feeds on social media, comment (positively) on their posts when you genuinely have something to say – make it meaningful and you may get noticed and followed back. This is all part of the art of relationship-building in a hectic creative space and will tell you more about whether that client is a good fit for your ethos and style of photography.
It is possible to buy ready-made client lists but I would always recommend creating your own spreadsheet in the first instance so you get to know your client sector and the invaluable information you will glean as a result of your research.
5. Update and expand your spreadsheet regularly. It is a good idea to segment your list into current clients, hot prospects and dream clients so that you can monitor how and when to move them from one category to another. Your marketing approach should be different depending in which category they sit.
Developing and growing your marketing lists requires hard graft but is essential. As well as adding names to your list from networking events etc, you will need to schedule regular time for research. Little and often…build it into your weekly/monthly schedule. Through this process you will absorb invaluable knowledge about your client base and find it is time well spent. If you’ve done your homework you will build more meaningful relationships which in turn may well one day result in the phone ringing for a potential commission.