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Working Out Your USP

Why should a potential customer decide to do business with you instead of every other option, including not having a photographer?

The answer is your USP, or Unique Selling Proposition. A USP is one of those core marketing concepts that many photographers think is unobtainable, so they ignore it and hope nobody will notice that every photographer in town in saying and doing the same things. Believe me they notice!

How can I be unique? I shoot portraits just like the other 5 studios in town.

Were you thinking that as you read the previous paragraph?

Has that been your thinking in the past?

Or are you aware of what a USP is but just not sure which way to go with yours?

Many photographers avoid being unique because they think it cuts down on the number of potential clients who might book them. What I mean by that is if you were to become known for your black and white portraiture for example, they fear that people wanting a colour portrait will rule them out as an option.

Did you read that, "they fear ........"

Fear is a business killer! It is probably the biggest business killer of them all. Fear prevents you from taking action on the assumption that if you don't do anything, you can't do anything wrong. That is probably true, but if you don't do anything you can't do anything right either.

You have to conquer your fears if you want to make good money & have a successful business. Let's take a look at the example above and see what is really going on.

Shooters Studio starts to promote a new style of digital editing to their portrait clients. Let's call this style "blackosepia". Every time someone has their portrait taken, as well as all the usual retouching, the studio does a "blackosepia" to one of the best images. When the client looks at the images the "blackosepia" is her favourite, she has not seen anything like that before. She buys a 20x24 or whatever.

When her friend comes over to visit a few days after the clients hangs the picture, she falls in love with it and wants one like that of her family. So what does she do? Phone around? No, she asks her friend where she got the picture, calls the studio and books a session.

So what if she didn't like it but was thinking of getting a family portrait. She visits the same friend and sees the "blackosepia" hanging in the dining room. "Nice picture" she says, not wanting to hurt her friend's feelings. "I've been thinking of getting a family portrait done for John's 40th birthday, not sure that style would suit my hallway though".

What will the client say? My guess is she will say "oh they offered us all sorts of styles, colour, sepia, pop art, but this was my favourite". The friend gives Shooters Studio a call, asks about different finishes, gets assured that they do all sorts, so she books a session.

Over time, Shooters Studio will become known for their "blackosepia" portraits and this becomes a USP for them. No other studio in town is offering a "blackosepia", so if someone wants a "blackosepia" they have to go to Shooters Studio.

The "blackosepia" in this story could be anything. If I had changed the name of the studio from Shooters to Venture, you would all see that a USP can work on a massive scale.

So if this is such as great marketing idea, where does the photographers fear come from? Why would he think this might not be such a good thing? Many photographers think if they become known for something, everyone will think that is all they do, and so limit the number of potential clients.

Well here is the shocker, this is a good thing! Limiting is specialising and specialising is targeting.

Imagine if there are 5 studios within 25 miles of where you are based, and all of them do a little of everything, some commercial, families, babies, model portfolios, etc. "Jack of all trades, master of none" so to speak. Doing lots of different types of work like this is often thought of as "multiple streams of income". If one dries up you can get by on the rest.

But the metaphor is wrong. This is not multiple streams this is different types of water in the same stream. They intermingle & pollute each other. Does the guy who wants his herbal remedies catalogue photographed really want to be met with the smell of perfume from the last make-over session?

Imagine if one of those studios decided to specialise, really target one type of photography. Become known for it locally. This alone could "dry up" this water source so it no longer ran into the other studios streams. If you wanted a family portrait would you go to the studio that specialised in family portraits or to one of the studios who did just about everything?

Ask yourself, do you want to be looking at a loss of one or more of your streams? Or do you want to become a specialist, an expert? Should you strive to be different or strive to be better? Being better is ok, being different is better. If you can, be different & better; you will be so far ahead of what everyone else is doing, they won't even know how you did it.

If you would like more sales and marketing tips visit http://www.photographymarketing.co.uk/. Photography Marketing.com offers sales & marketing advice & training tips for budding & professional wedding & portrait photographers.