Have you heard of the word Niche but don’t really understand what it means? Your Niche is your zone of genius. You serve a small segment of the universe by offering this group your photography service. Photographers often start out doing it all. They take every client, whether headshots, families, weddings, or newborns. While this is ok while discovering your talent and what you enjoy most, it isn’t a great business model to continue long-term.
Let’s pretend you just got engaged and head to “Google” to find your dream photographer. You quickly search for photographers in your area and get many different results. Scrolling through Google, you get overwhelmed by the options; you finally find a couple on the first page that looks promising. Which one would you book?
Photographer A has weddings, pet photography, and landscape work in her social feed. Her website says she specializes in families, newborns, maternity, weddings, elopements, and commercial photography.
Photographer B has wedding and couples images in her social feed and scattered throughout her website. Her home page says she specializes in “Creating magazine-worthy, stop-you-in-your-tracks images for couples looking for a fun, stress-free, and luxurious experience.”
Chances are you are booking Photographer B. That is because it is obvious what she specializes in and that she has taken the time to hone in on her craft, and she is creating an experience specifically for couples. There are many benefits to honing in on your niche but our favorite reason is that we get to be an authority in our niche.
What are the benefits of honing in on your Niche?
- More Client Joy: Photographers engaging in niche marketing and targeting fewer people can focus on nurturing relationships and top-notch service. From personalized emails, beautiful niched PDFs and guides, diligent follow-ups, and personalized thank-you gifts to custom packages made just for them, niche marketing can keep their customers happy and valued.
- Increased Visibility: The aim of niche marketing is not to reach out to many people but to reach out to the right people. When you target your unique Niche, your service stands out more amongst the sea of other “generic” photographers and service providers.
- Less Competition: When you narrow your Niche down, the chance of other businesses offering the exact same service is much lower. The more specific your services are, the lesser the competition will be, and the higher your chance of targeting your audience and making sales will be.
- Fewer Resources Needed: When your business is serving one demographic rather than a handful of them, fewer resources and research are needed all around, from the number of locations you shoot at, what type of equipment you invest in, the programs you use, the number of team members you hire, the props you have on hand even right down to the amount of brain power needed to run your day. When you focus on one Niche rather than a dozen, everything is simplified!
- Authority In Your Niche: Now, this is the most important one. You always want to be seen as the expert in your field, which is difficult to do if you try to offer every service. Do you know that saying “jack of all trades, master of none”? Ya, that applies here! Once you hone in on your Niche, you can put all your resources into this one segment of the photography industry! Spend your time attending conferences, workshops, and online summits, increasing your knowledge base. Take on a business coach or mentor who can help you take your business to the next level in that Niche.
- Increased Referrals: Often, we are so focused on getting new clients that we forget we are sitting on a gold mine of potential new clients just by ensuring that our current clients are taken care of. If you provide an exceptional experience to them, they will refer you to others. Imagine being a newborn photographer who just photographed a beautiful baby, and after delivering a fab experience, the mom refers you to all her mom group friends.
Sue Bryce is an excellent example of a photographer who has become KNOWN as the portrait QUEEN. Sue Bryce doesn’t fuss with anything but unique portraits. You can recognize her work everywhere you go, and I bet if you were in Australia and needed photographs, you would save up to have your image taken by the one and only. The same goes for Annie Leibovitz and her incredible portrait work around celebrities. Being an Authority in your Niche will help you build a reputation in your community as the expert, THE it girl in your field.
