Tiffinbox

Inspiring Photographers

3 Ways To Position Yourself As An Expert In Your Field

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It’s time to move away from your humble beginnings and start to position yourself as the expert you are. You have the knowledge, the dedication and the vision to be bigger than just a local photographer who takes nice photos.

What exactly is an expert? Experts answer complicated questions with ease. Experts produce inspiring work. Experts are known by name in their industries. Interested? Here are three ways that you can become known as a photography expert.

Option 1: Teach A Photography Class

Teach Photograpy Class

You’re probably thinking, “Ugh, teach?” But, yes! You can inspire students and share your knowledge. Take your enthusiasm for photography and spread it to a class of eager and excited students. You teach, they learn and you become the expert. They will ask you questions about what camera is the best on the market and how to use the settings on a DSLR…what is a DSLR?! Questions you most likely already answer, since you are a respected professional photographer.

Don’t reject the idea of teaching due to your objection of writing a curriculum. Teaching a photography class isn’t as big and scary as it may seem. Magazine Mama sells ready-made, pre-written teaching plans for photography classes.

Start with the basics – regardless of students’ age. No one is coming to your class as an expert (that’s your roll)! A common question that beginning photographers who purchase a DSLR camera will have is about manual mode. How do you do shoot on manual and what are the benefits? Photography curricula on Magazine Mama start with these exact topics. Photography basics like understanding exposure, shutter speed, aperture and ISO.

Teach Photograpy Class

The key to teaching kids is to start even smaller. Save technical features like aperture, shutter speed and ISO for later on in the course or at an advanced class. Kids are visual. They want to learn something that they can show someone, like the crayon drawing hanging on the fridge. A good place to start is to show them different shooting modes. It’s simple. This exercise shows kids what each mode is by using a picture:

• head = portrait mode
• mountain = landscape mode
• flower = macro mode
• person running = action mode
• a star in the background = nighttime mode

They choose the mode based on one of the subjects from above. After they get the hang of it, you can add in more modes like M, AV, TV and P.

Starting with the basics will never let you down. Build a solid foundation first and then add more complex topics later. Tailor your curriculum to the intended audience. Kids, adults and moms all have custom teaching plans at Magazine Mama. The hard work is done for you. Add your logo and press print. Curricula come in editable .psd formats. Instructions are included.

Option 2: Custom Magazine With Client Articles

Weddings Welcome Guide Template

Content in a custom magazine shows your clients your expertise. They accomplish two of the three things experts do: inspire and educate. Lead with inspiration for others. Fill the magazine template with your best work. The work that even you admitted was amazing. These are the photos that will inspire others to take action and distinguish you as an expert.

Marry your artsy self with a client focused business model. Go ahead and let your artistic voice shine in your studio welcome guide alongside your professional client-focused business persona. As we discussed earlier, to be known for something is to share expert knowledge. Show potential clients that you have the experience, eye and knowledge to do the job well and that they don’t need anyone else.

Clients read blogs and pin hundreds of photos to Pinterest before they make final decisions. Whoever they get this information from – they will see as the expert. Give them all of this information in a sleek, creative and informative welcome guide and be THE expert.

Headshots Welcome Guide

Sharing knowledge helps you help them help you. Magazine Mama has customizable magazine templates with pre-written articles. Topics like “what to wear”, “professional headshots and your business”, and “tips to rock your senior session” are included. These topics help you:

* Answer frequently asked questions
* Educate clients with answers to questions they didn’t know to ask
* Inspire clients to help you take epic photos

Option 3: Go Get Published

Don’t hide your work in a dark, cobwebby corner of your website. It should be front and center. If you want to be known in the photography field amongst the other billion photographers – you need to get your name out there.

The best (and easiest) way to get out there – is to get published. Magazines receive a lot of submissions every day from ambitious and talented photographers like you! And because of that – they are picky. Which means not everyone can bask in the warm glow of a magazine spread. What better way to obtain expert status than by having your images published in a highly respected and widely read industry publication? But, expert status isn’t the only reason to pitch your latest photo-shoot to an editor, it will also help you drive traffic to your website and blog and will give you a boost in sales.

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How To Define Your Target Market or Niche?

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Robyn Mayne, AvatarThis is a guest blog is by Robyn Mayne, based in Sydney, Australia. She is a children’s portrait photographer, workshop facilitator and customer experience fanatic! Robyn owns Today is Different and provides photography courses, workshops, retreats and networking events for photographers. Follow Robyn on Twitter.

Who are your customers?

One of the basic elements of any good marketing strategy is a narrowly defined target market – a niche. In fact, a great approach is to start by defining your ideal or perfect customer – Your “right” customer!

Many photographers try to be all things to all people and find it hard to really focus their activity on appealing to their right customers.

Often this happens because someone is on the phone asking for help in an area that’s not really your thing. What tends to kick in here is a fear of saying no to the “wrong” customers. “What if I don’t get any calls from my right customers?”  

While it may seem like growth to take on a new customer, if that customer isn’t a good fit, it can actually take your focus away from real growth and may even create dissatisfied customers that expected something other than what you were able to provide. Dissatisfied customers WILL tell their friends. Do you have a well-defined target market? Or, is it something like…”anyone that we think will pay us”.

So how do you identify your ideal target client?

a) Take a good hard look at your past clients. Look for types of clients that you would love to do more with?
b) Which are your most profitable clients? Are there types of work or types of clients that traditionally produce profitable or unprofitable sales?
c) Do they “want” what you do? If they do not want it for one reason or another, then you are sunk. If you have to convince them of a need, then they are not a good target market.
d) Do they value what you do? Price shoppers will always be prices shoppers. Look for those who appreciate the extra they get from you.

Create a picture of your ideal client

One useful trick is to discover what that ideal client looks like in the most specific way possible and then go about building your entire marketing strategy around attracting more of them. The idea here is that you create a picture of your ideal customer. Give her, or him, a name and a set of characteristics. Consider things like: age; sex; occupation; geography; family; income; beliefs; values; interests; challenges etc.

Now whenever you are reviewing your business, think of a new idea or try a different approach you can ask yourself “Would this appeal to Fiona/Fred?”

What do you think? Have you defined your target market? Do you operate within a niche? Tell us. Discuss. Share. This is the place to do it.