A photographer’s ideal client: what do you need to know to find them?
Today we want to talk about the ideal client of a photographer or buyer persona and how this profile does not have to coincide with all professionals who are dedicated to the same discipline. Keep in mind that even if you offer a very specific type of service, such as, for example, wedding photography in Barcelona. Not all couples who live in this city will be your ideal clients. The buyer persona of a photographer will be defined by a series of factors that will depend, on the one hand, on the type of client and, on the other hand, on the service offered by the photographer.
After so many years of helping to build digital photography businesses, we have noticed the erroneous tendency of many photographers to try to “sell their photography services to everyone” through their websites. This is caused by the lack of a correct definition of a ideal client of a photographer in photographers’ strategies and this is exactly what we are going to discuss today in this article.
A photographer’s ideal client is one who would be willing to buy his services (almost) at any price.
Contenido
What exactly is a photographer’s ideal client?
A photographer’s ideal client is a person who is willing to buy his products or services at almost any price, unless the rates set are much higher than what is being offered. Therefore, the buyer persona is that type of client who is a pleasure to work with. You don’t have any problems with them and when you give them the photographs of their photo shoot, they are really satisfied. In short, a photographer’s buyer persona is the prototype client you would always want to work with.
On the other hand, when a photographer’s ideal client is not well defined and you focus on a much wider public, what usually happens is that you start getting much more difficult clients who: constantly haggle with you, ask you for some kind of gift or even are not very satisfied with your final product. From experience you will know that these types of clients are not good for you and it is better to run away from them than to charge for a job that will bring you a lot of headaches.
Why aren’t all people in a photographer’s buyer persona?
For an online photography business to be 100% focused on a photographer’s ideal client, it is important to transmit a totally personalised and individualised message. What do we mean by this? Very simply, following the previous example, if, for example, you are a wedding photographer in Barcelona, you have to internalise that not all brides in this city who are currently looking for a wedding photographer will meet the necessary conditions to become your buyer persona.
In order for your photography business to work well and attract customers through the Internet, it is important that you manage to focus your content (written information and photographs) precisely so that this information meets the needs of your ideal customer. And to achieve this goal, the first thing you have to do is to find out who exactly is that ideal client we are talking about.
The idea is that you define it as faithfully as possible so that the services you are currently offering coincide with what your potential client is looking for at this precise moment on the Internet. Because the first thing that should be clear to you is that, on your photography website, you can’t address everyone. You may think (wrongly, of course) that if you target the whole public, you will have more chances of closing more photo sessions. But the truth is that conversions are not achieved in this way. This business idea is wrong and very common in photography websites and for you to understand it better we are going to give you an example that has nothing to do with photography.
Practical example to understand what is a buyer persona?
Imagine you need to renew your car this year and you are on a tight budget. Without doing an exhaustive search beforehand, which type of car dealership would you go to first: BMW or rather Fiat?
In both cases, the car dealers offer the same product (a car), but they have very well defined their respective buyers personae. In this way, what they achieve is that if a user needs to buy a car, he will know perfectly well which of these two dealers he has to go to according to his needs and possibilities.
The same idea should be used to define a photographer’s ideal client. When a visitor enters your website, they need to find out before leaving it whether you offer a premium service, a more affordable one for all budgets, or whether it is aimed at a very specific type of audience. And of course, what your service is like from start to finish.
And in case you are already thinking about it, we assure you that it is not necessary to show your rates so that the buyer persona of a photographer knows perfectly the type of product that is being offered. Although it wouldn’t hurt to do so in order to make it clear what price range you are in. In any case, we know that showing your rates is a very personal decision that should not influence the quality of the information you can show on your website.
Advantages of correctly defining a photographer’s ideal client
We have just explained what can happen when a photographer’s ideal client is not correctly defined. But what usually happens when the profile of a photographer’s ideal client is correctly detailed? In the latter case and as a general rule, what happens is that the conversion rate* of the website will increase considerably. But be careful! We say “as a general rule” because it will be useless to know your ideal client perfectly if you don’t show and explain on the website what he/she is looking for.
* Conversion rate: if you divide the number of visits to your website in a given period of time by the number of people who eventually contact you. This figure will be your conversion rate. Knowing it will help you to improve your photography business.
Another advantage we would like to highlight is that, by knowing the profile of your ideal client, the marketing actions you can carry out, such as advertising campaigns, blog articles, posts on networks, etc. will be much more effective.
And it goes without saying that when you have your communications focused on the right customer prototype, your working hours, especially when dealing with new customers, will be considerably reduced.
What data do you need to know about your ideal customer?
Once it is clear that you can’t address everyone on your photography website, the next step you have to take, before modifying the information on your website, is to study your best customers to know with reliability and data what they are really looking for from you and thus be able to create a more accurate profile of your buyer persona.
And to reach all these conclusions, the first thing you have to do is a detailed research work. Here, the most reliable source for defining your ideal customer may be to go to those who have already been your customers. To do this, you can do a series of actions:
- Conduct a short interview with your customers and, based on their answers, draw up a profile of your ideal customer with the data that is most frequently repeated.
- You can also take the opportunity to ask for a testimonial, Google reviews can be very interesting.
- Research in which media your potential customer moves (social networks, Internet, television, print media, etc.).
- Find out exactly what your clients expect from you and your work.
- Use the same media as your prototype customers (social networks, forums, groups, etc.) to keep up to date with their opinions and comments.
- Etc.
So get pen and paper ready and start researching.
What is the profile of your ideal customer?
To make a correct profile of a photographer’s ideal client, the most logical thing to do is to base your research also on the data of those who have already been your clients. To do this, you can make a list and collect a series of data, for example:
- Age.
- Location.
- Sex.
- Socio-economic status.
- Etc.
If, after making this list, you select the most repeated data, you will obtain the customer profile of your ideal customer.
Let’s take an example to make it clearer. Let’s suppose that you are a children’s photographer with a studio in the city of Madrid and the data you get about your clients from this first research are:
- Age: between 25 and 45 years old.
- Location: Madrid.
- Sex: female.
- Socio-economic status: medium/high.
How can all this information be interpreted? From the data provided by your clients it can be deduced that most of the clients you receive are women who are about to become mothers or who have recently become mothers and who currently live in Madrid.
This does not mean that sometimes it will be the father, grandfather or aunt who buys your services, or that a client living in Toledo hires you for a family session on a pleasure trip. But in 80% of the cases the profile of your ideal client will coincide with this.
Do you know the habits of your buyer persona?
In addition to knowing an estimate of the above data, it is also very interesting to know certain habits of your potential customer, for example:
- Where you spend most of your time on the Internet (forums, social networks, etc.).
- Investigate whether they still prefer to do their research through paper media such as magazines, newspapers or even “on the street” around their place of residence.
- Find out if he/she likes to participate in any kind of event, fair or congress that is related to your work.
- Etc.
With all this information, you will know much better what kind of media you should go to in order to promote your photographic services. And one way to get all this information is to ask the people who have contacted you how did they find out about you? So, for example, if they discovered you through Instagram, you can add direct access buttons to this social network and even create an Instagram photo gallery on your website.
In addition, visitors to your photography website will be able to share your images through social networks. Because one thing is clear, there is no better advertising than what a potential customer can do to another potential customer.
What does your ideal client expect from your services?
Another piece of information that you should know perfectly is what your target audience really expects from you and your services. Therefore, it is important that you explain in detail as much information as possible on your website, such as: how you work, what is your style when it comes to photography, what are your packs, etc. and that you solve as many doubts as possible.
Ideally, you should create a services page or landing page (a page that will not appear in your main web menu) that you can share with a certain audience with all this information for each type of service you offer, or in other words, for each type of ideal client. Having all this information well organised and divided by type of customer, will allow you to measure much better if what you offer fits with what your customers demand at the moment.
>> Learn how to create Pages and Landings on your photography website
We know that sometimes, identifying each of the buyer personas of a photographer will not be a quick and easy task. But if you spend a little time and dedication to research and create their profiles, and translate the results into your website, we assure you that you will be able to more easily attract those who will truly be your ideal clients.
If your website is focused on your ideal customers, visits will turn into customers much faster.
A photographer’s ideal client is the basis for a successful marketing strategy
Knowing how to identify a photographer’s ideal client, defining them as precisely as possible and showing on your website exactly what they are looking for at the moment, will be essential to convert visits into clients.
At Arcadina we offer you a series of specific business solutions for photographers with which you will be able to attract your ideal client, automate processes and offer them a service that is much more in line with the times. If you don’t know us yet, you can try our services free of charge for 14 days with no commitment fees.
On this occasion we are going to share with you the interview and opinion of the photographer Juan Carlos Albuera from Albuera Morales Fotografía.
And to end this very illustrative article, here’s our question: had you ever thought before reading this post that the ideal client of a photographer who is your competitor does not necessarily have to be the same as yours? We’ll read you in the comments.
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