Standing out in the crowded photography market can be a challenge. Flick through any photography magazine or scroll through a photography blog and you’ll be presented with an array of new brands on the block, as well as old favourites. We talk a lot with our clients in the photography industry about the importance of a solid reviews programme to get them seen by their target audiences. In fact, we talked a lot about it in our previous blog ‘Our guide to getting a successful reviews programme’, if you’re interested in reading more. But reviews alone are not enough. To truly stand out and showcase your expertise in the photography market, you sometimes have to step away from talking about just your product.
If I’m not talking about my product, what should I talk about?
This question is dependent on what your audience are interested in, but the common denominator is industry expertise. Brilliant product reviews will get you so far, but showcasing your industry expertise is crucial for building consumer trust and driving audience engagement. Consumers increasingly want to buy from brands that they can ‘get behind’; brands that align with their values and can offer them something more than ‘just’ a product.
So, how do I showcase my expertise in the photography market?
The first step is truly understanding your audience. Your first response to this is probably, “They’re photographers, obviously”. But to really engage with your audience, your understanding of them needs to go far deeper than this. You need to think about the following:
- What type of photographers are your audience? Are they amateurs or professionals? Do they specialise in any particular genre?
- What are their typical traits?
- What challenges do they have?
- What motivates them?
Through these questions, you can begin to build profiles of your typical customers. These profiles will then help you build key messages. What do you need to be saying to your target audience to engage them and ultimately, drive them to purchase?
Once you’ve established your customer profiles and key messages, you can begin to create content, such as:
1. How-to content
Through understanding your customers’ challenges, you can respond with a solution. Is there a common challenge your audience faces that your products solve? How-to content, in written or video format, is a great way to demonstrate what your product does and how it helps to an audience who may be considering purchasing it. You can house how-to content on your website, share it on social media, and even pitch it to photography publications which your target audience engage with.
2. Top tips and tricks
Educating your target audience not only provides them with value, it demonstrates you know what you’re talking about. For example, if your audience consists of mainly semi-professional landscape photographers, you could share your top tips and tricks for getting the perfect shot in winter. Again, your content can be in written and video format on your website, and shared across social media and pitched to relevant photography publications. Of course, you can find opportunities throughout the content to link back to your products.
3. Photographer stories
Photographers often form tight-knit communities and they like to hear the latest from each other and get inspired by what their peers are doing. There are many benefits to partnering with brand ambassadors, and working with them to create content for your target audience is certainly a big one. Has a photographer who uses your products been on an epic adventure or worked for a really exciting client, and used your products to create the final image? Just as a Love Island finalist can influence a twenty-something to buy skinny tea, then a photographer can influence your audience to buy your products. Getting photographers to tell their story, with a mention of how they used your product to achieve their vision, makes for aspirational content that will drive your target audience to spend their money with your brand.
