It was a long road to finding the right audience for me as a branding photographer, but it was well worth it. Here’s my journey and hopefully what you can take away from it!
In the last post I shared with you, our family’s decision to relocate to Boise, Idaho in 2021 and how I restarted my Boise branding and headshot business from the ground up. Along the way, I’ve run into numerous other people who have also recently relocated and are feeling the same frustration, fear, and anxiety that I have felt when starting over. I have developed a strategy or playbook for building a business from the ground up and starting from scratch. Hopefully, some of my lessons will help you.
As I mentioned in my last post, there are three essential components that must be present and aligned when creating your marketing plan and a strategy for growing a business in your new market as a branding photographer.
When putting together a playbook of how to restart your business in a new market there are three things you need to keep in mind.
- 1. Your Ideal Client or Audience. Who is your ideal client, and who are you marketing to? How do you speak to them in a way that will grab their attention?
- 2. Your message is your marketing materials. You need to have a clear and concise message of how people can come to you for help and what your zone of genius is.
- 3. The offer is the product or services that you’re offering. This is the problem that you solve for your audience.
All three of these things must be present and aligned in order to have an effective marketing strategy as a branding photographer. My goal is to help you think through these, in the following post. I’m going to share what I did for my headshot and photography business in Boise and the process that I worked through for developing my new audience and message and offer.
The mistake I initially made and see so many other small businesses making is assuming that you know what people here want or assuming that what worked in your old market will easily work in your new market. That is not always the case and certainly wasn’t with me. Through trial and error, I learned that market research is key to finding out all about your new audience, figuring out how to speak to them, and an offer that will align with what they need to solve their problems.
How I Found My Audience in Boise as a Branding Photographer
Identify who your ideal client was in your old market and start there.
The first step was identifying who the best branding clients I had in Dallas were. After running my numbers and making a list of my favorite clients that I loved working with, I realized I loved doing business portraits, headshots, and branding photography for real estate professionals, traditional professionals in attorney and financial planning, as well as medical professionals.
Use social media and the online space to do a little market research.
After making a list of the types of clients I was hoping to work with, I started online hoping to find some insight as to what these business professionals here in Boise were thinking, saying, feeling, and doing. What were they looking for in their marketing strategy, as well as what types of visual imagery were they looking for on their websites? I spent a lot of time combing through social media, LinkedIn, and the internet making notes and compiling a general idea of what my new ideal client profile would look like. At this point, I never messaged them or made any type of sales pitch. I was just taking notes and observing and formulating an ideal client avatar.
Join local networking + professional groups.
After doing the online research, I started following some of these clients on social media and interacting with them in a very casual way. I also put myself in networking groups, as well as professional groups, with the goal of listening to what they were saying. I asked a lot of questions to get insight into their professional struggles and what struggles they were dealing with, with their business and their marketing, and their business photography. This gave me great insight as to the problems that they were facing and different ways that I might be able to help them as I developed an offer and a marketing message for this new ideal client in Boise.
If you are just starting to build your business I realize how scary and overwhelming it can be. It takes time, energy, focus, and a whole lot of resilience. You will have days when you want to shout from the rooftops and others where you want to crawl in a hole. It’s ok. It is all part of the process. However, I promise if you keep showing up each day and do one thing to work on your business it pay off!
Here’s to you showing up and remember I’m cheering you on in your journey!
As your audience learns more about what makes your company unique, your branded photos will enable you to connect with them more profoundly and earn their trust.
