Knowing your audience is perhaps one of the most important but often overlooked aspects essential to building a successful enterprise.Gaining awareness of what can be called upon to align with potential customers to help you, your business model, increase that you see every year bookings and ramp their annual revenue. It can also help you get a leg over your competition and take over the number one spot in your local market.
I workshop with a lot of wedding photographers, who know a lot about the technical aspects of the production of Boston Wedding Photography and the logistics of business, but if it would be identified and related to customer and their concerns, they often comes a blank, confused look similar to your customers, if you tried to engage them about color space. Simply put, most wedding photographers understand the relationship of photographer to customers, but not vice versa ... from the client to the photographer.
So, how does one gain access to the client's perspective and all the valuable information they need to offer in the way of critical and honest discourse ...? You ask.
During my consultations, I always make it a point to ask: "Did you have the opportunity to speak with or meet other local wedding photographers" Also, "What is your experience / interaction with this person come from?" Because, quite honestly ...if they were to head over heels for a different photographer, they would not sit on my couch looking for something that they had already found elsewhere.
Most customers will love you beg to view / critique to advise them had recently with your competition. If you hesitate to ask these questions because they fear they might appear, as curious or objectionable, not his. In my 14 years of experience, I can not remember a single isolated occasion when I had a customer offended by these questions. Some may feel more comfortable withholding the names of those they have met with, but generally customers are going to talk about their experiences and interactions with other professionals freely and openly.
The answers you get, you get a clearer idea of ​​the couple's decision-making criterion ... So they are most concerned with price, product or personality rights - the personal relationship they feel towards their wedding photographer? More importantly, the feedback will help you concentrate on the issues most relevant to your client's list of concerns.
Equally important, in order to gain awareness of your audience with an awareness of your competitors and how you are among your competition (in their own eyes). So if you have not already, you should become familiar with all the other local professionals (their portfolio and business models) within 200 miles of your studio / coverage.
I mention this because if you can figure out who you are and with that particular photographer has strengths and weaknesses, you can even the playing field, so to speak, by emphasizing aspects of your business that could count against your competition, ie shooting style, quality of products, packaging or pricing, for the purpose intended to convince your customers choose you over another photographer / s.
The bottom line is that you get through the ins-and-outs can know what your selling, unless you know who you sell it - you will be fighting a losing battle and frustrating. You may try to sell snow cones to Eskimos as my grandfather used to say. It is very easy to sell people what they want and find out what they want is as easy as attention to your audience and asked a few simple questions.