Over the years I’ve had the privilege of talking at length with many business owners, executives, and aspiring entrepreneurs. It seems that identifying a target market is one of the hardest tasks for these folks to accomplish. I believe it’s because they try to market their wares to anyone with a pulse. (Yes I was actually told that once – word for word – from a bank executive) Unfortunately, I’ve noticed the same thing from many new photographers who decide to go into business for themselves. There are a number of negative results from this, namely wheel spinning, poor sales, and the business owner scratching their head trying to figure out what exactly happened as they’re driving to bankruptcy court.

Fortunately there’s a solution to this problem. It’s called niche marketing – or in other words finding a narrow group to focus your marketing efforts on and producing products specifically tailored to that niche. When people first hear this, their reaction is usually “why on earth would I want to do that? I want everyone to know about me/my company/my product!” But that doesn’t work – and here’s why:

If your target market is too broad, your product and message get diluted to the point where no one cares. For example, I’ve seen more than a few website “About” pages read something like this: “I do portrait, wedding, commercial, fine art, landscape, architecture, and of course macro photography! Did I mention graduations?” Read More→