Remarkable Marketing by Joshua Hudson

In some of my other articles I stress over and over how you need to make yourself Remarkable to stand out from your other photographers. Photographer's think of the client as the lone acorn in the sea of squirrels fighting over the poor little nut.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The protection from loosing clients to uncle joe part-timer hobbyist, church lady retiree with a new Drebel and a dream, and that smart ass art student graduate is to realize that none of you are competing against each other at all. The problem is that you are all standing on the same street corner with your thumbs sticking out of the gaggle hoping someone stops to pick one of you up.

Take a step across the street and stand by yourself or go a new directions and you will realize that getting clients is just has hard (or easy) as it was with the "so called" competition.

Your only competitor is a more savvy client living in a technology saturated world with media bombarding him everyday. He has google, cable, radio, magazines, etc etc. No time in the world has a public been so informed, misinformed, and shut down to the world while it is also asking for guidance.

So what you need to do is be Remarkable The guy in the red sweater in a sea of green sweater people.

In other articles I wrote on the mind set of the shopper and the hierchy of shopping needs: convenience, quality, consistency, service and price.

I also wrote to you how to turn a clients "wants" into a "need" for your services.

I spoke how to talk to your client to understand them better and make the sale.

But it all means nothing unless you get their attention. Even the peacock has to have large pretty feathers to say ,"Hey...over hear! I am a big pretty bird."

Here are seven things you need to know on how to be Remarkable
1. Better to be first than best.

Photographers want to think that their success is based on benchmarking.They compare themselves to other photographers, their equipment, their services, their personalities. Success isn't a race with competition. Success is about making living providing the service that you offer. If you are having problems getting clients, that is less about people taking clients from you, and more about you not attracting clients to you. That is a marketing problem, not a "market" problem. Marketing is a battle of perception not product.

The business that is first can claim to be legitimate while all other businesses are pretenders. The original is the real deal in the minds of the consumer. The very fact that you have the first moniker will earn you a lions share of the market.

2. Can’t be first: create a new category.

Don’t ask how you are better but how you are different. Branding is important, but while everyone is out there working on winning people away from each other, there are innovative marketers that stand apart in their own category and working on getting clients rather than client share.

Think about cars. How many categories are there? SUVS, Compacts, Sub-Compacts, Sporty, Sports, Muscle-- the list is almost endless.

In computers, there are notebooks, laptops, desktops, designer desktops, super-computers, super-conductor super computers, workstations-- again, endless.

These niche' markets are where the service or product gets to define themselves to the client. This is where they get to claim they are special and 'first' of their kind.

Branding is a defensive business- Category marketing is innovative. Categories are non-competitive because their very nature is to set themselves apart from competition. People will always respond to new over better, first over best, known over knowledgeable.

3. Better to be first in the mind than first in the marketplace

There will always be those who get there first, think of it first, do it first. Those businesses are not the ones that are first in the minds for purchase. Henry Ford did not invent the automobile. IBM did not start the computer market. Starbucks did not innovate the coffeehouse. What they did however was become the first in the minds of people. They took their product and put it in front of everyone’s face so that it was the first in the consumers’ mind.

You are definitely not the first wedding photographer. Or even the first photojournalist wedding photographer, in your market. But what are you first at? What is it that you are marketing as remarkable about you and how can you make that the first in the mind set of your clients?

Maybe you aren't in a market where other PJ photographers have claimed "photojournalist" as their word. Take it, before they do. If you own it, then you become first in the mind although you weren't first in the market.

4. Marketing is not a battle of product but perception.

Remember New Coke? In a blind taste test, new coke was the favored flavor over every soda sold. But it was a flop. Classic Coke was in the peoples’ mind as what the best soda was to buy, even though in a blind taste test it was near the bottom of list of enjoyable drinks. The perception of coke was much more powerful than the better product.

5. People more often purchase based on second opinion.

There is a reason why referrals work. They are convenient, but they are also affirming.
Once a business has claimed a mark in the market and established, you cannot pry them from that spot. People do not like to be challenged on their opinions and perceptions. However, if you are ever going to get those perceptions changed you need to market to those that are blank pallets. Enough second opinions challenge the paradigm, people will buckle behind close doors.

6. Own your word.

What is your category? What is it that makes you remarkable in your market? Describe it and own it. UPS has “overnight.” McDonalds has “fast.” Jaguar has “opulence.” Volvo has “safety.”
They don’t have to be monikers, but they do have to be associative. What is the word that makes you unique to your competition? Cheap? Quality? Service? Local? Cutting Edge?

When you see that there is a first category open that is not worded, then take it. Remember all those PJ wedding photographers that haven't bothered to market themselves as "THE PJ WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER of BUMFOOEY, USA." Well they dropped the ball, and it is time for you to pick it up.

But let us say that Uncle Joe Schmo is known as PJ WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER of BUMFOOEY, USA. Is he known as the PJ wedding photographer branded as artistic?

You then can be the a second tier in a big market but worded with a money making word association.

I will tell you mine. I am marketed as "STORY TELLER." It might be possible that there is a photographer in Western PA that is a better story teller than me. (I hope there isn't). But no one took it and it is a central theme to my marketing strategy
So when people think photos that tell as story, my name is what should come to mind.

7. Place yourself in your market and own it.

It is common to think that first means best. It is common to think that if you are not the biggest and most well known that you are behind. But lets looks at some pretty impressive seconds—Burger King, Pepsi, Dell, Pergresso, Panasonic.

When you are not known as the top of the ladder, then find out where you are on the ladder, create your category and your word then own your spot. Mark it, put up a post-it, pee on it: do whatever it is you do to make sure that you and everyone else knows that spot belongs to you.

No one can take your word away from you once you have associated yourself with it. If you are the cheap photographer, then no one else will take that paradigm away from you. If you are the artsy photographer, you might live with that forever. But your spot in the market is more fluid, but remember things move down much easier than up.

Now this “owning your spot” may seem counter to the “better to be first than better.” But in the world of business it may be more profitable to be second in a popular category than top in an unpopular one. Burger King isn’t trying to be different from McDonald’s it is making money ‘being’ McDonalds.

When McDonalds first opened, there was another new burger joint across the street run by a guy named Bell. Instead of going for the same clients with burgers, he changed his menu to Mexican cuisine. Many years later they incorporated his name into the store and called it Taco Bell. In fast food, Taco Bell falls number 3 or 4 on the list, but they are number one in fast Mexican food. This is a perfect example of combining the first 7 rules.

As a wedding photographer, I do not market to the "top 1%," I market to the real people in America that work for a living. I am, honest enough to say, not the top earning wedding photographer in Pittsburgh or Western PA.

I took a look at the markets and other photographers and what I do for a living and adjusted my work and marketing strategy to fit my needs. I do not advertise in papers, magazines or radio. But I get calls in constantly for work because I own my market spot.

I am a moderately priced wedding photographer, known to be a story teller. I am FIRST in the editorial photography category. I am known as very technically savvy and in public to able to blend in and be charming with the guests. I am not the cheapest photographer but I am very generous with my time, energy and print pricing.

I will probably never knock out the top wedding photographers in the area who are featured allot in "the knot." But where they spends thousands of dollars marketing to every rock and pebble on the Allegheny to get clients and keep their status for those "top 1% elite." I am able to bank enough for that new roof in two weddings and never even worry about a $600/year bill to be in the phone book.

8. Be aware of short-term action and long-term effect.

Be aware that your marketing strategy today will affect your business tomorrow. If you are marketing yourself to be the first digital wedding photographer who gives away your image files for a total package of $500. Then you will probably find yourself a lot of customers and get work.

But the long-term effect will be that you will be categorized as cheap. You will get clients that are either lower on the economic scale or cheap. You will be viewed as being of poor quality. When other people in the community talk about you, it will be in these contexts a long time.

The quick pennies you got today will cost you hundreds of dollars years from now. Your quick marketing idea categorized you, worded you and stuck you on the ladder someplace you didn’t want to be.

Do not think of marketing yourself “up the ladder.” Find where you want to be and then market directly for it. Could you imagine what it would have been like to have Victoria Secret start out as a discount consignment lingerie shop and then try to become the product it is today? No business would ever think of building a service and/or store that would plan to upgrade its image every year.

There you go. Seven steps on how to be Remarkable in your market.