When marketing photography services, commercial and corporate photographers must understand that business clients differ significantly from retail customers.
For retail clients, those who purchase family portraits or wedding photos, the photos themselves are the final product. But for business clients, photos are tools to achieve a larger goal, to increase revenue.
Retail customers often make decisions based on a variety of emotions, whereas business clients are driven by a single emotion: fear. Fear of making a poor decision, fear of losing money, or fear of looking bad in front of their superiors.
In the case of a small business, where the photographer interacts directly with the owner, the primary goal is usually to help the business increase sales. However, the priorities of a larger company are different. While increasing sales is still important, it’s not always the primary driver when hiring a commercial or corporate photo.grapher. For example, photos may be used for communications and public relations.
With larger companies, photographers typically don’t interact with the owner or senior executives. Instead, a mid-level employee is tasked with hiring the photographer and overseeing the project. Unlike a small business owner, this employee isn’t spending their own money; they’re spending the company’s resources, which will influence their decision-making process.
This means that, when hiring a photographer, this mid-level employee’s priorities are:
• Avoid risk (i.e. not waste company time, money or reputation).
• Avoid problems (e.g. make sure project runs smoothly, photographer is trustworthy).
• Do a good job in the eyes of their employer (i.e. if the project is a success, the employee will look good).
A photographer shouldn’t rely on a one-size-fits-all marketing message for all their business customers. The photographer’s message should be tailored for an individual fit.
The theory behind this is the Elaboration Likelihood Model (longer explanation here). A tailored message will be more persuasive (i.e. will increase the “elaboration likelihood”) to the business customer given their frame of mind while searching for a photographer.
For a small business, the marketing message should emphasize how the photography will help the small business increase public attention, enhance trust and, in turn, earn more customers.
For larger companies, the marketing message should stress the photographer’s proven ability to minimize risk, get the job done properly and on schedule.
