When I began my senior photography business, I remember feeling so overwhelmed. There were so many experienced, established photographers in my area. It seemed they had already saturated the market for senior portraits. How in the world was I going to stand out and book my own clients?

I recognized very early on that I was going to need to be intentional and strategic about ensuring that my business was set apart from the other photographers in my area. Especially because I was only 17 years old at the time! But that’s a story for a different post.

I experimented with different ways to set myself apart and came to the conclusion that there are three strategies that truly helped me to build a business that was unique from competitors in my market. I want to break those three things down for you today. If you are struggling to build a business in a saturated market, here’s ensure your business will stand out from the crowd.

1. MARKET THE EXPERIENCE

As photographers, the obvious and easiest way to market our businesses is to highlight the images that we capture. But this isn’t the only thing that you should be sharing. Only sharing the work you create will make it hard for potential clients to set you apart. Instead, try mixing in marketing strategies that highlight the experience that you provide for your clients, not just the images that result from each shoot.

For example, before I share a professional sneak peek from each of my shoots, I will share tons of behind-the-scenes pictures and videos on my Instagram Stories. This allows your followers to peek into the fun that goes on during the shoot and the experience that seniors receive, which is so much more valuable than just the images.

Next time you are at a senior session, consider passing your phone off to your client’s mom to capture some peeks into the shoot, or capture some behind-the-scenes shots yourself. Try to highlight how much fun your unique senior experience is and the things that set you apart. I’ve even shared photos taken on my iPhone of me eating Chick-Fil-A between locations with my girls in an open field on the side of the road.

2. SHARE MORE ABOUT WHO YOU ARE

In addition to marketing your experience, you are going to want to market who you are as a part of your brand. If your clients are only seeing you post about business, they can’t connect with you. They aren’t viewing you as a person; they are just seeing you as a business owner. This creates a gap in how personable your brand is online.

I incorporate my personality into branding and marketing, so all of my clients are immediately more comfortable around me at their sessions because they feel like we’re already close friends simply from following my Instagram account. The fun, quirky things that make you you are what will also make your followers and potential clients fall in love with you. Plus, there is only one of you, so it automatically separates you from any other photographer around you!

3. BUILD THE RELATIONSHIP

Now, ideally, your client has found you online and fallen in love with your client experience and with you. So, when someone is ready to book, I have to be intentional about continuing that personal relationship. If someone feels like they already know me just from following me online, I want to feed into that mindset. I want all of my clients to feel like they are friends and that we have a personal connection outside of just them paying for a service. This doesn’t just improve their client experience—it increases their likelihood of sharing about me online and referring their friends to my business.

One of the best ways to build this relationship is to incorporate a questionnaire into your client experience.

I use a program called HoneyBook for my booking process with all of my clients (including payments, contracts, etc.). After a senior client books me, they receive a senior questionnaire that contains questions about who they are and what they expect from their session. It allows me to help prepare and execute a personalized experience – as well as get conversation starters to build our relationship during the shoot!

To help you incorporate this concept into your sessions, I am giving away my very own senior questionnaire for free! This is the exact questionnaire that I send all of my clients upon booking, and I hope that it is so helpful to you.

You can also try my favorite client workflow system, Honeybook, for 50% off your first year!

Hope Taylor is a senior portrait and wedding photographer/educator based in Fredericksburg, VA. She last wrote about nailing natural light for senior portraits.

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