One marketing tactic that most photographers totally miss out on is having a USP, or a Unique Selling Proposition.  This is taught in-depth by marketing experts such as Dan Kennedy and John Jantsch.

The idea is that you need to provide a clear reason why people should do business with you instead of your competitors.  Your USP should explain what is different about your work, what is different about your service, what is different about you, etc.  An effective USP should be long enough to convince your prospects but shouldn’t be a paragraph of information.

If you can’t succinctly explain why people should do business with you, then maybe you shouldn’t be in business for yourself.  Really!  If you can’t offer anything different than your competitors, then get out of business fast – it will be painful and frustrating every single day.

But, if you can, you’ll be super successful.  You see, if you can get people to understand why you’re different, you can charge higher prices, you can limit your products/services to ONLY what you’re good at, you’ll have better success asking for referrals, you’ll get much more repeat business, and more.

All this becuase YOU ARE THE BEST at what you do.  If you’re not marketing yourself as the best in the business, then you’re missing out on huge rewards.

So, task for this week: Figure out what you do better than any of your competitors and start marketing whatever that is.  Jack up your prices and you’ll see results.  The more you try and compare apples to apples with your competitors, the more you’ll lose business to them and lose profits on the work you get.  But if you put yourself in a position where no one else can compete, you’ll win all day long.

Let me know how this tactic works for you.