How do people perceive value? If you’re able to answer this simple but sometimes tough question, you might as well be on your way to make money consistently. You don’t have pricing power if customers don’t think they are getting value for money.
If customers think they’re not getting value, then they’re right, they’re not. However, if customers believe they are getting value for money, they will remain loyal despite price increases.
Now, if you are sure you provide value, what is the best way to communicate it? How do you communicate this value to clients and prospects you want to land in the future?
Identify what value means to your audience.
Value can mean different things to different people. It is what it is. Until you identify what your clients see as valuable, you’ll be lacking in your business and not know what to present to them as an offer. A customer may be looking for a service in terms of convenience, quality (this is always a must for every photographer) or price. You have to figure out what they want and perceive to be valuable and sell it to them.
Define what your product or service does, explaining your benefit to them first and then features of what you’re selling.
Don’t make the mistake of telling the prospect how expensive your camera is. They don’t want to hear it. They don’t care about how expensive your camera is or how it looks. All they want is results. Share with them what your service will do for them. How will it make their life better? How will it make their lives easier? You want to sell them something they’ve always wanted. As a photographer, you’re looking at mostly selling emotions; you can do this with your website and social media. Thank God for the internet! Also, as a commercial photographer, you’re looking at sharing testimonials, even as a social photographer as well, which will be one of your main selling points. What is the market saying about you? If you don’t know much about testimonials, tap on this link to read this short and educative article on this subject.
These are some of the questions you want to ask yourself:
- What’s in it for my customer?
- What’s the purpose of the features of my product or service?
- What does the consumer want to do?
- Why are the features of my product or service better than my competitors? etc.
Communicate how the benefits of your service meet your customers’ needs and creates value for them
You want to develop messages that echo with your audience and call them into action. Four tips are to keep your messages simple and consistent, make messages stick by telling a story, use visuals, and evoke emotion to inspire and make your story memorable.
As a photographer, these should come easy to you. Learn copywriting. It’s basically advertisement in print. Learn this especially if you’re a one-person-business. It has its advantages.
What you’re doing basically is that you’re taking your customer on a journey as a photographer after you have exposed them to your work, to awareness and attention, to understanding, to evaluation and yielding, to retention, and finally to action.
Know your features: These are a physical description of the product or service.
Know your benefits: What the consumer is going to get after hiring you or using your product.
Know the value of your service or product: People buy because of the needs that product or service will meet in their lives.
Thank you for checking out this article. If you’re new here, I’m Clement Eastwood, a photographer and an author who has made it his mission to educate photographers. Tap on this link to have access to my books on photography. And here’s a link to my podcast.
