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Hey photographer friends! Welcome back to our Photography Blog, Mastering the Wedding Photography Biz with Hunter and Sarah!

 

If you’re reading this blog, it might be because you’re worried that there’s just no more room in your town for another new photographer like you. But… we know there’s a decent chance that that’s just not true, and in this post, we’re going to explain why we think most markets aren’t actually “saturated”, what you need to do to stand out in a crowded field, and how we’ve found success, even in a busy photography market. So let’s jump in.

 

 

What Does it Mean to Be in a “Saturated” Market?

And to start, in case that term “saturated” is sort of confusing to you in the first place, let’s think about it with a more hands-on example. Let’s say you’re in the kitchen doing some dishes at the kitchen sink, scrubbing on a plate with a sponge. Then, you drop that sponge into the sink, which is filled up with water. What happens to the sponge? Well, you know that it’ll soak up a ton of water, and when you pick it up again, it’ll be completely filled with water. It couldn’t possibly pick up another drop. That is what it means to be saturated.

 

But, what does that mean in a business context? Well, to be in a saturated market means that the area that you serve already has so many other photographers, that there literally is no room for another photography business to come into that area and to be successful. Just like the sponge, your town or your city or your county is already so full of other photographers, that it just can’t absorb another drop of photography services.

 

And in most businesses, this really is an important thing to think about. If your town already has a Chick-fil-A, if someone else wanted to open a second Chick-fil-A on the other side of town, the folks at Chick-Fil-A headquarters would look at a ton of demographic information and market data and performance figures from that first CFA, and try to figure out if there’s room for a second location. In other words, they’re sussing out whether or not the market in your town for Chick-fil-A is already saturated or not. And if your town is indeed “saturated” (i.e. it couldn’t support a second Chick-fil-A), then opening another one would actually lose money for the organization as a whole. Because rather than having one successful store, you’d have two unsuccessful ones.

 

 

Why There’s No Such Thing as a “Saturated” Market

But… here’s the thing. In that same town, where maybe Chick-fil-A has decided that it wouldn’t make sense to open a second location, you might still see a Popeyes or a Raising Caine’s or a KFC open up. And that’s not because the people at the other fried chicken restaurants didn’t have access to that same data. It’s because they understand that there is always room for a competitor, so long as the competitor is different.

 

And this is the key to success in your photography market as well! If you looked around and saw that there were already a bunch of wedding or portrait photography businesses in your town, and you tried to start a business that was just like them, then… yeah, the market might be saturated, and you’re not only going to struggle to grow, but much of your growth might be at the expense of the other photographers in your area whose businesses you’re basically copying. But since you’re trying to do the same exact thing as them, and they’re already more established than you, then the only way to beat them is to be cheaper than them. And that’s a race to the bottom that doesn’t help anyone to run a profitable and sustainable photography business.

 

 

However, if you open up a photography business that does something totally new, serves a clientele that’s currently being unserved (or under-served), or even if you open a business that serves the same clients, but in a way that’s different and better than how people are currently doing it… then there’s almost no such thing as a saturated photography market.

 

This is why, during our mindset workshop last month, we identified “Scarcity Mindset” not as a fundamental business threat, but as a limiting belief. Unless you’re directly copying an existing business, your market is only saturated if you tell yourself that it is, and give up before you get going.

 

But if you position yourself correctly, and make sure you aren’t just copying everyone else in your town, there’s really no such thing as a “saturated” market, only crowded ones. And while it can feel impossible to break into a saturated market, you can always work your way into a crowded one.

 

 

How to Find Success in a Crowded Market: Stand Out!

And here’s some other good news. Being different from your competition or standing out from them doesn’t mean you have to do something radically and fundamentally different. You don’t need to be the wedding photographer who captures weddings exclusively by strapping a GoPro to your head, or only photograph portrait sessions under-water. After all, how different is Kentucky Fried Chicken from Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen, at the end of the day? Really what it usually means to stand out, is that you need a strong and unique brand.

 

Now what is a “brand”, exactly? Well, that’s such a complex and important question, that we’re devoting an entire 2-hour workshop to the ideas around establishing your own brand and finding your ideal clients. This workshop is going to be hosted LIVE next week (March 28th, 2023), and then the replay will be available for purchase basically forever after the workshop. You can check out more details here!

 

 

But the tl;dr is that your brand is one of the most important factors when it comes to standing out and finding success in your market, especially a crowded one. Sure, all you need to start a photography business is a camera and some hustle. But if you want to grow into a profitable and sustainable photography business, then you need to understand what it means to build a brand that both stands out from your competition and makes you and your services seem desirable and attractive to your ideal client.

 

And if you can do that — if you can build a brand that is distinct from your competition and attracts your ideal clients — then you’re way more likely to find success. Because when you become different enough from your competition, you basically don’t have competition anymore. There’s a phrase in modern internet marketing: “the riches are in the niches” What that means is that “niching down”, or finding a way to brand yourself as distinct from your competition, is one of the best things you can do for a growing a successful business.

 

And if you’re still early on in your photography business, don’t stress if you don’t feel like you have a brand yet. We joke that every photographer starts off with their brand as basically, “Hi my name is ______ and I don’t suck at taking photos!” And that’s totally fine! That was basically our brand for the first year or so of our business, too. But in order to grow past the entry-level, budget photography market, branding is essential. Which is why we’ve devoted an entire 2-hour workshop to it!

 

 

Our Experience with a “Saturated” Market

Like we promised at the very start of this post, we thought it might be helpful to share a bit about our own experience in a “saturated” market. Right around the time we photographed our first wedding, we decided to do some market research. We were trying to figure out how to price ourselves for future jobs, so we tried to make a list of all the other wedding photographers in our city, and what they were charging. And while this did help us hone in on our early pricing, it also really discouraged us.

 

Why was it so discouraging? Well, we did a few searches on Google, on social media, and on a few sites like theKnot and WeddingWire. And before we knew it, we had a list of more than eighty other wedding photographers who were advertising with Charlottesville as their home market. And keep in mind, we’re talking about a city of around 45,000 people, with more than 80 wedding photographers competing for the same market! How could we possibly find success in a local market with SO many other photographers who are already so established and already charging more than us?

 

But, despite our hesitations, we knew that we really enjoyed wedding photography, so we continued to build our business anyway. And what we found was exactly what we’ve spent this post teaching you: there is always room for someone who offers something new and different, even in crowded photography market.

 

Now, less than 7 years after we photographed our first wedding, we’re among the top 5 most successful and in-demand photographers in our area. We jumped from the very bottom of a list with more than 80 photographers, to the top 5% of a list that’s actually grown to more than 100 photographers in that same period of time. And one of the most important ways we did that was by establishing an effective and attractive brand, then getting out there and delivering on our promises. We looked inward, figured out who we really were and who we wanted to serve, then found a way to turn that into words for our marketing and our website and our sales.

 

 

Has our photography improved over the last 7 years? Of course it has! But we would credit our branding and our marketing more than our improved photography for our jump from $750 (for our first wedding) to $10,0000+ (for some of our current wedding packages).

 

And again, if you’d like to learn more about how we did this, and how you can figure out your own effective and attractive brand, you can click here to learn more about our workshop next week, which is all about Identifying your brand and your ideal client. Don’t forget: tickets to the live workshop are half-off for just a few more days, but the workshop’s replay will be for sale at that same link, long after we’ve hosted the live event. And we hope to see you guys there!

 

Want More?

 

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