Commoditization? What??

Commoditization has probably already happened to your business if you are experiencing these telltale symptoms:

  • Your client apologizes because they’re now going to use stock on the project you normally shoot every year.
  • Your clients are asking for "all rights" on assignments that will become part of their client’s "image library."
  • You’ve just been underbid by someone you have never even heard of.
  • And it’s the third time it’s happened this month.

Commoditization is what happens to a product or service that is no longer unique or distinguishable. It happens when supply exceeds demand. And it happens when an industry’s means of production radically and rapidly evolve.

Due to the triple convergence of digital imaging, Internet search engines and mega stock portals such as Corbis and Getty Images, an art buyer has a mind-numbing quantity of images to choose from. Good photography is no longer magical or rare. When most of the magic and mystery of what you do is gone, a large portion of your value as a professional photographer disappears. In fact, your perceived value has precipitously and dramatically dropped.

Feeling invisible?

You’ve probably heard it before: To stand apart, a photographer needs smart branding and marketing.

Once upon a time, you, your rep or your studio manager, made appointments to show your portfolio and from that effort you’d get a certain number of assignments. That strategy alone won’t work in today’s agency environment. Time-strapped art buyers and art directors are doing fewer, if any, personal interviews.

To effectively source new business today, you really do have to learn about branding, marketing and Internet technology. You have to be able to create and execute to a coherent, focused strategy. If you fail to do that, you risk becoming invisible in the Internet’s ever expanding sea of images.

It is easier for a potential buyer to find you if you have a distinguishing point of view, a unique service offering, and an optimized website.

Time for a new strategy

The less unique your product or service, the more you need targeted marketing and branding to get potential clients’ attention and their business. But marketing a commodity is completely different from the way you market a unique service requiring specialized skills.

How is it different? Let’s look at how another segment of the photo business coped with commoditization.

For years, stock photography bumped quietly along usually providing images for editorial and lower-budget design projects. By nature, stock imagery didn’t have a unique point of view as it had to appeal to the widest possible customer base. But now, because of the virtually unlimited supply of digitized stock images online, designers and art directors are irrevocably committed to acquiring those images in an affordable and effortless way. I once came across a site that offered 1,000 images for $29. That comes out to 29 cents per image. Now that’s what I call commodity pricing.

Profitable stock agencies survive by either serving a niche such as food or educational publishing, or adding value like custom light boxes, faster searches, or exclusive industry rights locks.

Now what?

Ironically, you have the very same marketing challenge–or opportunity–as the stock sites: You have to employ sound marketing strategies and add value to what you do, or serve a niche market.

But what if you don’t know what value you can add, or what niche you could serve? What if you think there’s nothing unique about what you have to offer? In my career of marketing photographers for over 25 years, rarely have I met one who has nothing unique to offer. More often, what’s needed is a good edit of their work.

But you have to stand for something to stand apart.

How are you distinct?

Distinguishing yourself from your competitors and communicating your unique vision or value-added service is simple, but not easy: You have to discover what you do better than anyone else. Then find who wants to pay you for it. You have to coldly analyze where you currently are in the marketplace versus the competition.

I’ve found that most photographers are too close to their work to do a good portfolio edit. A good edit lets you see the "jewels amongst the colored glass." It brings your vision into sharp relief so that it’s much more memorable and has "staying power" in an art buyer’s mind. In the age of information overload, that’s critical!

Images forming the basis of a good edit have to come from the "right place." To find that right place you have to do a bit of internal archeology. Here’s how to start: List the things in your life that have always fascinated you.

Stumped already? Here’s a search clue: When you walk into a bookstore, which section do you immediately start browsing? Is it a subject you’ve loved since you were a kid? Does time seem to stand still when you’re engaged with a subject you love?

This exercise will help define your uniqueness and chart a path to your distinguishable marketing strategy. It will set you apart from your competitors.

By the way, photographers who’ve made it to the top usually enjoy their subject matter so much, they’d even shoot it for free. They also get to command top dollar for their unique vision.

You’re a Specialist

When you find your distinguishing viewpoint, you can begin the process of marketing to the people who need, and will appreciate, your unique offering. Everyone likes to work with a specialist.

With web marketing, your physical location is no longer an excuse not to go for it. Customers can come from anywhere. Minneapolis and Miami-based advertising agencies now routinely win blue-chip clients and sweep the award shows, and they didn’t pitch or win the business using a "We’re the cheapest!" strategy.

Creating distinctive marketing messages for commodity producing clients is what your agency clients have been doing for years. Smart companies realize the importance of getting professional help in finding and promoting their unique value. You can too.

How to get help

First, seek objective input. Join a photographers’ trade group such as Advertising Photographers of America (APA) and American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP). Join or start a support group with other photographers to brainstorm and share resources. Find online communities where photographers discuss what’s actually working in this new climate.

Attend panels and seminars given by photo reps, art buyers, and photo consultants. Listen. Take notes. Introduce yourself. Get referrals. Find someone you respect and with whom you "click." Then hire them for an introductory session. Try what they suggest. Every hour you invest with a professional–who has a broad understanding of the industry, is objective, and can help you to effectively communicate your strengths and opportunities–can save you hundreds of hours and often thousands of dollars.

"Evolve or die"

That quote sounds pretty darn threatening, but it’s actually a great wake-up call. If you’ve seen a significant decline in your billings the last few years, then don’t wait until your business has completely dried up before you get some marketing help.

If you do make the necessary adjustments, you’ll not only greatly increase your chances of surviving and thriving, you’ll also probably get to enjoy what you’re shooting even more!

Commoditization has definitely created huge marketing challenges. But as a pretty smart guy named Albert Einstein once remarked: "In the midst of difficulty lies opportunity."

Article © 2009 Carolyn Potts & Associates, Inc.