5 Reasons Your Brand is Confusing Potential Clients
Get ready to find out why creating brand clarity is so important for photographers and how to get started!
We’re living in an era where so many of us business owners are confused about what we really want in a brand or where to even start. We find ourselves looking at other photographers for inspiration on building our own brand.
The problem we often face in doing so is that we create a brand that worked for someone else and not a brand that is true to who we are. It can be confusing if it isn’t authentic and if we can’t share our brand confidently. We make it so much harder on ourselves than it needs to be.
So, how do you make sure potential clients don’t get confused by your photography brand?
First, you need to understand the most obvious reasons why they’re getting confused:
You have a business, not a brand
When you are running a business and not building a brand, you can come of as “unfriendly” or “too salesy”. When you build a strong personal brand that truly represents who you are, you can easily connect with your dream clients and form real relationships so people are excited to book your services because they are already your friend.
Creating brand clarity is so important to build a personal connection with your audience allows you to follow what you are passionate about, share your values, and show up online and in-person as who you really are! That makes everything so much easier than having to pretend you are all “professional” all the time when you are only running a business.
Having a brand allows you to try out new services if you are interested in branching out. If you have a business that focuses on one thing it can be super confusing if you bring in something on a different level. For example, if you’re a newborn photographer and that is you’re only service, it would be very confusing to customers if you all of the sudden introduced a course for photographers on how to pose couples for engagement or wedding shoots. But if you have a personal brand you are able to grow as a person because that is what your brand is all about!
Clients get confused when they see you as one business service and you’re “pigeonholed” in their minds as that instead of as one brand with a core message and style that extends through every service you provide. It’s time to put yourself out there as the person you are and grow your brand with personality.
You might not be showing up and being YOU in all facets of your brand
Can you honestly say that you have been showing up as yourself in all areas of your brand? I mean, can you be 100% sure you are sharing your true authentic self and not trying to be something you are not. I get it, there are so many photographers out there. We see others crushing it and making all of their dreams come true. It can be really easy to step into a mindset where we think “I’ll just do what she’s doing!”. But what happens when we build our brand around the idea that someone else’s success will become our own is we end up being a “B” version of them. You can end up spending so much more time replicating what you think will work instead of leaning in to who you are and building a brand around you. Wouldn’t it be easier to talk just like you would talk to a friend? Wouldn’t you feel more confident putting your brand out there if you didn’t have to pretend to be something you are not? Do force things, be original and be YOU!
It is proven that now days people are buying from who they trust and know. This means that when we show up and share our real personality, our values, our humor, or even just insight to who we are – we can create a deeper and more meaningful connection with clients who get you. Isn’t that who you want to be booking? People that trust you and get you as a photographer? So just be you, build a brand around who you are and what you like, simple as that.
Your brand might not be consistent
This is a big one that I see every day. Your brand might not be consistent across your social media platforms, your website, or any other marketing materials you use. Creating brand consistency is so important when you want to build a brand that connects with people you have to remain top of mind. Creating brand clarity and consistency is about so much more than just visuals. Your brand needs to be consistent in your brand messaging, graphics, style of edits, posting schedule, and so much more.
Here is what I have seen when searching for photographers that I want to work with…
1. I find them on social media, I love their work, watch their stories, listen to them share about their business. On Instagram stories they take the time to use these cute little templates and insert their photos in and it looks great.
2. Then I head to their website and it is a completely different look and feel than their Instagram stories. New fonts, new color scheme, the writing doesn’t sound like how they spoke on stories or wrote in their captions. I even had to go back and make sure I was on the right website. (nothing like doing a double-take right?!)
3. I continue to do my research and I reach out to them for more information. I get an email with a welcome packet and guess what?! It has a completely different look than the social media AND website.
OK, so I know how great and easy templates are to use and boy am I here to celebrate them! But the key to using templates is using them to create cohesive branding and not make it more confusing to your followers. What can happens when you have a different look on each platform is you can easily be forgotten. If I am reaching out to more than one photographer and I can’t remember exactly who you are, you will probably not be the photographer I book. I am going to book who WOWS me and is the top of mind – now that’s a connection!
If you are interested in creating an entire branded process be sure to hop over and check out the template shop – start with your social media templates and keep building!
Your website might be a mess or unclear
Is your website outdated, cluttered, or confusing? Is your website cohesive with the rest of your marketing efforts and do you have a strong brand foundation that shines through? Are you consistently speaking to visitors as you would on a phone call or in-person? OK, enough with the questions…
Your website is your brand’s best salesperson, so you have to make sure you are using it to its full potential. It needs to be cohesively branded, provide clear messaging, create a strong connection, and lead your potential clients to contact you for more information and book your services.
You have to take the hand of your potential clients and lead them through your website. You need to relate to each potential client in an impactful way, show them what they need from you, and how to get it.
If it’s not clear what you offer, to who, and what people must do to book you, you’ll lose out. And if your offerings are unclear, making it hard for people to know what to book and which offering is best for them, you’ll also lose out. A confused potential client is a client who you will either spend way more time on back and forth emails and communication OR (the shock and horror) they won’t buy from you at all!
You might not be asking for the sale
You might not make it clear what the next steps are to book you. You might have forgotten to ask for the sale on your blog posts, pages on your website, or even on social media. If you’re including a “call to action”—aka something that says “reach out to me” or “shoot me an email to book…”— you’re not giving potential clients an action to take after coming in contact with you.
If they don’t know how they can work with you or that you are even taking on new clients – you might be losing out.
If you have been struggling with creating brand clarity and you are looking to build a brand with personality check out my “How To Build a Stand Out Brand Download”. You will be walked through the exact process I use with my very own clients to dig deep and pull out the foundation of a brand that you LOVE and can proudly share!
Hearts and Hoorays!
P.S. – If you want to watch the Real Talk Video Version of this blog post it’s right here:
