In ancient times, customers came to the market and toured the marketplace to buy their needs. When civilization invented wheels, the salesperson traveled to the customer with a variety of items, going from door to door expecting for a sale.
Enter technology. Thanks to the Internet, each of us now has the opportunity to make a segment of the market out there ours; to dependably capture a piece of the pie, so to speak.
Here's an illustration. When we first moved to the farm, a young high school girl came to the door selling tomatoes. She said she loved growing tomatoes and had so many, she thought she'd sell them. Since we already had a garden, and plenty of tomatoes, I did not buy any. I saw her later in the week and asked her how sales were going. "I had to throw them all out. Seems everyone grows tomatoes.
Several years later, I saw her at the Horse Creek Store. She had since married and had her two toddlers with her. "How are the sales going?" I asked.
"I started a new business. I love asparagus. And I figured there must be others out there that do, too. So I started an asparagus patch. My customer list is growing and I'm increasing the size of my patch."
By discovering another interest area, one that was not overcrowded, and not highly competitive, she discarded Segment Marketing. Instead of considering the whole world as her market, she narrowed her sights to focus on only a small segment: those who love fresh asparagus. She still grows tomatoes, but she does not try to sell them.
The Internet will allow you to enter the field of Segment Marketing. Once you discover what your personal photo marketing strength area is, you will concentrate on shooting in that area, because you will have located photobuyers who seek images in that subject area. Because you speak the photobuyer's language, you will build a working relationship with each of those buyers, that does not have a lifetime. This translates also to substantial cash flow as a result.
Segment Marketing will guide you towards building a stock file that will have marketing potential, and sway you away from shooting generic pictures (tomatoes) that are beautiful but are tough to sell.
