Eating My Own Dog Food: How I Confused My Customers and What I Did About It

You know the saying, “It’s easy to give advice but harder to follow it”? Well, I decided to walk the talk and put my marketing strategy knowledge to the test... on my own side business. Here's what happened when I decided to eat my own dog food and do some serious customer segmentation on my photography side business.

First Things First: Know Your Customers!

Let’s be real. The first rule of marketing is simple: know your customers. And the second rule? Segment those customers into meaningful groups.

So, I took a hard look at my photography business and realized I was dealing with two very different types of customers. And I finally decided it was time to take this segmentation seriously if I wanted to avoid driving myself (and my customers) crazy.

PHOTOGRAPHY ≠ photography (Let Me Explain...)

If you're not in the photography business, you might think a photo job is a photo job, right? Wrong. Here’s the deal:

PHOTOGRAPHY (all caps, bold, underlined) means the big stuff: commercial advertising gigs. These projects are like unicorns — they don’t come around often, but when they do, they’re massive. Think: whole crews, weeks of prep, tens of thousands in budgets, and high stakes. These are the jobs where you’re more likely to hear the term “pre-production meeting” than “coffee break.”

For these, I’ve got my "Grand Master Picture" brand — the one aimed at big agencies, production studios, and talent across Europe. It’s all about speaking their language, so everything’s in English and tailored to their very specific needs.

But, because those big jobs are rare, I also take on smaller gigs. This is the everyday photography: headshots, corporate events, the occasional executive portrait — all much smaller budgets, quick turnarounds, and typically local clients.

And here’s the kicker: these two customer groups couldn’t be more different. They speak different languages (literally and figuratively), they’re in different places, they have different needs, and they operate on totally different timelines.

The Big Mistake: Confusing My Customers

What did I learn? I was confusing the heck out of my customers.

Imagine a marketing manager looking for someone to shoot some clean, professional headshots. They stumble upon my portfolio and see a lot of this:

Yeah... not what they were looking for.

Meanwhile, the advertising folks — those creative directors, talent scouts, and art buyers — are looking for something edgy, conceptual, and gallery-worthy. But they were finding this:

Great for a website, but not quite the artistic statement they had in mind.

The Solution: Two Brands, Two Voices, Two Websites

So, here’s what I did: I split my brands, my messaging, and my websites. One for each group of customers.

• New Local Website: In Polish, with clear categories like "personal branding portraits," "company events," and "cars." Straightforward, easy to navigate, and answers all the practical questions a corporate client might have.
• Grand Master Picture Website: For the advertising world, I kept it in English and made it as bold and conceptual as I dared. The weirder, the better — because that’s what creative buyers are hungry for.
  

Now, I can speak to each group directly, using their language, meeting their needs, and solving their specific problems. And all without scaring off the marketing managers or boring the art buyers.

The Competitive Advantage: Making It Easy for Your Customers

Here’s the secret sauce: make it ridiculously easy for your customers to find what they need. Be consistent. Be clear. And be ready to answer their questions before they even ask them.

At the end of the day, your biggest competitive advantage is having a deep, empathetic understanding of your customers. That’s how you create great marketing, build an outstanding product, and design an unforgettable service.

What About You?

So, how about you? Are you applying customer segmentation and insights to your business? Are you sure you're not confusing your customers with mixed messages?

Let’s get the conversation started. Drop a comment below and share your own experiences with customer segmentation — the good, the bad, and the ugly!

P.S. I’m keeping the name of the new local website under wraps for now — but if you’re looking for a photographer in Warsaw, just shoot me a message, and I'll point you in the right direction.

Final Thought:

Remember, good marketing isn’t just about having a great product or service; it’s about knowing exactly who needs it and speaking their language. Are you speaking your customers' language?