← Book More Photography Clients Podcast | Photography Business, Photography Leads, Marketing
Book More Photography Clients Podcast | Photography Business, Photography Leads, Marketing
3 Marketing Strategies Photographers Aren’t Doing Enough Of
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Welcome to the Book More Clients Photography Podcast. You can stop spending hours on Google and YouTube because you just found your number one resource for growing a profitable and sustainable photography business. Hi, I'm Brooke Jefferson. I'm a believer wife, mama to two and Oklahoma family photographer. I left the classroom in 2018 to pursue my photography career full time. Now I'm here to help you do the same. In this podcast we're covering the most asked about topics including pricing, marketing, client experience, and all things systems and workflows. You won't find any fluff or BS here. Just tried and true Strategy Are you ready? Grab your kids some snacks and charge those camera batteries. It's time to jump in. Foreign I want to talk about something I think a lot of you need to hear and that's you don't have a talent problem. You have a visibility problem. You're great at what you do, you take amazing pictures, you work really well with your clients, and your editing is phenomenal. But the problem is that not enough people know you exist and that's why you feel behind. You aren't seeing the amount of inquiries and bookings that you're wanting to. You're likely posting and showing up on social media, but is your audience growing with the right people? Maybe you're sending emails, but is your open rate increasing or your list growing with fresh names every month? If you're marketing to the same people over and over again and hoping for different results and you're going to stay disappointed when nothing changes, isn't that the definition of insanity? So today I'm sharing three marketing strategies that you need to do more of so that you can be seen by people who want to work with you. That does not require you being on social media 247 so let's get into it. Strategy number one is that you need to let people see you outside of social media. You've got to have community, vision, visibility. I want you to ask yourself, where are my ideal clients already hanging out like on a regular day to day basis? What are they doing? Where are they going? Because we're all doing something and going somewhere every single day. So are they at you know, do. Can you run into them at the store? Can you run into them at your workplace? Are they dropping their kids off in the drop off line? Are they. Are they attending networking events? School functions? Shopping at local boutiques? Are they sponsoring their kids sports teams? Do they go grab coffee from your local coffee shop? Are they hanging out in mom groups? Are they going to church every Sunday? Where are your Ideal clients already hanging out. And then how can you show up in those areas too? Stop waiting for people to find you and start showing up where your community are already is. The more local people that see your name, the faster you become the photographer that they're going to think of when they're ready to book. We've got to get out of our comfort zones of being behind screens and marketing online and we have to go back to the grassroots, which is marketing offline too. I know it sounds old school and it makes you introverts just absolutely cringe at the thought of that, but. But you have to think about this. Your ideal clients are people that live in your community. And so in order for you to meet them and get the max amount of visibility is going to be somewhere within your own community. So start thinking about ways that you can just naturally show up in your community. Can you attend an event? Can you join a networking group? Can you get involved with your local chamber of commerce or your Main street organization? What can you do to show up better in your local community so that you can increase your visibility and get seen by people that are going to be excited to work with you? Strategy number two is to simply ask for referrals, Ask for what you want. This one is so simple, and I promise you, almost nobody does this consistently. Your happy clients genuinely want to refer you. They want to tell their friends and their co workers that they had an amazing experience with you. But here's the thing. They're human and they're busy and they forget, just like we do. They might have the best intentions and when it comes up naturally in conversation, then they're naturally going to talk about you and they can refer people to you, but sometimes they just need a reminder or they need a little nudge. And so after you deliver a gallery, try asking for a referral pretty quickly after delivering someone's gallery, or circle back within three months, because at that point they haven't forgotten you. They still remember their experience and they're probably still revisiting those photos that you delivered for them. And so if you can find these touch points to just simply reach out and say, hey, if you loved your experience, I would be so honored if you shared my name with someone who's looking for a photographer. That's it. That's all you have to say. It's not. It's not weird, it's not a pitch, it's not even salesy. It's just you giving a natural ask. Referrals are still going to be the number One way that you will grow your client base. And so if you're not already asking the people that loved working with you, you're leaving so much money on the T. So make sure that you are actually asking for referrals. This can be done by phone call, text message, email. It kind of just depends on you and how you naturally talk with your clients. And strategy number three, you're probably going to roll your eyes at this one because I've said this one before, but it's build an email list. Okay, Build an email list. Social media is great, right? Instagram is awesome. Facebook can still be finicky, but it still is very successful for people. But your email list, that's what you actually own. So getting those email addresses and having that for sure way to contact people is the best tool you can put in your pocket. And you're probably leaving money on the table because you only email when you have something to book out. Maybe it's a mini session or maybe it's your fall seasonal calendar and then you get so busy that you just forget to be consistent in emailing people. And when you do that, it's a lot harder to see results from your email list because people forget how they even got on the list or they're confused when they see your name pop up. Or maybe you know, you didn't start emailing them from the get go when they joined your list. And so maybe your email is showing up in their spam or promotions folder and so they're never getting an opportunity to actually see it land in their inbox. But email marketing is so powerful. Even when people open your email and they don't respond, or maybe they don't click on something or they don't book right away, what's happening subconsciously is that they're getting used to seeing your name in their inbox that one day they will click on your email. Maybe it's a subject line or maybe they're not pregnant yet and then they get pregnant and then they see that you're doing, you're talking about newborns and maternity sessions and they're like, oh, that rings a bell. Like I need to book with that person. And so it's another way to stay top of mind with way less distractions in someone's inbox. And I understand that email is not for everybody. Like for me, for some reason I check my inbox all the time. In fact, I have multiple inboxes that I manage, some for my full time job and some for my own businesses. But some people don't check their inbox for months at a time or weeks at a time. And so I get that it's different for everybody, but there are way more people that are opening their inboxes week to week and day to day than you would actually think. And so I want you to find a reason to stay connected and send consistent emails. Consistent emails could be once a month. That's 12 emails a year. I know you can commit to that. Maybe you're doing every other week and it's something that your people find valuable and they look forward to. You could share behind the scenes. You can give session planning tips. You can talk about specific advice or personal stories about your niche specifically. So like if you are a wedding photographer, you can talk about, you know, your own story of something that happened at your wedding. You could give marriage advice, whatever the case may be. You can feature your recent work, you can show off your testimonials, and of course you can ask for the booking towards the end of every email because you're giving value and you're not just saying, hey, book me, book me, book me. So when people feel connected and they see that you're being consistent with something, then booking you becomes a no brainer. So if you're not utilizing an email list, I highly recommend that you do that. One of my favorite tools that I literally use on a daily basis is Flodesk and you can save 25 off on your first year. I will leave that link in the show notes, but I believe you can also go to brookejefferson.com flodesk and it should reroute you to that discount code. When you join and I see your name pop up on my on my Flodesk affiliate page, then I will send you the 12 emails. A whole year of email templates that you can use. You don't even have to really do anything except pop in your photos and then put your name and photo at the bottom of those emails. And so if you kind of want a no brainer and you want to save some money on flodesk, you can absolutely do that. Use my link. And then as soon as I see your email address pop up on my end saying that you did check out and use my code, then I will send you an email from brook jefferson.com and I will get you those free year of Flodesk email templates. And if you're sitting here realizing that you've been relying way too heavily on the same audience and you need help in all of these areas, including social media, then you're exactly who I built Market Like a Tog for. We cover everything inside of this membership that you need to get consistent in your marketing. You get the content prompts, you get the captions, you get real ideas. You are getting the email template, a fresh email template every single month. So that's on top of the free year of Flow desk email templates. So I create a new one every single month inside of the membership. And so you can just take it and run with comes with copy. It literally has everything that you could need. We do a bonus training. So we do once a month we do a marketing training on whatever marketing topic you guys are requesting. And so this is truly going to help you get ahead of the game. Stay consistent with your marketing. And one thing that I'm offering as a bonus for people who join in May is that you are going to get that free week of Instagram coaching. So don't wait until it's gone. Come join us. Brooke jefferson.com membership and I will see you inside market like a tog and remember the three quick recap strategies we talked about today. Strategy number one, get visible in your local community. Strategy number two, ask for the referral. And strategy number three, build your email list. All right, I will catch you on the next episode of the book More Photography Clients podcast. Sam.