← Book More Photography Clients Podcast | Photography Business, Photography Leads, Marketing
Book More Photography Clients Podcast | Photography Business, Photography Leads, Marketing
3 Things That Made My Bookings Consistent
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We can't have an on and off again relationship when it comes to our marketing channels. We need to choose how we're going to show up. What marketing platforms are we going to utilize? We need to create a plan so that we can keep it simple, we can keep it repeatable, we can keep it effective, and then we need to execute on it as well. 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 strategies. Are you ready? Grab your kids some snacks and charge those camera batteries. It's time to jump in. It's hard to believe, but summer is finally here. The sun is shining, the temperatures are rising and I love summer. Love summer. May and April were really, really rainy and I just feel like a different person when it's cloudy and it's gross outside compared to when it's a beautiful day, you want to do nothing but sit outside in a chair. I just feel more productive and I'm really glad that we made it to summer. But one thing that I know about summer is that our schedules start to get jam packed. Even if we have more margin on our schedule, we typically feel like we're busier, like things are always go, go, go because a lot of us have our kids during the summer or we have vacations planned and so it doesn't feel like we're in in the groove. There's not ro we are using all summer long. And so I know with that being said that you don't have all of this free time to listen to really long podcast episodes. So my goal for this summer is to give you bite sized episodes that you can digest in 15, 20 minutes or less and then you can go implement that action and get an immediate win. So that is what you can expect to hear from through the summer on this podcast. And today I want to talk about three things that I've done that result in consistent bookings. Because ultimately that's what you want, right? You want to see consistent bookings month after month after month in your photography business. And so I want to talk about these three things that I did and that you can do to really make sure that you are setting your photography business up for success and you're not just winging it or blending in with all of the photographers out there. So the first thing that I did, and this will be no surprise to you, especially if you are a longtime listener of this podcast, but the first thing that I did was declare a clear specialty, AKA I chose a niche. I know you're tired of hearing it, you're not sure about it, you think you are too much of a beginner and, and you haven't had enough experience yet, but let me just encourage you that the sooner you niche, the better off you are. In fact, I have a student right now, a photographer that is taking the fully booked method. It's, it's my eight week live group coaching program. And the very first thing that I have everybody do is declare their niche. And she was really on the fence about it. She told herself for months that if she did it, it was going to hurt her business. And she said that she really enjoyed that first week, really forced her to make a decision. And now because of that, she's able to make better decisions. She knows who she's marketing to, she knows what kind of pricing and packages she needs for that. And so she had to overcome her own mindset, which is probably something that you're struggling with as well. And you are going to book what you show. And what I mean by that is people are not going to remember you if you are doing a little bit of everything and it's constantly something different that you are showing or that you're promoting. And so I want to encourage you right now to make sure that you are clear as day on your niche. I chose families. Let's see, I'm 11 years in. So I chose family photography about eight and a half years ago and I stuck to it. Now, like I always tell people, does that mean that you can't shoot anything else? No, that's not what that means. But for marketing purposes, you have to position yourself as a specific type of photographer so that you stay top of mind for someone. So if you want to be a newborn photographer, then when someone is pregnant and they start thinking about maternity photos, baby photos, etc. You want to be top of their mind. You want to be the newborn photographer expert so that people will run to you for a specific thing that they want. And then when their friend or family member or coworker finds themselves in a similar position, needing exactly what you do and you're going to stay top of mind and they're going to refer you that way. I'm telling you, trust me on this one. Pick a niche and commit to it. The second thing that I did to get consistent bookings was to create simple and repeatable marketing. Whoa. Let's talk about marketing. You hate it. You feel overwhelmed by it. You don't know where to start. I totally understand that. And what I want you to know is that you don't need to show up every single day on your marketing platforms, whether that's social media or email marketing. You don't need to wake up every single day and create a piece of content. I would rather you create a marketing plan and then batch that content in which we have a podcast coming up this summer about this. But I want you to, you know, choose one or two days out of every month and do all of your marketing in that two days and then your hands off for the rest of the month. And you will be thinking yourself because I'm going to tell you the majority of the time, I don't feel like marketing. I don't feel like creating content. And so when I have my content already batched, ready to pull from, ready to post, it's so much better and it's so much more effective. Interrupting this episode for just a minute to tell you about the Fully Booked Method. Imagine if you were booking consistent quality clients year round, not just during the busy fall season. Imagine if you were making enough money to pay your bills, cover groceries and save for that family vacation. Imagine if you are being referred by clients and raved about in your community. And imagine if you wake up each day thinking I can't believe that this is my job. It's time to go from stressed out to booked out and I want to invite you to save your spot on the wait list for the next round of the Fully Booked Method. This is my 8 week group coaching program that helps photographers clarify their brand, optimize their marketing and double their bookings in 90 days. So if you're ready to book more clients and find out more information, head to Brooke Jefferson.com fully booked and get your name on the wait list. I'll see you in the next round. If you are not consistently marketing your business, then you're not staying top of mind. It's no wonder that your calendar is not full of bookings because you are posting and then you're ghosting. Or sometimes you're on and sometimes you're off. We can't have an on and off again relationship. When it comes to our marketing channels, we need to choose how we're going to show up. What marketing platforms are we going to utilize. We need to create a plan so that we can keep it simple, we can keep it repeatable, we can keep it effective, and then we need to execute on it as well. So if you are not consistent at all with any type of marketing, I want you to pick one platform. So this could be email marketing, this could be a social media platform like Facebook or Instagram. This could be a local collaboration. What is one method of marketing that you can commit to? And you can batch it out. So, for example, can you sit down and create one month of Instagram content? That way you have it ready to go. You can be hands off this summer, but you can still be showing up and showing people that you are in business. The worst thing is for someone to hear about you or accidentally find you and then they start checking out your website, your social media channels. They look and you haven't posted since January of 2025 and we are now in June, that's six months. So now they're questioning, is this person like even still doing this? Are they consistent? Are they going to be communicating with me if I book them? They have a lot of questions and it creates doubt. And people will not book you if they're doubtful if they have questions. So again, please make sure that you have simple, repeatable and consistent marketing. The last and final thing that really helps me with consistent bookings was being findable online, being searchable, having people type in keywords or phrases or, you know, any SEO search term, and then something of mine popping up in the first page of Google. It could be a social media page, it could be a website, it could be a blog, it could be anything. And so if you are not utilizing SEO or blogs or something like that, then I really want to encourage you to do this. Because while you have to, in the second thing that I told you, simple, repeatable, consistent marketing for that, that's something that you have to create over and over and over and over again. Whereas with SEO, this is a strategy that you work on, you get it set up in your hands off and then you're coming back maybe one or two times a year just to refresh things, make sure it's working how you want it to. But SEO really is a set it and forget it strategy. And so if you're not utilizing this and you don't have a plan in place, you're missing out on leads and bookings. From the Internet, and I don't want that to be you. So. So what I want you to do, just to make sure this is your baby step here, is go to your social media platforms to start with, and in your bolded name line or your business page photography name, can you add a little bit of SEO, words, key phrases, whatever you want to call them into those lines, into those page names. So, for example, instead of it just saying, brooke Janae photography. Right. That's great, but nobody's actually searching for that. They're searching for, you know, family photography or their location or something like that. So then what I could put is like, brooke Janae photography. And then I'm just going to pick a random place. Just for. Just for the purposes of this public podcast, let's say I am in Irving, Texas. Then I would put, you know, Irving, Texas family photographer. And then that is allowing people to find me if they are typing in those key phrases. So, again, these are baby steps. Here, let me recap this for you. Three things that made my bookings consistent and that I want you to implement so you can see consistent bookings. First, one, declare that niche. Go be an expert in something. Number two, simple, repeatable, consistent marketing. And the last one is utilizing SEO so that people can find you online. All right, I'm leaving you with a few things for you to go implement into your own business. I would love to hear what you implemented. Hop over to Instagram, let me know how it's going, and I'll see you on the next episode. Sam.