← Book More Photography Clients Podcast | Photography Business, Photography Leads, Marketing
Book More Photography Clients Podcast | Photography Business, Photography Leads, Marketing
The Fall Prep Checklist Every Photographer Needs Right Now
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This episode is going to be a super fun one and super practical one because we are going to do a little audit in your business. This is essentially the checklist you didn't know you needed during back to school season and I wanted to literally just be a quick audit of your business and give you something to focus on so that you can hit your photography booking goals this fall. So we're going to go through 10 non negotiable checkpoints to help you make sure that you are completely on track and you are ready for an influx of bookings. 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. Number one, we're going to talk about updating your website and booking info. So a couple questions for you to run through. Is your fall availability listed somewhere for people to see? Essentially this is going to be a booking calendar that they can click on and view your availability. Is your booking link live and is it easy to find? Have you tested this out or sent it to your spouse or your best friend? Can you to see if it makes sense to them and when they click on it it actually works. You want to think about where are other places that I can put this booking link where it's going to be easy to access? So things like your Instagram links, your Facebook page, it could go on there. That could be the button where it says Book now or something a little bit different. You could put it on there. You can have your booking link on your website. So think about where can I put this booking link that people find it in Book Easy. Does your homepage reflect your current work and your ideal client? If your website's a little bit of a hot mess, I know you probably want to just burn it all to the ground and start over, but you don't have time for that right now. So just work on your homepage. Does that homepage actually reflect your current and best work and does it speak to your ideal client. So just make sure that your website isn't stuck back in a former a former season and make sure everything is up to date. Second thing is I want you to refresh your social media, your. Sorry, your social media bios. I want you to clearly state what you offer and where you're located. So if I came to your Instagram right now, would I know exactly what you offer and exactly where you're located? Go check and see if those two things are in your bio. The second thing, and we just mentioned this one, was to make sure that your booking page is linked in your website link. Update your pinned post or your highlights and make sure that you've got some fall information or some current sessions that you've done. You don't want someone to click on a pinned post or a highlight that is from, you know, a year or two ago. You want to make sure that it is fresh, it is new, that people know that you are in business. Number three is to send an email to your past clients. Have you done this yet? I want you to reconnect with your warmest leads. I want you to share your fall session dates or a what's coming up this fall email. And I want you to include easy ways that they could either book a session with you, reply to your email or refer a friend. So don't wait for your past clients to circle back around to you. Go show up in their inbox. That's going to be the best way to have a touch point with your past clients. Number four is to announce your fall sessions publicly. I'm assuming by now you've probably already done this, but here are some other ways and places that you could do this. Post it on social media, put it in your stories and talk about it in your stories over and over and over again. Maybe post it to a local group if that's something that you do. For marketing. Make sure that you include the session options that you have dates you have available where they can find out about your pricing and clear instructions for how to book. And then again use urgency. We talked about this in the last episode. You want to use urgency saying like limited spots, early bird perks, figure out a way to get people off that fence and to book with you early. Number five, we are halfway there. Double check all of your booking systems and your workflows. So a couple questions to walk through. Is your scheduler working correctly? Are clients receiving confirmation emails and session prep guides or prep emails? Do you have reminder email set prior to their session? Do you have Emails that go out after the session, like check in emails or testimonial requests. A smooth booking experience again is going to help you keep that trust and save you a lot of time. Number six is to revisit your pricing and packages. Are your prices and your packages aligned with your goals and your fall demand? What I mean by this is when you're looking at your pricing, when you do your goals right, are you falling short or are you charging too less, where you're gonna have to work more? Really pay attention to this because it's going to help you determine where your pricing needs to be. One other bonus tip is if you are wanting to raise your prices, the best time to do that is right now. So if you've been looking for encouragement or wondering when you should make the jump, it's not January 1st, it's really right now. Do your pricing and packages reflect your current skill level and your time investment? And is everything listed clearly and confidently? Number 7 Plan a visibility boost. So here are just some examples that you could weave into your fall collaborate with a local business, host a giveaway or a model call or get featured in a local group or publication. People book photographers that they see consistently. So you want to be findable, searchable and you want to be memorable. And that's where your brand really comes in. Number eight is to ask for referrals and reviews. Follow up with your happy clients and ask for a review. Ask if they know someone who needs fall photos or someone that they love and admire that you think that they would enjoy working with you. And if you want, you can always offer a referral bonus or a thank you gift. But word of mouth is always going to be your number one most powerful marketing tool. So make sure that you're asking for those. Number nine is to batch your next month of content. Please, please put a star. Highlight this, underline it, whatever you need to do. This is the most important one. Okay, batch your next month of content because here's what's going to happen. You're going to start marketing yourself and you're going to get into this rhythm for about two to three weeks. Your bookings are going to start coming in and your client load is going to get heavier. You're going to have more clients to talk to, more clients to style, more clients. You're photographing, more editing. You're going to forget about marketing at that point and this is what happens. It is literally a roller coaster ride. I watch photographers get on of I'm doing great at marketing for two months I fall off for four, I climb back up after the summer, I drop off during the fall and it literally, I mean, it just happens. And I get it. I have been on this roller coaster ride myself. I get it. So please, let's. I'm going to do this challenge with you. We are going to bash our next month of content. So we're going to prep at least three to four posts each week for the next four weeks. So we're going to go in, we're going to write all our captions, pull all of our images, create any reels or videos that we need, and all of our emails as well, and then we are going to go schedule it all. So we're going to include client features, reviews, we're going to put out fall session information, we're going to show behind the scenes content. We're going to show several different angles of what it's like to work with us or this client's experience. We're going to show all the angles that people need to see in order to get them to book. And then you are going to schedule everything through Made a Business. And for your reels, you're going to schedule those through the Instagram app. You're going to get it all scheduled, you're going to be hands off and you're not going to have to worry about it again. Okay, so number nine, batch your next month of content. Last but not least, and this is very important, I want you to set your boundaries now. Okay? I had a whole episode planned for Boundaries and Keeping the Peace. And I don't think I'm going to do that episode now, especially because we're talking about it right now. But I really want you to focus on setting boundaries for yourself. Decide your work hours, pick your turnaround time. If it normally takes you two weeks, go ahead and tell people it's going to take you three weeks. Give yourself extra time. Decide on how many sessions you're going to take for each month for each set of minis. Know that in advance, communicate clearly on your website and with clients, and protect time for your family, rest and creativity. A booked calendar is awesome and it's great, but a balanced business is what's going to keep you from burning out. And I wanted to give you a couple of concrete examples before I close out this episode of how I personally protect my piece as a photographer. One is I set these boundaries. I set them and I abide by them and I don't feel bad about them. The second thing is I give myself one to two days each week where I am fully off from anything. Editing, communicating, photographing, all of it. One to two days. Now, as we get into busy season, it's probably going to be more like 24 hours. So it'll maybe be a Saturday or a Sunday where I'm completely unplugged. I'm not doing any. Like I'm not looking at it. I'm not doing anything. And I have to do this because if I don't, then I start to feel that burnout. I start to feel that resentment, that tiredness. And I don't want to do that. And the last boundary that I set for myself, I don't scroll during busy season. I won't do it. I don't scroll social media. I don't look at people's content. I don't look at what other photographers are doing. I completely just get on the apps for what I need to do for work and I get off the apps or I'll post something on my personal Facebook account and then I'll get off. So set your boundaries now. So very quickly. I'm just going to run through these really fast. Here is your 10 non negotiable checkpoints 1. Update your website and booking info to refresh your social media bios. 3. Send an email to your past clients. 4. Announce your fall sessions publicly 5. Double check all booking systems and workflows 6. Revisit your pricing and packages. 7. Plan a visibility boost 8. Ask for referrals and reviews 9. Batch your next month of content and 10 set your boundaries now. I hope this checklist was helpful. Hopefully you found one or two things that you need to go implement. So make sure that you take action as soon as as this episode ends. And thank you so much for listening to the podcast.