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Episode 185 - The Marketing Quickstart Guide
1.8k Plays1 year ago
Krista joins me for today's episode to discuss a question we recently received from a listener. In summary it was something like, "where should somewhere start with marketing their service based business?" And we get it. There are seemingly endless platforms and options out there when it comes to marketing a business—it can be difficult to know where to even start. This episode covers what we would do if we were marketing a photography business with little to no budget to spend on marketing. Even though we use photography as an example, it can apply to almost any service based business.
We love answering subscriber questions so if you have something you want us to cover in a future episode, send us an email at [email protected] to let us know.
As always, links and resources can be found in the show notes. Check 'em out at https://daveyandkrista.com/ And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review over at Apple Podcasts.
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Transcript
Identifying Ideal Clients
00:00:05
Speaker
But on the flip side of that, thinking about your worst clients. Again, what are the commonalities? Why did you not enjoy working with them? What did they complain about? Or what did they say they valued? Thinking through those things can help you paint more of a negative picture. And as a result, get more of a positive picture of who it is that you actually want to work with by figuring out who it is that you don't want to work with.
Episode Introduction: Marketing on a Budget
00:00:26
Speaker
Welcome to the Brands That Book Show, where we help creative, service-based businesses build their brands and find more clients. I'm your host, Davy Jones.
00:00:35
Speaker
Krista joins me for today's episode to discuss a question that we recently received from a listener. In summary, it was something like, where should someone start with marketing their surface-based business? And we get it. There are seamlessly endless platforms and options out there when it comes to marketing a business, so it can be difficult to know where to even start. This episode covers what we would do if we were marketing a photography business with little to no budget to spend on marketing.
00:01:00
Speaker
Even though we use photography as an example, it could apply to almost any service-based business.
Listener Interaction and Personal Stories
00:01:05
Speaker
We love answering subscriber questions, so if you have something you want us to cover on a future episode, send us an email at support at davianchrista.com to let us know. As always, links and resources can be found in the show notes. Check them out at davianchrista.com. And if you've enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review over at Apple Podcasts. Now, on to the episode.
00:01:32
Speaker
I don't know. We started and that's for you to figure out. Oh, no. Yeah. Start thinking about what you're excited for. What are you excited for? I just thought starting with a little bit about what we're excited for this week would be better than focusing on some more disappointments like the Monster Voice catastrophe.
00:01:54
Speaker
We're updating our SEO course. He has me editing his videos for him and there is one day where he handed me his computer to edit them and he runs off to the gym or to get kids from school and I go to edit it and I turn it on and he recorded it in the monster voice.
Collaboration and Tools with Jessica Jordana
00:02:10
Speaker
So there's something so I have this mixer all right and it's cool because for a lot of reasons but one of the cool things about it is that you can add all these little voices to it you know like large robot voice and
00:02:22
Speaker
Small robot voice. All right, so we got but point being is There's a lot of cool things you can do with it. I recorded a whole I mean this over 20 minutes of edited content in monster voice Yeah, and I could not stop laughing and I did not think it was funny. I think it was funny
00:02:40
Speaker
I did preface it when I texted you. I was like, hey, you're going to maybe find this funny later, but probably right now, but the whole chapter that you love that, but you're like, you're not going to find this funny, but I think it's hilarious. And I'm like, that did not help the situation. I'm just glad that you weren't home when I discovered it. Cause I was laughing for like 20.
00:02:57
Speaker
I'm excited that I figured out the issue on that front. And I think I've got a lot of fun recordings coming up. I'm recording with Jessica Jordana after this, Jess, the copywriter. She's been on the podcast a number of times. So I'm excited to
Q&A: Starting Wedding Photography Marketing
00:03:08
Speaker
dive in, do some copywriting stuff with her because that's just one of those perennial topics, always popular. But additionally, we're going to be talking about AI and artificial intelligence tools and things like that. And I think that's a top of mind topic for copywriters, but then I think also just creatives in general. So excited to have that discussion with her.
00:03:26
Speaker
So was that your thing you're excited for? I think so. Yeah. Just so special. I was going to say working on Valentine's with the kids, but... That's also fun. I enjoy watching you all do that. Well, good. I let Jack use my acrylic paints. I made him like strip down all of his like nice clothes. And then of course, like an hour later, he comes back up and checks on the paints, like the paints that we put on the palette and he got someone a shirt. I think I got it in time. I think it came out.
00:03:55
Speaker
And also, the kid doesn't understand that you don't just put all of the paint on, that you just do a little bit of paint. So I had to go behind him and brush off some of the paint so that it wasn't like gobs of paint on the Valentine's. Yeah, I think I doubt the other four-year-olds in his class are going to mind. It doesn't look as good. So anyways, I helped him.
00:04:18
Speaker
Well anyways, I'm also excited about this episode in particular because this episode is directly from a question that we were asked. So somebody who had replied to one of our emails talking about promoting a different episode but had a question about marketing their wedding photography business. So I won't mention her name because I didn't ask her if it was okay to share her name. But I do want to go through a few aspects of her question here.
Overcoming Educational Overwhelm
00:04:40
Speaker
The gist of it is that she wants to know whether we can do a podcast that is basically a beginner's guide to marketing a service-based business.
00:04:49
Speaker
Where should I even start SEO, social media, Pinterest, all the above? How can I come up with content and use it? I think this is a question that we hear a lot. A couple other elements of her email that I think were striking. For instance, she had mentioned about how much time and effort she's put into
00:05:06
Speaker
Developing you know her knowledge and skill around what she does as a photographer by taking all of these different courses and so one of the lines is there is You know that she's been pumping herself full of knowledge for so long and now just feels lost I mean I know that at different points I could resonate with that you know I think that's one of the interesting things about Education is that you know it's somewhere along the way you realize that there's a lot out there that you don't know and
00:05:29
Speaker
right and as you become aware of that maybe it makes you think like okay well if i just go and take this one more course this is gonna unlock everything for me i'm gonna use painting as an example again but i've been in my spare time it's a hobby that i like to do and i looked up some tutorials on painting because i really struggle with painting trees do you feel you're gonna laugh at that because it's just like such a small
00:05:52
Speaker
thing to struggle with but that is my struggle and i found all of these other videos i was like wow there's so many like i could spend hours and hours and hours learning how to paint trees just watching these videos but then i realize like no i can only watch like one or two and then i just have to go practice and see if i can implement what i learned because you only learn so much about watching like you learn so much more by actually doing.
00:06:15
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think that's such a good example. And, you know, I could go on with my own examples, you know, this book that I'm reading, and you start digging into the footnotes, and it leads to all these other books, and you start wondering yourself like, life is not long enough for me to consume all the information on this topic, even if I wanted to, you know? And so I totally get that feeling.
00:06:33
Speaker
So I want to talk about that a little bit as well. But basically, this episode, what we're going to do is just kind of walk through, in our opinion, where someone should start when it comes to marketing their service-based
Low-Budget Marketing Assumptions
00:06:44
Speaker
business. And because the person who asks is a photographer, we're going to use a photography business as an example here. And this is going to relate to a couple other episodes that we've done recently. So we'll make sure to link to those in the show notes as we reference them. But hopefully, the goal is, is after listening to this episode, if you are struggling with where to start or where to start again, rather, this is a good starting point.
00:07:03
Speaker
We're making a couple assumptions here. The first assumption we're making is that it's somebody that doesn't have a huge marketing budget. So there's not $10,000, $100,000 in the bank to just throw at advertising or PR or something like that. So we're making that assumption. We don't know whether that's true or not. And then in addition to that, or we're also assuming that this business has no intention of being a high volume business. So we'd rather focus on serving
00:07:31
Speaker
her ideal client and not necessarily shooting 100 weddings a year, but maybe shooting between 20 and 40 weddings a year at maybe more of a luxury level. So those are the assumptions that we're gonna make and we think that this is a good plan. Now, I actually think this is a pretty good plan regardless of whether those assumptions are true or not. Even if the opposite was true of those assumptions, I think we can make this plan work, but we are going to approach this less as if someone has a marketing budget to spend.
00:08:00
Speaker
Even though we're using a photographer as an example, I think that these tips could apply to just about any service-based business and maybe even non-service-based businesses. Yeah, for sure.
Content Creation Strategies
00:08:11
Speaker
The first thing that I want to talk about is I just have my notes here. Stop consuming and start creating. I think that that can be a hard cycle to break, especially if you feel like, oh, I just need one more course. I don't quite know this. I'm not perfect in this area.
00:08:24
Speaker
I mean, all those feelings that we're just talking about. At some point, you just have to put the courses aside, put the internet away, close social media, all of those things, and actually start getting down to creating content, doing whatever it is that you do. Right. Yeah. I think that's a great point. And you talked a little bit about that a few minutes ago, too.
00:08:43
Speaker
Yeah. We're going to call this step zero. That's the first thing we need to do. I don't think much more has to be said there. You won't ever know it all. To a certain extent, we hope we don't ever know it all. I think, to a certain extent, learning is fun and there's something important about always learning and always growing. Anyways, that's step zero. Stop consuming. Start creating. We're going to put aside the courses. We're going to close social media. We're going to stop looking at what everybody else is doing for a minute.
00:09:07
Speaker
So what is the real step one? All right. So the real step one, sit down and determine, I think on a piece of scratch paper, you can do this or in a Google doc or whatever, but you can do this quickly. Whose attention do you want? All right. So step one, determine whose attention do you want?
00:09:21
Speaker
And so for a photographer, this would be their ideal clients, correct? For sure. So by determining whose attention you want, yes, of course your clients should be on that list, all right? But you actually want the attention of probably some other people as well. So if you're a wedding photographer and regardless of what you do, you want to think about those complimentary businesses that could potentially result in revenue for you that don't compete with you.
00:09:43
Speaker
So for instance, you're a wedding photographer. I'm thinking specifically wedding planners and wedding venues. I know there's probably other wedding vendors that point business your way. Maybe you have a forest friend who points a lot of business your way and so on and so forth. So they might be on your list. But I think for most wedding photographers, it's going to be venues and planners. And you want them on your list as well.
00:10:02
Speaker
And they tend to be the first two things that couples book if they're going to book a wedding planner. Most of them book a planner before they book a photographer. And so you want planners, especially if they're a high-end couple, high-end wedding, so you want planners on your side sending people your way. And just to the side note, I remember a lot of people went back in the day when we used to shoot,
Understanding Client Motivations
00:10:22
Speaker
would book us before booking a wedding planner, but we would always encourage people to go back and book a wedding planner because I felt like anytime they booked a planner, even if it was after us, they didn't plan on it.
00:10:32
Speaker
it really kind of leveled up the wedding. Yeah, and I think that as our prices increased, it switched so that most of our clients were probably coming from planners or referrals later down the line. Yeah. But something to think about, you know, if you do want to jump to that next level, it's like, well, convince them to book a wedding planner, their wedding will be that much better, and then it will attract people who, you know, want that kind of aesthetic for their wedding.
00:10:52
Speaker
Anyways, that's an aside. The point being is whose attention do you want? Really, at this point, you need to get serious about understanding your ideal client. Who are they? What motivates them? Sit down and write those things out. Are they adventurous? I'm thinking about one of our current SEO clients. She is an elopement photographer. She really focuses on the adventurous couple who wants to get married out in the woods or in the mountains or something like that.
00:11:16
Speaker
When you go to her website, you don't see any images of people getting married in courthouses because that's not going to attract her ideal client. She is featuring those images that's really going to speak to them. That comes from having an understanding of who your ideal client is. Even if you go through the language on her website, again, speaking to that adventurous spirit of her ideal client, really understanding what it is that motivates them, what it is that they want.
00:11:42
Speaker
Yeah, and if you want to dive a little bit more into what motivates ideal clients or just motivates people to buy in general, we're releasing an episode this week as we record, but by the time this comes out, it'll probably be a few weeks in the past with Sam, who is a copywriter, and he talks about some of the core buying motivations that people think about.
00:12:01
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And we have some expanded information on that in the show notes as well. So check out that episode, but that's Sam Jacobson. So if you search the blog for that, you'll be able to easily find it, but you can go a thousand levels deep with this. All right. Now, if you have a budget, you can hire a copywriter who can help you with these sorts of things. So they're going to help you dive into, you know, who your ideal client is and what kind of language connects
Content Marketing and SEO
00:12:23
Speaker
with them. If you don't have a budget, that's totally okay too. Use simple activities you can do.
00:12:29
Speaker
Think about your best or favorite clients. What are the commonalities? What feedback did they give you? What was the high point of their experience? What images did they share? So when you're sharing images with them, what are the first ones that stand out to them that they share? What are they saying about those things? I think those can be revealing too about their motivations and what's really connecting with them.
00:12:48
Speaker
or if they're leaving you reviews on something like WeddingWire or The Knot, what do they say in those reviews? We noticed when we were photographers that a lot of people kind of said the same thing. They loved working with both of us. They loved that we were a husband and wife team and the dynamic that we brought. People loved you. It's hard to believe, I know.
00:13:06
Speaker
Well, just that you're like, I don't know, you're very like a guy's guy. And so they just, a lot of the guys felt really comfortable with you because you just were really good at making them laugh. So like you can notice that a lot of people will say things like that, that maybe you wouldn't have thought about yourself. Like I never would have thought to use you as a marketing piece, but.
00:13:26
Speaker
Here I am, though. Here I am just being used as a marketing piece. You've heard it here first. I think, too, our brand and our brand aesthetic for Crustejo Photography back in the day, it was high end, but it was also laid back. Those are the people that we ended up attracting. On the flip side of that, thinking about your worst clients. Again, what are the commonalities? Why did you not enjoy working with them? What did they complain about? What did they say they valued?
00:13:51
Speaker
You know, thinking through those things can help you paint more of a negative picture, you know, and as a result, get more of a positive picture of who it is that you actually want to work with, you know, by figuring out who it is that you don't want to work with. We've talked about this before. Now, here's what I'm going to say about step one, and I want to move off step one. You can get stuck doing this, all right? So if you feel like you're getting stuck doing this, or if you, you know, wrote a paragraph and you're like, ah, this is just not enough, but
00:14:12
Speaker
You can't really figure out anything else now. Again, maybe consider listening to some of the other episodes that we've done on brand. But then move on because step two and three are going to help you refine step one. But the key is doing here.
00:14:27
Speaker
I think that too you might write out all of these details about who you enjoy working with, who you want to reach, and then after going through the other steps and working with some actual clients, change that a little bit. I know that as our businesses have evolved over the years, we've probably adjusted who we enjoy working with and who we're trying to reach.
00:14:47
Speaker
And I think that this is where we're really getting into it here. So we have a list of people's whose attention we wanna get, right? Now we're thinking in step two, what is the best way to get their attention? And in our opinion, it's all about content and relationships. And when I think about marketing, I think about it in terms of content marketing, all right? And why? Because when you develop content, you have something to say.
00:15:14
Speaker
And it's just a matter of figuring out how to say it on the different mediums that you're sharing it on. And we'll talk a little bit more about that in a second. But there's really two approaches here, and we'll just kind of break them up into the two that we mentioned, creating content and then building relationships. And these two things, they're not necessarily two different categories, like by building content, you can also help build your relationships, but it's helpful to think about them differently.
00:15:39
Speaker
By building content, we're talking about taking an approach that's a little bit more net casting here. I would think about this, even though content can be like this, it can be audio, it can be video, whatever, but I'd think about it as weekly written content on your website.
00:15:54
Speaker
Do you mean on the blog or could it be on a page? Yeah, it could be on a page as well, but I'm thinking about the weekly content you're creating. Really, what I'm talking about is blog content here. If you're looking for a place to start, I want you to ask yourself, what questions do my wedding clients have all the time, especially in the inquiry phase? Now, we eventually want to create content that meets people where they're at in every stage of the customer journey. Even after they book, what are those common questions that people have that you can create content around to give them a better experience? Right now, just start with those presale questions.
00:16:24
Speaker
And I'm just thinking about off the top of my head, a few pre-sale questions that we're often asked like, tell me about film photography. Why do you still shoot with film?
00:16:33
Speaker
Or like, do I really need an engagement session? How many hours do I need you for on a wedding day? Should I do a first look? All sorts of things like that. There are probably a dozen presale questions that you can think of off the top of your head without even sitting down and doing a brainstorming session. So think about those presale questions and then start outlining a few blog posts. But think about this in terms of the weekly content that you're going to be creating. I think if you're struggling with a place to start, this is a great place to start.
00:17:01
Speaker
I would make sure that you're doing this every week. And from there, you have all of a sudden a game plan, right? And we talk about this in the two-step marketing plan episode that we'll link to in the show notes. But just quickly, once you've created these blog posts,
00:17:16
Speaker
Now, regardless of what social media platforms you are on, and I think that matters less, right? I'm thinking a wedding photographer probably gonna be on Facebook and Instagram, probably more Instagram than Facebook, Pinterest. I think it's always been a good source of referral traffic for us. TikTok, I think that a lot of people are finding success on TikTok. But once you have the content, now it's just a matter of taking that content and you can share it a dozen different ways across those channels.
00:17:42
Speaker
Do you think that there is a sweet spot for the amount of content that people put in these blog posts? Is a paragraph enough or do you think it should be a certain length? Yeah, that's a great question. I would say in general, just try to aim for a thousand words. If you don't know where to get started, there's more of an SEO precise way that we talk about in the course and it's based on
00:18:02
Speaker
If we're talking about this from an SEO perspective, we look at who's currently ranking, how long those posts are when we base it off of that. But in general, if you're just looking for a number to reach and that helps you, then a thousand words. There's nothing special about a thousand words. But if you write a thousand words on a topic, you're probably answering that question pretty thoroughly. And even if you're a bad writer or you think you're a bad writer, the way you become a better writer is by doing it.
00:18:27
Speaker
And again, there's all sorts of tools out there that we're going to talk about that can help chat GPT and some artificial intelligence tools. I wouldn't rely on those to write blog posts for you, but they could help you get the wheels turning. But anyways, beyond that, aim for a thousand words and then think about in a given blog post. So let's say you were writing about a blog post about whether to do a first look or not do a first look, maybe the pros and cons of a first look. Think about all the different social media posts you could create from that one blog post.
00:18:55
Speaker
I mean, that is like content for a year on social media, just from that one blog post. And because you could do static posts, you could do like text carousels, you could do reels, like all sorts of different reels. Yeah. And then think about the content you can create. So let's say you decide, okay, I'm writing a blog post on doing a first look. Okay. Think about all the other blog posts that are related to that blog post, you know, ideas that will just come to you as you're writing that post. So for instance,
00:19:20
Speaker
you could write my 10 favorite first look moments of 2021 or 2021 is like a decade ago now. But I mean, there are so many different ways that you could extend that content, right? Especially if doing the first look is very important to you as a business owner. I remember we used to love first looks because it just gave us more time, right? And we wouldn't pressure people into it who didn't want to do a first look. But point being is if you feel like a first look better serves the client and that's something that you're really about,
00:19:48
Speaker
think about all the content you can create about first looks. Or even like I've seen a lot of things on Instagram lately about alternate first looks. So like first looks with like mom and dad and bride and mother. I saw somebody do a first look with their dog. So there are all sorts of different ones that you could do. Even that's like another topic. That's great because the dog is always excited to see you. You know what I'm saying? As long as they don't have muddy paws and get you dirty, that would be pretty bad.
00:20:12
Speaker
But anyways, point being is that there's so many different questions that you can focus on there without knowing anything about keyword research, without doing any content or topic research, just based on your own experience. And I really think that content is gonna be the foundation of your marketing plan. And especially I think social media. I think when people feel discouraged with social media, they're like, I'm just not getting a lot of engagement or whatnot. I think a lot of it has to do with, well, what are you saying? Do you have anything to say that you've really thought about and you really believe in?
00:20:41
Speaker
And I think actually the process of creating content, especially written content, really helps you distill those ideas.
00:20:48
Speaker
So that's where I would start is content creation. Lead generation sort of secondarily, especially for a business that doesn't want to do like high volume, right? I would say lead gen there is secondary. If you want to do high volume,
Establishing Brand Presence
00:21:01
Speaker
I'd say lead gen is something that you want to get set up right off the bat. And by lead gen, I mean like some sort of way to collect email addresses and stuff like that. But I would start creating content once a week and then coming up with, you come up a whole weeks of social media posts on that one piece of content.
00:21:17
Speaker
What I wouldn't do is create social media posts that go like this, like, I just blogged about first looks, go check it out. You want to think about how can you package that content for that social media channel? On Instagram or really on any social media channel, what hook can you create to draw people into your post?
00:21:37
Speaker
and make them click off of that channel and go to your post. Yeah. And even if they didn't click off the channel, like even if, you know, like we have a few posts on David and Krista where, you know, we're basically taking not even a summary of the post, but sort of a section of the post and distilling it down into some core ideas. So even if you just read that post, you would get something out of it.
00:21:56
Speaker
So the idea is like, even someone just read this post, maybe they save it for later, or maybe they remember like, okay, so and so they know their stuff, right? So if I have a question about this in the future, I'm going to know, okay, I saw that David and Krista had a post about this, right?
00:22:11
Speaker
But that's a way to, I think, really start drawing people in. I think what people get frustrated with is, one, don't expect to move the moon with one single blog post. Two, remember that this is multifaceted. We've had blog posts that we thought maybe weren't super popular until we changed the way we were promoting it.
00:22:30
Speaker
And then all of a sudden, people seem very interested in that idea. So there's a whole strategy to figuring out how to share about it. You know how we learned about this stuff though? By just doing it, right? So I want to emphasize that. Now, let's get into relationships because we're getting, you know, we're already like 20 minutes in here.
00:22:47
Speaker
So talking about relationships, content helps relationships too. And one of the reasons that content helps relationships is because if you're a wedding planner and you constantly see Johnny the wedding photographer publishing all this great content to their blog or sharing all this great content to social media, that wedding planner's gonna think, oh, Johnny knows his stuff. If I send somebody over to Johnny, Johnny's not gonna be a hot mess.
00:23:08
Speaker
not only do his images look good, but you can see the intentionality and the thought process behind them because he's probably sharing all of that in those posts. Yeah, exactly. And I guess one other thing that I should have mentioned in the content bucket, right? I'm thinking about blog written content, yada, yada, but like blogging content from sessions is good too, all right, and highly encouraged.
00:23:30
Speaker
I think where people go wrong is they think they have to share it all, all right? Less is more when it comes to, I think, any sort of showing off creative business, right? Less is more people. So again,
Building Key Relationships
00:23:43
Speaker
using the photographer example, if you took photos in like a dark church and you personally don't think, it's not that images are bad, but maybe they just aren't the aesthetic that you want to shoot more of, you don't have to share those images in the blog post. Share only your very best stuff. That might be in a blog post you sharing 12 images.
00:24:00
Speaker
Yeah, and don't overshare. The best photographers share the least amount of images. We learned this from Jonathan Kamlis, maybe. When it comes to relationships, thinking about how you can get these people's attention. Now, once you identify those buckets of people, so wedding planners, wedding venues, let's say, then you can come up with a specific list of wedding planners and wedding venues that you would want to develop relationships with. Now, you have to take a more targeted approach here, right? You know, I couldn't think of a good analogy. You know, I was thinking about like a photo analogy where with content, it's like the
00:24:29
Speaker
panorama, landscape shot with the relationships. It's like the zoomed in shot on the ring. But then I thought that is so cheesy, baby. It does feel a little cheesy. My only other analogies here are like military. So I feel like that doesn't fit either.
00:24:44
Speaker
Anyways, you have to take a more targeted approach with relationships, I think. Some of the ways that you can do this are through gifts and cards featuring these people and venues as well, these people and places. For instance, it goes back to content creation. You could write a feature on a venue talking about your 10 favorite
00:25:03
Speaker
photography locations on their property at a given venue. And think about what this does. One, this again gives you an opportunity to show off your best work and reuse work. So you could write this at the end of the year. So you've logged all these sessions, now you're sitting there and you're like, what do I blog about? Well, you can find
00:25:21
Speaker
my favorite images from this venue I shot at three times, my 10 or whatever favorite images from the year, and reblog that. It's also a way to feature that venue. And so when you're sharing that post, of course you're tagging that venue. Now, hopefully a few things happen. Hopefully, one, they take note of you. And then two, hopefully they reshare maybe that post and it drives a little bit more traffic and so on and so forth.
00:25:43
Speaker
When we did stuff like this, sometimes a venue, maybe they missed. We also used to email them the images after we photographed there so that they had those images to use in their marketing material. But maybe if they forgot about them, maybe they would see those images in our blog post, the second blog post that we were doing like a roundup and maybe then they'd use their images on their website.
00:26:02
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Really just asking people what they need, I think can go a really long way. I think that this is easiest when you're already at a wedding. I would make a mental note to see every vendor there and be like, hey, are there any images that you really need? I think that is one of those simple things that really went a long way with people. You're not guessing at what they need. You're giving them exactly what they need.
00:26:24
Speaker
Typically, other vendors of the same type are going to need the same things. So now in the off season when you're kind of thinking, how can I serve this person? You can ask them, hey, do you also need images of this? I'd be happy to come out and shoot those.
00:26:37
Speaker
Yeah, and I know that when we were photographers, we often included the planner in our detail shots so that she could help style them. She could make sure that they looked great, they were exactly what she had envisioned her work looking like. And I feel like that got us more features, it made those images more usable by the planner, and then it built a trust relationship. And so there were a few planners where we did their headshots, we shot content and details for them, and they sent pretty much all of her couples our way. Yeah, and I would say that if you have a budget somewhere,
00:27:06
Speaker
I think putting it towards relationships is where I would recommend putting it. Not towards ads, not towards anything else. I'd put it towards relationships. And that's putting maybe gifts together that really catch somebody's attention, right? And don't feature your own logo. Yeah, I was going to say. Don't just send a mug with your logo on it. Yeah. At the end of the day, I mean, there's nothing terrible about that, right? But whenever possible, we try to put other people's logo on it.
00:27:32
Speaker
Or if not doing a logo, it was actually like a nice gift that they would use that they wouldn't be tempted to throw away, that they didn't have like a hundred of already, something that would stand out. Yeah, for sure. You know, for instance, like our realtor once got us a, it was like a cheese knife, but it had his logo on it.
00:27:48
Speaker
And it's a nice knife, but it's like, I mean, when we're serving our guests, we're not going to put this out with your big logo on it. We would rather
Consistency in Content and Relationships
00:27:56
Speaker
put something else. If someone comments on something like that, typically what you'll say is, oh yeah, and that came from our photographer. Same thing with client gifts we thought about in the same way. We used to send people after their engagement session, this board. It was like a calendar with images. That sounds tacky, but it was like,
00:28:12
Speaker
It was the artifact uprising ones, so they're kind of pricey for like what they are. Sure, but they were nice looking. They were nice. And the amount of comments we got on that from people though. And you know, it was from people who ended up booking us who saw it at one of their friend's houses or whatever, right? And even though it didn't have a logo on it, they still found out it was us. So you don't have to slap your logo on everything. I think being thoughtful is way more important than making sure your logo is on something.
00:28:38
Speaker
I'm going to add to relationships that even doing small things like always crediting vendors when you're including them in an Instagram feature or on social media or your blog post and then commenting on people's social media go a long way. I think especially today, people don't tend to get as many comments on their posts and so a planner might have put a lot of thought and work into her post and so if you are one of the five people who is not a robot commenting on her Instagram post, she or he, they're going to notice you.
00:29:07
Speaker
That kind of stuff, it can't be done overnight, but you can make progress in that area quicker than you think with a little bit of consistency. Something to keep in mind there, and I think these things go hand in hand. Again, if you do catch somebody's attention and they go to your website, what does your website look like?
00:29:23
Speaker
Have you taken in some of those things that we just mentioned into account like, are you only sharing your best work? Are things cleaned up? Does it look like you've been shooting recently? Or is your last blog post 10 years ago? All of those are good things to keep in mind. And I think just from our experience, having run a number of different businesses, these two things really make a difference. The best part is that they're sort of free.
00:29:46
Speaker
Air quotes free. Of course, websites cost money to host and things like that, but chances are you have a website that you're paying for right now, so it doesn't cost you any more money to go and start blogging once a week. That's just a matter of how can I best share this blog on the different channels that I show up on? You don't necessarily have to show up everywhere, but choose those maybe one to three places that you show up and show up well there consistently for a whole year. You're going to see progress.
00:30:14
Speaker
All right, so anything else that we need to talk about when it comes to content and relationships? I don't think so.
Challenges of Content Scheduling
00:30:20
Speaker
All right, so step three here. This is going to be, I think, the hardest step for people outside of just getting started. So just getting started, step one, that's going to be the hardest step, right? Then the step three, I think, is going to be the second hardest step. Step three is going to be repeating every week.
00:30:37
Speaker
Yeah. And that's hard to do like 52 weeks a year. Yeah, exactly. It is hard. We have that challenge once in a while. We get into cycles where we're really good about being ahead in content and everything feels like it's just working, you know? And then we have other seasons of the year where maybe it just feels like we're a little bit more of a rut. But even in those seasons where we feel like it's a little bit more of a grind to create and get content out there, we still do it.
00:30:58
Speaker
And I think that's important. So even when you feel like things aren't perfect, still work on getting content out there. Maybe you decide I'm gonna take this week off just to get a little bit ahead. You need to decide I'm only taking this week off. Don't let that week turn into two weeks, turn into a month, turn into a whole quarter, and so on and so forth. It's like dieting. I feel like I compare so many things back to dieting. But I think one of the most important rules of a diet is don't let a bad meal happen twice.
00:31:24
Speaker
If you're on a diet and
Streamlining Content Creation
00:31:26
Speaker
you go crazy at dinner one time because you just can't resist the pizza, fine, that's fine. But make sure that the next meal you eat is more in line with what you're hoping to eat. And I think the same is true of content as well. Now, staying consistent is going to help you in a lot of different ways. One of the things that I mentioned early on is steps two and three are going to help you figure out step one. So the more you publish content, the more you get out there and have something to share.
00:31:53
Speaker
the more you're going to learn about your ideal client and about creating content that resonates with them. It's just a matter of getting it done. Beyond that, the other thing that staying consistent is going to teach you is the value of creating systems. Some of those systems are just going to naturally happen. Every time you create content, you're going to get a little bit better at it. It's going to be a little bit easier.
00:32:14
Speaker
And I will tell you that I have a couple SEO clients who were starting from ground zero, like they haven't blogged before consistently, and it feels like a lot of work in the beginning. But the more you do it, the more practice you get and the better you get. You're going to be more efficient. And looking for a system, figuring out a system so that you're not recreating the wheel every single time, I think is going to be super important. So coming up with a punch list, okay, I'm going to write this blog post,
00:32:40
Speaker
This is the format I'm going to share to social media. These are the things that I'm going to need to share to social media. And that way, if you do have members of your team or you do have a designer you work with, you can say, okay, here's a blog post and they'll know what they need from that blog post. And you don't have to every time say, oh, I need XYZ.
00:32:58
Speaker
And it could just be a part of your client workflow. So you know that the day that you deliver images to the client, you're going to start working on the blog post to feature those images. Like if it's a feature client kind of blog post. Yeah, for sure. Having some sort of system in place is really going to help you.
00:33:14
Speaker
In addition to that, so is there anything else we should say about step three? I don't think so. Yeah, step three is just a matter of getting it done week in and
Advanced Marketing Strategies
00:33:20
Speaker
week out. Other stuff that you can or should do, but I think these are all things that after you have this foundation of creating weekly content and then sharing that weekly content,
00:33:31
Speaker
Almost every day, right? Doing a content on it on your website, so going on your website page by page, determining what needs to go, what can stay, what needs to be refreshed. I think that's super important. Again, if what we said about only sharing your best work, if that hits you, you're like, oh, I have way too much work on my website. This is a great off-season activity to do or downtime activity to do.
00:33:53
Speaker
updating your Google business listing, my guess, but like most people, you set that up and then you just forgot about it. If you even set it up at all. Yeah. I mean, that's low hanging fruit, right? Going and optimizing that, get new images in there, make sure that your description is an SEO focused description. What I mean by that is describe what it is that you do and who you do it for and where that you do it. Try to use the appropriate keywords.
00:34:17
Speaker
And would you say that this is more important for a local business that serves people than like maybe a business like ours that serves a national audience? Yes, for sure. So like local service-based business, I think this is incredibly important.
00:34:28
Speaker
And then explore advertising from there. If you want to do paid ads or listings, you should definitely start exploring getting published in different publications. I think that's very important for somebody like a wedding photographer and is only going to help with a lot of these other areas. Building a reputation which helps you build relationships with people like planners. It helps from an SEO perspective and so on and so forth. But here's the deal. I think all of this starts with
00:34:53
Speaker
publishing content consistently. And for a long time, we didn't publish informational posts, we just shared sessions. That's okay too, that's a good place to start. But I would start getting in the habit of publishing weekly. So I also, one of our other reasons is we used to run a wedding publication. And when we were lacking on content, we would look at local photographers' websites and see what they've published recently. And so even if they didn't submit them to us,
00:35:21
Speaker
see that they had published this and then we would ask to do that feature. So there might be instances like that where people see what you have written and they want to share it again on their site. So that might be helpful. Yeah, but I think content is largely the cornerstone of all this. I think a good mix of informational posts with sessions.
00:35:37
Speaker
is a good place to start for a photographer or planner, somebody in the wedding industry. That's an example that we can focus in on. And then jump into the other stuff, the basic SEO. In a perfect world, you've learned some basic SEO before publishing all this content, but it's not. If someone had to choose between the two,
00:35:53
Speaker
I'd say just start going to publish content. I think people do not rely on their intuition enough. You work in your business day in, day out. You have experience with clients. You have an understanding of what kinds of questions they ask you. Just by going and answering those questions thoroughly, my guess is that you're going to end up optimizing that post along the way whether you know it or not.
00:36:17
Speaker
And blog posts are something that can always be optimized later down the line too. But I wouldn't let that kind of stuff hang up. And I wouldn't let the perfect Instagram strategy, the perfect Pinterest strategy, the perfect TikTok strategy keep you from getting started either. Create content, share it, figure out what works doesn't, then do it again. So anyways, I don't know how many more times to say that differently. I don't know how to say that differently going forward. So anything else that we should cover?
00:36:42
Speaker
I don't think so. I feel like this is pretty thorough, especially for it being intro to marketing. Yeah. Well, first of all, I really appreciate questions being asked. Yeah. I love seeing questions come in. Yeah. So if you have a question, send it via email, send it via Instagram. We really do read each question and chances are other people are asking the same question. So it becomes great podcasting content for us. And yeah, I think that's about it. Thanks for joining us, guys.
00:37:11
Speaker
Thanks for tuning into the Brands That Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing and leaving a review in iTunes. For show notes and other resources, head on over to dvandchrista.com.