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Episode 29: Chip Dizard - Getting Started with Facebook Ads
145 Plays6 years ago
Today’s guest is Chip Dizard of Chip Dizard Weddings. Chip is a wedding photographer and videographer based out of Baltimore, Maryland. He provides photo and video services to creative businesses in addition to offering mentoring and consulting.
One of the things that Chip consults on is Facebook advertising, and that’s what we’re chatting about in today’s episode. We chat specifically about the mistakes people commonly make, the different aspects of running Facebook ads, and some tips for getting the most out of the ads that you run.
For show notes and additional resources, go to https://daveyandkrista.com/btb-chip-dizard-episode-29.
Recommended
Transcript
Why Target a Specific Niche in Advertising?
00:00:05
Speaker
So when you're targeting, I am of the opinion that you need to be more specific. And sometimes having a big target is not as good as having a more specific niche type target. So I think that's one of the things that a lot of people do.
Introduction to the Brands That Book Show
00:00:24
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
Today's guest is Chip Desard of Chip Desard Weddings. Chip is a wedding photographer and videographer based out of Baltimore, Maryland, and he provides photo and video services to creative businesses in addition to offering mentoring and consulting.
Expertise in Facebook Advertising
00:00:49
Speaker
And one of the things that Chip consults on is Facebook advertising, and that's what we're chatting about in today's episode. So we chat specifically about the mistakes he sees people make, the different aspects of running Facebook ads, and some tips for getting the most out of the ads that you run.
00:01:05
Speaker
Be sure to check out the show notes at davianchrista.com for the resources we mentioned during the episode, and today there are a lot of them. And I'd like to hear from you about what kind of content you'd like to see on the Bransdale Book Podcast as we move forward. I'd also like to know what episodes you've enjoyed so far and why. To leave your feedback, head on over to the Davian Christa Facebook page and send us a message.
From Teaching to Wedding Photography
00:01:25
Speaker
Now, on to the episode.
00:01:35
Speaker
All right, sweet. Hey, well, chip, welcome to the brands that book show. I'm so glad to have you on chip and I we just met at show it united. And I will say that chip gave me a five minute fuel so on the main stage, and Krista is
00:01:50
Speaker
It's one of the ones that she remembered. When we talked about United afterwards, she's like, that was really good. It was jam-packed, full of really actionable things that you could do on your website to get people to convert. Super interesting stuff. But today, Chip's joining us. We're going to be talking about Facebook ads for wedding pros, service-based businesses.
Benefits of Facebook Advertising for Service Businesses
00:02:11
Speaker
But welcome to the show, Chip.
00:02:12
Speaker
Hey, thank you for having me. And I'm glad that we met at United, had a great time in that conference. And yeah, five minutes of the little harrowing, but I got through it. Yeah. And not only did you get through it, you were one of the few that was actually five minutes. Right. I know. I know. I planned it. I practiced it. I try. I try to stay in time. I'm a former teacher, but I'll tell you about that later. So I knew when the bell rings, we have to end no matter what.
00:02:39
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, as a former teacher, I appreciate and respect that. But Chip, before Facebook ads, and you know, we're gonna hear a little bit about that right now. What's your background? It sounds like you have some teaching experience. How did that lead into wedding photography and Facebook ads? Yeah, so I was teaching, and I'm from Baltimore, Baltimore, you're a Marylander as well. So Baltimore City Public Schools for six years, and I was teaching photography and videography at a high school level. And then
00:03:07
Speaker
I've always at the church, people ask me when I worked at the church part time at a church asked me to do weddings. And I said, ah, no, this is back in 2010. I want to say I did a friend's wedding. I said, I'll do it. You know, did some photos and it was just very basic. And I said, you know, years later I was still doing it part time. And I said, well, other people asked me to do it. Other people from church asked me to do, I said, you know, maybe I should get some real training trying to learn what I'm doing. And actually,
00:03:33
Speaker
see what's going on. And then it just kind of evolved and evolved and evolved to get more business. Like anything else, when you're first starting a business, Davey, it's about just referrals, right? So you're trying to get more referrals, more referrals. And then I said, you know what? In 2015, I think I could do this full time.
00:03:50
Speaker
I was teaching and I was starting to travel a little bit more. I was starting to speak a little bit more and going places. And even though I had this off, it was hard for me to get back to leave on a Friday, flying somewhere, going somewhere and coming right back on Monday. And as you know, as a teacher, you can't really take days off. You don't get vacation days.
00:04:11
Speaker
No. And there's only so many days you can have also before people start looking at you crazy in the subs and then get principal. So I had to make a decision and I just decided in August 2015, even though I love my school, I love my kids, I taught high school and a really good job. I said, you know what? I'm going to follow my passion and really start to do this wedding. And subsequently, that's how I got into Facebook ads because I needed consistent business. So I said, how do I get consistent business?
00:04:40
Speaker
other than the referrals. I used up all the church referrals. So I need to get new business. Yeah, that's awesome. And we so I started as a teacher myself taught high school English and economics, coached really did enjoy my time as a as a teacher and a coach. But when I joined Christa full time, at the time she was running the photography business, my first year I decided I wanted to try to teach and do that with her kind of full time.
00:05:05
Speaker
everything you're saying is speaking to what I was kind of suffering throughout the time, which is working Monday through Friday, then basically working the weekend to do photography and not having any time off. I did say teachers get no vacation days. I guess they do get the summer, but
00:05:21
Speaker
You don't get, especially Krista, she had the flexibility to travel in the winter if she wanted to or in the spring or in the fall. And if it's the school year, you're really relegated to the days the students have off if you want to do any sort of traveling. So that was tough. And so eventually, after a year doing that, I was like, no, I got to commit to one or the other.
00:05:40
Speaker
And I decided to go full-time with Krista, which is really, really glad that I did. But I'm excited to dig in here with you about the power of Facebook advertising.
Is Paid Advertising Worth It?
00:05:49
Speaker
Facebook advertising is something that we do for our own business, something that we do for our clients. I think that people get all sorts of stuck when it comes to Facebook advertising.
00:05:59
Speaker
And I think a lot of people think that paid advertising isn't really worth it. So can you speak to what some of the benefits are of advertising on Facebook? Yeah, I just think for me and for anybody, especially I'm talking about service-based businesses. It's not really that we sell products because we think of advertisers, well, I have to sell a product, some type of ebook or something like that. But I think for service-based businesses, it gets us out in the marketplace. And as we know with Instagram and Facebook, the algorithms
00:06:28
Speaker
If you have a business page, because you can only advertise on your business, really, you will not get any reach. I mean, it's just that simple. Years ago, as you know, we used to be able to get reach from our business pages without paying a dime. But that changed as soon as things started happening.
00:06:46
Speaker
and more people came on board and i think one of the big benefits is to reach people that you normally would not reach there are some people that i would never reach unless i put an ad unless they saw me unless i had an impression on them like i said before when i was doing this part-time prior to twenty fifteen,
00:07:06
Speaker
In 2014, I realized, I said, I need to pay for ads. I didn't want to pay for advertising. But it was one of those things that if I make a decision to leave my job, and all my referrals are pretty much in one area, and I saw my business, and I have a business coach at the time, and I said, saw all my referrals in one area of the state and in one jurisdiction, I said, you know what? I need to expand. I need to go to Atlanta. I need to go to New York. I've done weddings in California. I did decimation weddings.
00:07:36
Speaker
You know what I mean? So I think it was really for the demographics for me and for anybody who wants to expand it. Even if you want to get out of your addiction, get out of your local city. People need to know where you are and know that you can travel and know your work.
00:07:50
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. I think that's a really interesting point that you bring up because word of mouth referrals are great and serving the people that you know in your local market. For you, it sounded like it was a lot of referrals from church. When Krista and I got into when we started our photography business, we were at the age where all of our friends and their friends were getting married, right? But we're not at that age anymore. Most of our friends are already married. They're in the age of having kids and things like that.
00:08:16
Speaker
And I just think that those word of mouth referrals were great, especially for that season of life. And I'm not saying that they dried up necessarily or anything like that, but we couldn't necessarily rely on friends of friends anymore or even friends of those old clients because they had moved past maybe that season of life where one is typically getting married. So just even having some other presence, whether it's through paid advertising, whether it's through search engine authorization or something like that,
00:08:44
Speaker
can be so important and give you some relief so you're not constantly hustling for that word of mouth referral. Yeah. And that's so important because I think that word of mouth is really good. But I think at the end of the day, if we can always cultivate and have, it's like my presentation United, I equate it to a funnel. So anybody knows about sales processes and you know about funnels. I used to be at sales too before I got into teaching. So I know outside sales,
00:09:12
Speaker
My boss used to say, well, where is the prospect in the funnel? But as photographers, we don't really think about that kind of stuff. We think about the creative, the pretty. If I ask most photographers, where are the prospects, where are your prospects in your funnel? Top of the funnel, middle, bottom, they wouldn't even know what that is. So I think that we need to really, that's the thing, we have to change our mindset as marketers. Yes, we are photographers always, but then in this competitive market, we have to be marketers.
00:09:39
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Could you real quick walk us through the funnel and then can we dive into a little bit on where people end up getting stuck with Facebook ads and start moving, start moving through that? Yeah. Yeah. So my funnel is really an awareness funnel and I'm going to send this to you in your show notes. Awesome. So you can have my, my PDF handout that I talk about the top of the funnel. I have Davey as the awareness stage. So
00:10:03
Speaker
I know about David and Krista. I know about what you all have done, you know, and this is actually what even happened when I bought your black Friday product, you know? So I'm telling you what can happen. I know about, I got the email, I received it. So I know that there was a sale going on during black Friday. So I could, then the second part of the funnel is a consideration part. So I consider it as a, you know what? I do need this. I have a short website. I need a landing page.
00:10:29
Speaker
Let me consider it. Let me see what it does. I need a, I just launched a show at site. And then the last thing is converted. So I convert it. Once I knew I saw the template, I knew I could work and show it and I convert it. And then there's a modernization retention I love. And that's when the bottom of the funnel where that is easier to create clients that already are clients to get repeat business than to get new business. We know the cost of getting new business and cold traffic. It's very expensive as you know that right?
00:10:57
Speaker
So we want warm leads on people that know, like, and trust us. So it's really awareness, consideration, conversion, and then the monetization, the retention, and then the love. And that's really, when I look at that funnel and how I position the ads, I always want to know where people are. And of course, we'll talk about just cold traffic and warm traffic and other stuff like that a little bit later, but I want to make sure that people know, you should know where people are in your, in your sales funnel.
Common Mistakes in Facebook Ads
00:11:25
Speaker
Yeah, so many good tips there, especially around acquiring new customers versus repeat customers generally costs less right to get a repeat customer than it does to acquire an old customer. Why things like if you're a photographer or something that I always tell people is, man, if I could go back in time, restart my photography business from the beginning, I would offer more things like prints
00:11:46
Speaker
and albums and stuff like that, that just, you know, it continues to optimize like that customer's value, right? But we have so much to dive into as far as Facebook ads go. So real quick, what are some of the biggest mistakes that you see people make when it comes to Facebook advertising? Wow, a few of them. One is that everybody I talk to, I consult with, Davey, is always targeting.
00:12:12
Speaker
they do not know what to target. They put so many things in the detail interests. So there's a box that when you target, you'll put, you know, you'll put like 15 things and then you don't really know what works and what doesn't work. So when you're targeting, I am of the opinion that you need to be more specific. And sometimes having a big target is not
00:12:35
Speaker
as good as having a more specific niche type target. So I think that's one of the things that a lot of people do. A second thing they do is they don't clearly communicate really the who, what, when, where, and why. You know, you are an English teacher, so you know, and the how. So what you're doing, who you are, what you do, we know you're a photographer, but is there a special, what are you doing, and then why?
00:12:57
Speaker
We just really need to communicate that because we take pretty pictures, we take great videos, but then we just expect those to sell. Sometimes you have to have some text and some call to actions that really get people to buy. And I think that's what it is. And sometimes it's not really about buying, it's about more of awareness. As you know, it takes a lot of touch points for a customer to become a customer. Just like I told you with the funnel, some photographers just think they run one ad for $15 and they should get 10 sales. That just doesn't work.
00:13:26
Speaker
Yeah, right, right. It doesn't work. So I think we have to manage expectations and think, like I said, like a marketer, write clearly, target strategically. And when I say target, I'm talking about, well, I'm a high, I'm looking for high school. So I was talking to a young lady photographer the other day and she's in the Atlanta area and she wanted to do more senior sessions. So we're targeting specific high schools in that area.
00:13:52
Speaker
parents of people in that area were interested in not photography, but just in family stuff. So we're just targeting those. And she actually put a list of the top high schools in the area and started getting some leads. So it's up to us to convert the leads.
00:14:07
Speaker
Sure. I really believe those few things. And there's a lot more, but I think the targeting and then the clarity on the message are one of the big things. Yeah. And I would love to impact some of the targeting stuff with you real quick because I like what you said about that photographer. She's down in Atlanta. She's trying to do more senior sessions, right? And so you specifically didn't target people who are interested in photography, right?
00:14:32
Speaker
you know, because people they're they're interested in having in like cherishing those memories that doesn't necessarily make them interested in, you know, photography as a skill or a craft, right? So I thought that was interesting nuance for people. But then you also talked about how it was up to them.
00:14:48
Speaker
to convert that lead. So through that, I'm assuming that you collected their email through those Facebook ads and then it was really up to that photographer to nurture them. Because like you said, it's not like you see one ad and then drop hundreds of dollars right away on an expensive photography package.
00:15:07
Speaker
No, you don't. And I think that's so important that I think that we're in a society, unfortunately, right now where we're in a microwave society. So I get we want everything quickly. But this is this is a marathon, not a sprint. I think we have to learn that this is an oven. We have to bake it.
00:15:23
Speaker
And we have to make sure that we nurture these people because, you know, unless you're offering like an unbelievable deal with Black Friday or something like everybody else was offering during Black Friday, you can get those quick sales, you know, and those no brainer. And especially if it's under a certain price point, people will just, you know, go by. But when we're talking about thousands of dollars, we're talking about a senior session or it could cost whatever, six hundred, eight hundred dollars or whatever. And then we're talking about prints and upsells. So we're.
00:15:52
Speaker
We're talking about, you know, wedding packages and a thousand four, five, six, $7,000.
00:15:58
Speaker
People are not going to buy those off of one ad. They're just not. I mean, I don't know. Maybe they do for you, but not for me. Maybe that happens occasionally somewhere, but that would definitely be an outlier, I think. More than often, I think one of the most powerful things about Facebook ads is that if someone comes to your site, when they leave, if they haven't given you your email address at that point, you really don't have a great way to follow up.
00:16:24
Speaker
People get busy and they forget about you. But you know, I don't want to dive too much into this if you're you're probably planning on talking about this but the Facebook pixel, you know, just a simple line of code. It's a couple lines but some code that you can install on your site so that when people come to your website, you know, they're pixeled and then you can serve ads to those people so that you're getting in front of them again.
The Role of Facebook Pixel in Retargeting
00:16:46
Speaker
Yeah. And that's so important. And I know the Facebook pixel, a lot of photographers, and you can put it in your show at site. You can put it in your WordPress site, your Squarespace site, your Wix site, all these sites, right? I'm just going on and on and on. It's so easy to do. You can just Google the instructions pretty much and figure out how to do it. They show you. And I think that's important because we need to retarget. And when I teach this, I tell people, I say, Hey, you ever go
00:17:09
Speaker
on B and H. And then you see the same thing. You look on B and H in your newsfeed or you see it in somewhere else on another site. You know, they have this thing called the audience network where you'll be on a site, like a news station. You'll see an ad. He said, wait a sec. I just searched for that on Amazon. That's what the Facebook pixel.
00:17:25
Speaker
is what he's talking about doing. And I think that's a powerful thing. And I think that that's called retargeting. So people don't know what that is, Davey. And you know, it's retargeting. So when we're, when we're searching for something, and then when we're looking for something, but we don't make a decision, I can always see your ads and come back and I say, man, I always see Davey and Christelle, always see them. So therefore, if I, that's another impression, therefore I may make that, that sale.
00:17:50
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, good stuff. So for people who are willing to be patient, all right, like you said, we live in a microwave culture, right? Where people kind of want, they want to spend $15 and make a thousand, right? But that's not necessarily how things are going to go down. So people who are willing to take the time to dig into Facebook ads a little bit,
00:18:11
Speaker
have some patience, be willing to see big picture. Because like you said, if you're selling a product or a service that's thousands of dollars, like a wedding collection on Facebook, would you be willing to spend $100, $200, $500 on a $3,500 service? Probably, right? But people start seeing that number climb
00:18:31
Speaker
and they think, oh no, I haven't converted somebody yet and then they shut it down. So for people who are willing to have some patience there, what tips do you see or what tips do you have for people to get the most out of Facebook ads? I guess where should they even start?
00:18:45
Speaker
Yeah. I really am looking at now. I love what Facebook doing is with slideshows. I think that we have, if you're doing those, first of all, targeting first, of course, we looking at target, what's your market. And then I'm looking at your creative copy and I'm looking at your creativeness because we need to do stuff that stops people from scrolling. So what Facebook advertising really is and Instagram as well.
00:19:09
Speaker
is I'd say one and the same, is that it's really, you're not looking for wedding collections a lot of times, but they know that you are engaged, right? So because we can target people who are newly engaged. So it needs to be something that stops the scroll. I call it a scroll stopper. If you're on your phone, a swipe, swipe stopper.
00:19:26
Speaker
So it needs to be an engaging image. Slide shows work real well because it may get your attention or video even works better too. And you also, I always look at what other people are running. I see what people like CreativeLive are running. I see what other brand photographers run from time to time. I save those to my collections and I look at it and I see what's important to them. Let's see if I can target, not really target like them, but really craft my ads like that.
00:19:53
Speaker
When you're getting started with targeting, what are some of the exercises that you have people go through or that you go through yourself to make sure you have your targeting zeroed in? Yeah, so one of the things I tell everybody is to know where your market is. So you need to know your ideal pride. So we call it avatar. You've heard of this before in marketing, of course. So your customer avatar, where does she or he like to shop? Do they go to Saxon Avenue? Do they go to Nordstrom? Do they go to Niebuhr markets? Or do they go to Target?
00:20:23
Speaker
Do they like Elton John? Do they like whoever? I don't know. Just whoever they like. So if I know that as a particular, a lot of my brides, like, um, a particular brand, I'm trying to think of one off the top of my head. So I know a lot of brides like these shoes called Bagley, Michigan. Okay. I just know those shoes cause I see a time, right? So then I may look at people who like that Bagley, Michigan page.
00:20:49
Speaker
and target people who like that and who are newly engaged. I see where my brides are or where your ideal client hangs out, your avatar. And then you have to build your advertising campaign targeting around that. Of course, your local area, you need to know if you're going to be in the Atlanta area or in the DC area or Detroit or wherever you are. You want to make sure that you look at that area. Because you can target a local area in Facebook. You can. You can.
00:21:18
Speaker
and zip codes and areas. I really like targeting local areas and cities way more than states and way more than, you know, I just really think that cities are where it's at. And especially
00:21:30
Speaker
outskirts of cities. So if you're in Atlanta, like there's a good, there's good influx of people that may have a need for your services in Alpharetta, Georgia, or if you're in Detroit, I'm talking to somebody in Detroit now, they are by Auburn Hills, you know, something of suburbs like Baltimore, Annapolis, you know what I mean? Or Columbia, where I, where I am. So it's not just really in the city, but you can move the radius out 25 miles, you know, the little slider on the ad, you can move that radius out to 25, 30 miles.
00:22:00
Speaker
And you never know, sometimes it may overlap. But, and then also you can, another pro tip, I also say, so let's say if you're in the area and you can target people who are traveling to that area. Let's say during the holidays and they check in somewhere in that area, you know, that's like they're checking into, you know, a Chicago area and they're in that area. And you can target people that don't live there, but just a traveling in the air. If you're doing like a pop-up,
00:22:27
Speaker
you know, there's a lot of photography, these pop up kind of photo sessions and stuff like that. And you can target people in that, in the area that they're traveling to. There's so many options. I'm scary how many options there are. And I think that's where we get with Facebook because it's like analysis by paralysis, right? It's paralysis by analysis. I'm sorry. So because it's so many options and when you have so many options, you put them all on the table and then you don't know what works. So my thing is to start small and don't be scared to micro target. I mean, I've had some of my best success
00:22:57
Speaker
with ads that reach under 1200 people. But they've been very targeted. And then I've had bad success where it has 400,000 people. I mean, I haven't had any success. So I think that when we see that little red thing go down or we go in the middle, we're like, oh, we got it. But it's really about being very strategic. And we didn't even talk about this because we go on and on about what type of ad you want. So do you want to do traffic, which I think that is really good.
00:23:25
Speaker
bringing people to your site do you want to lead generation and what one of my favorite ones to his video views sure i think that video views i said video is awesome something we could do slideshows we could do videos i even you can even retarget and repost your facebook live that you got and put make that an ad.
00:23:44
Speaker
You know, so we're not talking about professionally made videos. We're talking about with a cell phone. If you're giving some great tips, say if you're giving like five, 10 tips that you should do for your makeup for your wedding day. And you just make that as a Facebook ad, Facebook live. And you, you boost that or you make it as an ad. You just never know what can happen because you're seen as an expert. So I just want people to get a mindset that you can do a lot more than just, you know, a traditional ad where I have to have one photo. I want you, I want people to get out of the mindset, think,
00:24:14
Speaker
like carousel, think slideshow, think video. Like you said, I mean, they're not difficult to set up. As far as like a video sounds like it's difficult to set up, but some of the best performing video ads are just, it's a person with their cell phone. It's not like a person hiring a videography team. Ben, I want to talk about video views here, just a couple of takeaways from what you were saying with targeting, which I thought were interesting, where one,
00:24:35
Speaker
you had more success, the more targeted you got, especially when it came to local ads targeting cities instead of states. And for Maryland, maybe you have some success with a state like Maryland because it's not huge, right? We can get to the other end of it relatively quickly. But if you're in Texas, I think it's going to be
00:24:56
Speaker
even more important to target, you know, local markets and not just target the entire state. You can't, because you couldn't get in a driving, you can be in, you know, in Houston and then go to Dallas three, four hours, but then you can go all the way on a West Texas and, you know, just be a nightmare trying to get driving over there. But yeah, I think local, hyper local, super local is always the best
00:25:22
Speaker
I really really like neighborhood targeting and if you know the demographics of the neighborhood like there's a there's an area in Maryland that where I know a lot of my clients come from and I know that I can target that area you know I mean if you just know a suburb or subdivision or you know like when I said Atlanta there's Alpharetta there's
00:25:42
Speaker
There's Mabelton there. There's different pieces that you can super target and put things right in that area. And people in that area will get it and really respond to your ad. Yeah. So, you know, and you were right. You brought me back to really the very beginning. So targeting is really, really step two. Step one would be choosing what kind of ad that you want to
Importance of Visuals and Brand Voice in Ads
00:26:01
Speaker
run. And I want to talk a little bit about video views and what you do with video views, because I do think that people are finding success running video ads to cold traffic.
00:26:11
Speaker
than retargeting people who have viewed those videos for a specific amount of time. So all that means is I'm running a video ad to people who are unaware of me, who maybe have not heard of me, but anybody who interacts or views that video, I can then run another ad too that maybe is more specific to the type of service or to my business and maybe asking them for an email or something like that. So what kind of success have you had with video view ads?
00:26:39
Speaker
So what I really liked about video view ads is what I, when I said prior, I think that if you want to be an expert in your field, I think that that selling is kind of people don't want to be sold these days, especially to be given a huge thousands of dollar product. They want to, they want to know, like, and trust you. They want just information. So for instance,
00:26:57
Speaker
I would tell you, I had a PDF a couple of years ago, and then I made it into a video, a live video, where I said 10 questions. I'm big on numbers, if you know me. Big on numbers, this is a teacher in me, but 10 questions you should ask every wedding vendor, including me. And then I went through those 10 questions on a video, and then I said, hey, you want more information about what I do? You know, hey, view my site.
00:27:19
Speaker
chipped is art weddings.com slash whatever my URL that I have there, that landing page. So I think you can use that. And it was not a professionally made video, even though I could do it. It was just like me on my cell phone, having it there and then just repurposing it. Because if I have that as a title, people may be interested, especially if you're in the market to hire a bride and groom, you want to know what questions to ask because I know most people want their first marriage.
00:27:44
Speaker
And they say they don't know what to ask. So I'm just, you need to come across as an expert. A lot of times we want to come across as, well, I got to sell, sell, sell. So it's the whole kind of thing that we do that internet marketers do all the time. They call these things lead magnets. David, you know about this all the time. Lead magnets. So I'm thinking that if you can give something away for free, high quality, high touch, it doesn't cost you a lot. Okay. It doesn't cost you a lot to do a video. It doesn't cost you a lot to do a PDF.
00:28:09
Speaker
a guide. Then when you put them in your funnel like we talked about before with a video you can send them another video maybe and then send them one more. I have a series of emails that go through that once people come in my my funnel that by the time that they finish it they like wild chip over two and a half week period they're like they're ready to sign up. Now all of them of course they're not but I get them from the video first then they get in my funnel get the email address and then I put them in my mail chip and it sends them a sequence of emails.
00:28:38
Speaker
Yeah, and that's great. And again, I think it goes back to that whole point where once you get that lead from Facebook, it's your job to then nurture that lead and convert them. There was another great podcast episode with Nate from Sticky Email. So if you go back to that episode, he talks all about email marketing. We dive into sequences and just different ways to nurture prospective clients.
00:28:59
Speaker
So with these video views, so the video that you set up, for instance, that you had a lot of success with just recorded on your cell phone. What I love about what you did was that you repurposed old content. So I'm sure it didn't, you didn't have to create something from scratch, new, anything like that. You just went and it's evergreen. It's evergreen, too.
00:29:16
Speaker
Yeah, and those are questions that are going to be just as relevant today as they were back when you recorded that video. But you know, you talked about carousels and slideshows and things like that. One of the ways that Facebook makes it easy, right, is that
00:29:30
Speaker
you can create a video out of a series of images just by uploading those images to Facebook and then it plays it as a video, even though they're static images, which is nice and just makes this a little bit easier to do. So what else have you been seeing on the Facebook front? So I guess we've talked about choosing a type of ad. We talked a little bit about targeting.
00:29:51
Speaker
Maybe we should talk about creative and copy. So what are some tips that you have for people in creating, as you called them earlier, those swipe stoppers in terms of creating images or video and copy that gets people to stop? I really want people to think about combining your copy with complementary visuals. So I'm working with a florist and she's at the mercy of the photographer that gives her visuals.
00:30:17
Speaker
So she gave me like 10 photos. I said, okay, these are photos that work well because I think if I just show pictures of bouquets, that's not going to stop anyone. I need to see a human being with a bouquet and a smiling face, something that is very swipe stopping. So we're combining, combining our complimentary copy with the video. So instead of, Hey, I want you to book, like you said, just a floral, just find more information about it. I think those headlines are really important and
00:30:47
Speaker
The description, the headline, the URL work, work together to deliver the story. You know what I mean? And they just don't want, we don't want users just like the ad. We want them to take an action because it's easy for people to just hit the like button. We want them to hit learn more. And then another thing I want people to learn is that I want them to know where they are. We talked about funnels before, but where they are in the top of the funnel, middle of the funnel, bottom of the funnel, and the different ads for different types of
00:31:16
Speaker
of placements in the sales funnel. A warm audience would need to get to know you as well as a cold audience. And of course, cold traffic is gonna cost a little bit more. When I talk about cold traffic, just for people who don't know, it's people who do not know you at all. It's people that have not been exposed to your brand at all. They just know they're looking for a wedding photographer, they may have heard of you, they may have done some stuff, done their research, okay? And then the last thing I want to talk about is people need to extend their brand voice
00:31:44
Speaker
To their copy and to their ads, and I think that you have to be authentically you and I think that that's where I've had success with ads.
00:31:53
Speaker
What I am on live, what I am on stage is how I am in person. So when you meet me, it's no different differentiation. And I think that you need to be uniquely you, whatever that is. I was talking to somebody at show at United conference in Arizona, talked to a photographer and she has a thing where she does the wobble dance with everybody. She films it.
00:32:14
Speaker
And I said, hey, why don't you just make that into an ad, like a little ad, like every, you know, hire me and I'll be, she's a photographer and just for like 15 seconds, not even a professional video day, just a cell phone. And she has like four videos with her doing a wobble, with wobble dance with like four different products and groups. And she said, you know what, Chip, I never thought about doing something like that.
00:32:35
Speaker
It's like, oh, my God, that's that's authentically you. That's your voice. Own that. And people will hire you because she's not only a good photographer, but she likes to party and have fun with us. So you understand what I'm saying? They want people to own their voice and own their brand.
00:32:52
Speaker
Yeah, I really like that. I also really like how you've come back to understanding where people are in the funnel. For somebody who's never heard of you, if you just try to sell them right off the bat, they're likely not going to convert. People don't like being sold to. But if you give them something free, this lead magnet you were talking about, give them high quality content for free,
00:33:12
Speaker
and lead them down the funnel and then when they know you, putting a sale in front of them. So I like how you keep coming back to that as well. So one of the other, kind of the last piece of the puzzle that I want to talk about a little bit is some of the other things that need to be set up in order for your ad to be successful.
Why Direct Ads to Specific Landing Pages?
00:33:31
Speaker
because it really is just one piece of the puzzle. We talked, you had mentioned a couple of these things such as an email sequence, but I'm even talking about things like a landing page. What are some of the other things that we need to make sure are put together well in order for an ad to be successful?
00:33:46
Speaker
Yeah, I really think not only that, the landing page, we talked about the copy, we talked about the targeting, but where do people go? Like I said, where are you sending your people? And one of the mistakes a lot of photographers make, we send them to our homepage. That is a terrible mistake. I said, never send people to your homepage because it's like
00:34:05
Speaker
I'm walking into your house and I have dinner, but you don't tell me where to go. I know I need to go to the dining room, but where's Thanksgiving dinner? It could be in the, in the formal dining room, have a formal dining room. It could be in the kitchen where the table is, but you have to tell people, you know, when you invite them to your house and your house is our website.
00:34:21
Speaker
where exactly to go and what exactly to do so i think that we have like that's a teaching background we call rubrics right and we know the steps so we have to say ok step one i need you to fill out the form step two i need you to like me on instagram or whatever step three i need you to download the PDF.
00:34:42
Speaker
You know, we see that all the time, but I think sometimes as photographers, we think that we don't need to give people step by step instructions. But there's one funny thing I've learned about advertising. It seems like as soon as people open Facebook or any social media, the IQ goes down immensely.
00:34:58
Speaker
As soon as they click on something, we have to say the number that people get. So we have to make sure that we tell them what to do. If it's a contest, if it's whatever, but we need to make sure that we tell people what to do and explicitly in our advertising. I talked about this in my five minute fuel, is that with my thank you pages, that I tell people what to do. When they get a thank you page, when they get an email from us, make sure we lead them down the path and we just don't leave them.
00:35:26
Speaker
can you give us an example of what you do in that video because I got to see it why I guess I didn't see the entire video but I got to see kind of an example of it as you spoke on stage so when people land on the thank you page you know so they land on the landing page with what we're talking about and one of the big mistakes I see with landing pages is that it doesn't look
00:35:44
Speaker
it doesn't look or sound or feel like what the ad was, right? So there should be some cohesiveness between going from ad and then landing on a page that looks, sounds, feels similar. But then beyond that, if somebody actually puts in their email address because they want to hear more from you, you deliver them with a thank you page that has a video on it. So why do you do that? Well, I just want it to be different. And I just wanted to separate myself because I think that
00:36:13
Speaker
whenever you submit something, you know, it's like you don't know if people get it. It's a weird thing. It's like going to the abyss. You get the thank you page, but it's like, okay, I'm going to hit this. Thank you page and hit the submit button. What's going to happen? And of course you always used to get in that confirmation email or something like that, but we want to surprise and delight people. So whatever it can be, we want to surprise. So it just, I'm telling people, thank you for setting the form. I did get the form and I can send you the link to the video and the thank you page with no problem.
00:36:43
Speaker
And for your show notes, but it's just thanking them saying that I received the form and I'll be back to you at 24 to 48 hours, unless it's a weekend. And, you know, and that's all people just want to be assured that you, that you're listening to them, that you, you know, we know you're busy, but you're important to us, even though it's just a generic one. And I think that's what we need to do just surprise and delight. And I think the more that we surprise and delight our clients, the happier clients that we'll get.
00:37:08
Speaker
Yeah. And then hopefully more referrals out of that for sure. And I bet as well that just by you showing up on video and people actually be able to see your face and hear your voice, that that takes trust up a level as well. It does.
00:37:23
Speaker
It doesn't. People, planners are saying, wow, I would just submit all my stuff if I just see this and da, da, da, da. You know, I haven't taken it to a new level where if you do an inquiry, a video for this, a video for that, I haven't done all that stuff yet. But it's just, you can, you can have just very basic, a short, just doing things. It can even be a picture to say thank you.
00:37:41
Speaker
Yeah, or it could be a automated email or whatever it is. There's so many technology, so many technology out here available to us. I just think that we have to separate ourselves to make sure that we stand out. It's a competitive field. The new photographers come in here every day, every year. Someone's picking up a camera. What are you going to do to stand out?
00:38:00
Speaker
And I think it's not gonna be always just that you take better pictures. It's gonna be people who trust you. Like I said, we always know that no like and trust. They trust Chip, they trust Davey, they trust Krista to do a good job. Not only because we know they do a good job, I trust you with the biggest day of my life.
00:38:16
Speaker
Or with my kids or my family or whatever because you're preserving those memories I think that if we go from that I think those and this is I know we're talking about advertising but I'm really passionate about moving people and Trust and letting them know that we are experts in our field instead of just service providers that can just do a one-off service and that's how you have customers for life and
00:38:40
Speaker
Yeah, and I think if you do a good job of that, then you move people out of this mindset for shopping for things like price. Once people realize that you're about those things that you just mentioned, then all of a sudden price isn't a thing anymore. They're not thinking like, oh, they're not trying to compare photographers based on price because they know that you deliver this experience that's so much larger than just pictures being taken.
00:39:06
Speaker
One other thing that I want to just ask you about before you get off here is that you said you used MailChimp or you used MailChimp for nurturing people. What do you like about MailChimp? I think it's a great thing for people to use, especially when they're getting started because it's free right up to a certain amount of subscribers. I was using MailChimp. Right now, I'm using a service called... Well, MailChimp is the free service I use. I used another service called Active Campaign, your Active Campaign before.
00:39:33
Speaker
It's more, a little bit more advanced. It's like a, I call it a baby infusion soft kind of situation. If people may not know what the fusion soft is, but it's a more of a CRM customer relationship management tool. So, but Mailchimp is just a good starter because it's free and it's a low barrier to entry and it's easy and you can make a follow-up emails. So you can do sequences in Mailchimp.
00:39:57
Speaker
And that's why I like using it. And instead of, especially if you don't want to pay for another pay services, it's good to start. I just think that a lot of people just have a Mailchimp account. They've been good. And that's their barrier to entry. When they advertise, it's free. People get on there and then you can do what you do. And then if you like it more, you can upgrade. If not, you go to another service. So I think that that's why I like it because it's a low barrier entry and it's easy, very user friendly to use.
00:40:22
Speaker
When you scale, I'm not too sure about it. I haven't used it to scale with thousands and thousands of emails. I use it just for introductory stuff I'm testing.
00:40:32
Speaker
then I move them to my paid service. Once I do that, I don't know about how you use Mailchimp as well? No, so we use ConvertKit, which similar to active campaign, it's just a more robust service than something like you would find with Mailchimp and it's also paid. So I think to get started with ConvertKit, you're probably looking at like $29, $30 a month if you're just getting started with ConvertKit, but there's no free option there.
00:40:55
Speaker
Another good one though, and I actually, I haven't used this before, but for somebody looking to make easy email sequences, and if you're a photographer, especially, this was made for photographers, so if you're not a photographer, this probably isn't the best fit. But again, we had Nate from Sticky Email on a couple episodes ago, and they basically built this MailChimp for photographers, right? Really easy to create follow-up sequences, and I just think that's so important.
00:41:22
Speaker
how you follow up with people after you get their information is just so important.
Power of Video Content in Advertising
00:41:26
Speaker
I think some of the tips that Chip gave you from starting with video, I really like because it's so easy to connect with people over video. And sometimes, you know, people just don't read text on a screen. You know, like if I see a thank you page, I read thank you and then I click off, you know, so if there's oftentimes if there's other important information there, you know, people just never see it.
00:41:46
Speaker
They never see. And I think that, like I said, we love advertising, but we know that it's up to us to convert. So another thing that I also tell people to do, especially that have newer products, I was talking to someone who's doing like some type of
00:42:01
Speaker
new wedding kind of elopement service. She's a wedding planner and I told her, I said, you know what, instead of trying to get the couples to buy the elopement service that they don't really understand, what about doing an advertisement and then leading them to a webinar? What happened? I mean, people I know are tired of webinars, going on webinar, on demand webinar. I think that's another thing that
00:42:21
Speaker
or some type of webinar or some type of thing. Because I think if you don't know what the product is a lot or the service, if you're curious about it, you need to hear about it live and then make a decision. I think webinars still work. Free webinars get people on and they still convert. I don't know about you, but I know that people are still doing them. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I think webinars are still converting. I think, too, as the market gets a little bit more sophisticated,
00:42:46
Speaker
people understand that when you get on a webinar, generally, you're going to be sold to afterwards. But having, I mean, I think video, video trainings, whether you call them webinars, you call them video trainings or video explanations of these new services are still really effective, like you said, for educating people around your services, what makes you different, the experience that you offer, and so on.
00:43:09
Speaker
So, Chip, I'm so glad that I got an opportunity to sit down and chat with you today about this. We didn't get a ton of opportunity at United, in part because we were both teaching while we were there, but it is fun to interview a fellow Marylander.
00:43:24
Speaker
and catch up a little bit on Facebook ads. And I hope that for those listening that you realize, I think maybe the most important thing or one of the most important things that Chip said was because there's so many options, we tend to get ourselves stuck, right? But you can make things simple. And I think taking Chip's advice of starting
00:43:42
Speaker
I think there's a reason just for the ads. You want to know what in your targeting, for instance, is working, right? So take it simple. Just get up something up and running. That's better than nothing. And then test, test, test from there and be patient with it. So where can people find out more about you, Chip? Where can people follow along?
00:44:01
Speaker
So you can find out more about me and what I'm doing and what I'm offering, especially for the listeners of this podcast is chippedisourweddings.com slash BTB show. So again, chippedisourweddings.com slash BTB show.
00:44:17
Speaker
Yeah, and that's awesome. So if you're interested in following Chip along, head on over to his website, check out that URL in particular, because as he, you know, as you mentioned, and you got to hear a little bit about during the show, he helps people with Facebook ads, specifically wedding pro service based businesses. So if you have a question,
00:44:35
Speaker
If you're at the point where, you know what, I can't do this alone, make sure that you reach out to Chip because he can help you get started and dial in those ads. Thanks again, Chip, for joining me on the show. Hey, thanks for having me and I love talking about getting more business and using paid advertising and traffic to get more leads. Awesome. Thanks, man.
00:45:00
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 davianchrista.com.
00:45:21
Speaker
you