Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 45: 5 Tips for Finding Inquiries Today
159 Plays5 years ago
One of the most common reasons people reach out to me for coaching is that their bookings aren’t where they want them to be.
I often hear from people who are coming off a great year that they feel the current year is slower or that inquiries have dropped off, and they’re not sure whether or not potential clients can even find them.
There’s a sense of panic that things are falling apart, and then overwhelm because it can be hard to know where to start correcting course.
And that can be scary.
Fortunately, there are a number of practical strategies people can employ to get things back on track.
Much of this post assumes you’ve had work in the past. If you haven’t, and you’re just starting out, these tried-and-true strategies can still work, but they’ll likely take a little more time.
UNDERSTANDING WHETHER THERE’S ACTUALLY A PROBLEM
When I chat with people who are panicking over the number of bookings they have, I first ask them how this current quarter has stacked up against the same quarter last year.
Often times people don’t know because they don’t keep track of their inquiries or bookings. If you follow us, you know that I’m a big believer in keeping track of this information because it can reveal whether there’s actually a problem or not.
We highly recommend keeping at least a simple spreadsheet of the inquiries you receive that tracks where that inquiry came from and whether or not it turns into a booking. You can access a free inquiry tracker at the end of this blog post.
Keeping track of inquiries will help you better understand the seasonality and patterns in your business.
5 TIPS FOR QUICKLY FINDING INQUIRIES
Below are a few things that I would do today to find inquiries quickly.
To listen or read more, go to https://daveyandkrista.com/quick-inquiry-referral-tips/.
Recommended
Transcript
Ecosystem of Collaborators
00:00:05
Speaker
And I think everybody has an ecosystem, right? Like you have an ecosystem of people that you work with. I own a Facebook ads agency with a couple friends that you just refer clients to because your clients are saying, hey, I've got this Pinterest, I've got Pinterest down now because Vanessa's handling it. Do you know anybody who can take care of Facebook ads for us? For designers, that's copywriters. You know, we work with a ton of copywriters.
00:00:26
Speaker
We'll get inquiries occasionally from people who are taking care of their brand messaging with a certain copywriter, and we're referred to us. So everybody has an ecosystem of vendors or other businesses that they can reach out to.
Show Introduction
00:00:41
Speaker
Welcome to the Brands at Book Show, where we help creative service-based businesses build their brands and find more clients. I'm your host, David Jones.
00:00:54
Speaker
I frequently have discussions with or receive emails from people who are looking for more inquiries. Maybe they feel like things aren't where they were last year, bookings have slowed down for one reason or another, or they've recently moved markets.
Client Inquiry Strategies
00:01:07
Speaker
Whatever the reason, this episode pretty much outlines the strategies that I suggest people try in order to get inquiries relatively quickly.
00:01:16
Speaker
I should say at the outset that I don't consider these strategies hacks. What I mean is that they involve effort and a lot of it comes back to relationship building. And in relationship building, there's not really all that many shortcuts, nor should you build a relationship just to get something out of it. But if you do the work of building relationships, these strategies are effective and one of these strategies might help you start building a few of those relationships that
Guest Introduction: Vanessa Kynes
00:01:40
Speaker
I'm talking about.
00:01:40
Speaker
I welcome back Pinterest marketing wizard, Vanessa Kynes, to help me dig into this topic. Be sure to check out the show notes at daveyandchrista.com for the resources we mentioned during the episode, and I'd like to hear from you about what kinds of content you'd like to see on the Brands That Book podcast as we move forward. I'd also like to know what episodes have you enjoyed most so far and why. To leave your feedback, head on over to the Davey and Christa Facebook page and send us a message.
Personal Stories and Podcast Beginnings
00:02:05
Speaker
Now, on to the episode.
00:02:11
Speaker
Hi, Vanessa Kynes with me today and she's going to help me talk about five ways that you can get inquiries today. Vanessa, welcome back and thank you for fitting us in within your crazy move schedule this week.
00:02:24
Speaker
I love it. I have to be honest, I'm procrastinating a lot about this move. So it's nice to have some things that don't involve boxes or cleaning. I totally get it. We're kind of in the midst of our own move right now. So I understand how stressful that can be. But you have a number of moves in your future right here. You're moving to DC for a little bit and then eventually going to make a home in Birmingham, Alabama, right? Yes. So my husband is a professor and we've been on sabbatical this year.
00:02:50
Speaker
And one of our greatest surprises is that during his sabbatical, he actually got a job offer at a dream institution in the South. So we are moving from Washington state.
00:02:59
Speaker
via Virginia down to Birmingham, and we're super excited, but it's just been crazy to think about how we're going to plan all these details. Yeah, and I don't want to jump into the content here today, but I also have to make note that this is about a year ago. We met for the first time, and it was during – it was recording your very first podcast episode for a Branchette book talking about Pinterest. Krista was going into labor at the time.
00:03:23
Speaker
She told me that that morning, you know, of the recording, she's like, Hey, I think I think we should go to the hospital. I was like, No, I think this is a false alarm. And so we actually recorded our episode. And then of course, she ended up having Jack hours later.
Podcasting and Professional Relationships
00:03:37
Speaker
Yay, so happy birthday, Jack. That's amazing. Yeah, so it is about one year to the day. I kind of joke around with Krista that everybody that I interview on the podcast, I end up working with them or becoming friends, right? There's just so many people from, so many guests from the podcast that we ended up hiring to do stuff for us. So you for Pinterest, Paige has done some legal work for us and so on.
00:04:02
Speaker
The podcast has really been awesome in that way. But anyways, let's dive into the content.
Overcoming Inquiry Fears
00:04:08
Speaker
So what are we talking about today? We are talking about, first of all, the fear that people have about seeing crickets in their inbox and not getting enough inquiries and what you can do to quickly increase those inquiries via your network marketing and your website.
00:04:25
Speaker
Yeah, I'm excited to dive into this. This is a question that I often get, especially from coaching clients, which makes sense, right? People who are seeking out coaching because their inquiries aren't exactly where they want them to be.
Seasonality in Inquiries
00:04:37
Speaker
Or even in the context of talking to SEO with people, people saying things like, you know, I just feel like my inquiries have slowed down this month, or I feel like I'm not quite where I am this year that I was last year.
00:04:50
Speaker
So one of the things though I wanted to bring up is seasonality because I know that wedding photographers and photographers are really busy in the summer and things really slow down.
00:05:00
Speaker
So can you talk a little bit about when people actually have a problem?
Tracking Inquiries
00:05:04
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So one of the big things that I've said this over and over again on the podcast and a number of different episodes, I don't even know which ones, but it's important to be tracking your inquiries to understand actually whether you have a problem or not. And that's the first problem with, you know, in talking to people is they're saying things like, I feel or I think, you know, well, can you go back and look at how many inquiries you got this time last year?
00:05:27
Speaker
and then of those inquiries, how many you've booked. A lot of people don't. They don't keep track of that kind of stuff. They might have some sort of record of it in their inbox, but certainly not organized enough where they can go back to a spreadsheet and say, this is how many inquiries I got last year. The value of being able to do that is that inquiries, as with so many different things in business, are often seasonal. This is especially true, I think, in the wedding industry. Of course, that season is going to vary. I know in
00:05:54
Speaker
in our friends in Phoenix, for instance, in the middle of the summer, they're not shooting weddings. Whereas in the middle of the summer here in the Mid-Atlantic, we're shooting tons of weddings because it's not as hot as it is in Phoenix. But by tracking your inquiries, understanding how many people you're booking and at what price point, you can say to yourself, okay, I feel like I'm not getting a ton of inquiries, but as I go back to my spreadsheet here, I see that I only got 10 inquiries in May last year. I've got about that
00:06:21
Speaker
many this year and only one of them turned into a booking. And so if you hit your goal last year and you're getting about the same amount of inquiries this year, then you don't have to worry about it. You can confidently say, okay, I think this is due to seasonality. Or you might notice some sort of discrepancy, in which case you'll want to take some action. But without tracking that stuff, then you're really just trying to find your way around in the dark.
00:06:47
Speaker
Speaking of chocolate, you guys have a free download, right where people can grab that. Yeah, we do. And it's not it's not anything crazy.
The Pricing Dead Zone
00:06:54
Speaker
So I'll post a link to this in the show notes. But it's just our inquiry tracker. I mean, this is it's as simple as like name, email, collecting some information, all of this, we have it set up, we use a tool called Zapier also.
00:07:07
Speaker
include that in the show notes, just going to make myself a note about that so that when somebody fills out our contact form, it automatically gets shot into the spreadsheet. Even if it didn't, it's one of those three-minute things. You look at the inquiry, you jot that stuff in the spreadsheet, and then we can go back and we can say, okay, we booked this client or I can make a note.
00:07:27
Speaker
out of price range for this client. And it just gives me a lot of good data that I can go back to and kind of understand, okay, we're not booking a lot of clients because I can say things like we're not booking a lot of clients because we're out of a lot of people's price range.
Vendor Relationships
00:07:38
Speaker
So how can I target a people who people who have, you know, a higher price range, but there's all sorts of information I get, and then I can make educated decisions in my business.
00:07:47
Speaker
Okay, really interesting. One thing that you brought up was, can you talk a little bit about the pricing dead zone? Because a lot of people may not know what that is, but I hear that a lot when people are choosing to price their services.
00:07:59
Speaker
Yeah. I have mixed feelings about the pricing dead zone. I do think it exists, but it's one of those things where it's hard to say exactly what it is and whether somebody is truly suffering from the pricing dead zone. I think it's definitely something that's going to be market to market in certain rural areas. The prices that you might be able to charge for service are going to look a lot different than
00:08:22
Speaker
you know, somewhere, inner city, New York, or Baltimore, DC, or even Annapolis, something like that, right? So I think the dead zones are going to vary. But the concept is, is there's a certain zone of pricing where you're at, and you're a little more expensive than the tier below you, but a little less expensive than the tier above you. And as a result, people either go with the person who's cheaper or go with the person that's more expensive.
00:08:49
Speaker
It's all perceived like it's really a lot of like psychology and perceived marketing. So that's really interesting. So well, let's talk about the first tip because I think it kind of applies to the way that you present your services and the way that you present yourself to your future clients. So the number one reach out to vendors you work with in the past that you have a good relationship. So talk a little bit about how you and Krista did this in your experience as wedding photographers.
00:09:12
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, during any situation where we felt like, oh, wow, we need inquiries and bookings in the immediate future. And a lot of people that I talk to that are concerned about that. I mean, they're concerned about it. They want results a little bit more quickly because things they've perceived at least have died down a bit.
00:09:31
Speaker
The first thing that I tell people to do, and we've done this in our own business, is reaching out to vendors that we've worked with in the past that we have a good relationship with.
Networking and Guest Appearances
00:09:40
Speaker
It's as simple as, you can do this on a couple different levels. The fancy level would be taking the time to write a handwritten note, maybe get some sort of personalized gift. It doesn't have to be big. I'm talking less than $10, simply something that's thoughtful.
00:09:56
Speaker
and sending them a note and saying, Hey, listen, we have a bunch of dates open this year. And we'd like to fill those dates. So it's just really making them aware we'd love to work with you in the future. And I think the value of doing that is that you're staying top of mind with people. I know for us when we were when we are shooting weddings, we would have a list of people that we refer if we were booked. But that list had like, you know, probably five to seven names on it.
00:10:22
Speaker
So if somebody, you know, we got similar letters, you know, to people from people saying, Hey, I've got these five dates, I really need to fill or whatever. And so what we do is if we got a letter from somebody like that, or a note or an email or whatever, we would only send that person's name out for the next couple weeks. And that way we know, okay, we're, you know, people don't have a list to choose from, they're definitely going to inquire with this person. And then it's kind of on them to actually book the client. But I think it just helps staying top of mind. Now, I want to ask about when you say vendors,
00:10:51
Speaker
From my perspective, not a wedding photographer, it seems like the planners. Do you feel like the planners hold a lot of the power with the brides when they're making their decisions? Yeah. I mean, I think if you're in the wedding industry, you're reaching out to the photographers. You're reaching out to other photographers, planners, venues, and then maybe florists. Florists, I think, are the dark core, so to speak. I think some people end up booking their florists really early in the process. So we, I know, have gotten a number of good referrals from floral designers.
00:11:21
Speaker
But I would say those people because those are or those vendors because those are the vendors that people typically book earlier in the process So they're going to result in more inquiries if you have a good relationship with them But I think this extends beyond the wedding industry
Targeting Upscale Markets
00:11:36
Speaker
as well. Yeah, and that's really interesting. That's really interesting One of the ways that I feel like for myself that can really increase inquiries is and you mentioned this is actually being a podcast guest
00:11:46
Speaker
You get introduced to someone else's audience and you get the trust. So people who trust Davey will trust me. And it's an amazing way to kind of network yourself and reach new audiences and potentially get booked. So it's worked for me. I love doing podcasts for people.
00:12:00
Speaker
Yeah, and I think everybody has an ecosystem, right? Like you have an ecosystem of people that you work with. I own a Facebook ads agency with a couple of friends that you just refer clients to because your clients are saying, hey, I've got this Pinterest, I've got Pinterest down now because Vanessa's handling it. Do you know anybody who can take care of Facebook ads for us? For designers, that's copywriters, you know, we work with a ton of copywriters. And so
00:12:22
Speaker
We'll get inquiries occasionally from people who are taking care of their brand messaging with a certain copywriter and we're referred to us. So everybody has an ecosystem of vendors or other businesses that they can reach out to.
00:12:33
Speaker
Okay, so let's talk a little bit about, you mentioned dead zone and people, I know a lot of people are who've been either in the service industry or wedding industry and they wanna up level, they wanna move to a luxury market. So the second tip that you talked about is start building relationships with people you'd like to work with in the future. So these might be vendor relationships of people who are working with a more upscale client. So can you talk about what you would do with those relationships to start getting clients and inquiries from them?
Client Referrals and Reviews
00:13:01
Speaker
Yeah. I guess some people get frustrated with the first piece of advice because if they're just getting started, they may not have these relationships to reach out to. There's really no shortcut, I think, in building relationships. It's like building backlinks in SEO or making friends. You can't force somebody to be your friend, but you can certainly do things that help the cause, so to speak. Same thing in reaching out to vendors can apply to starting to build relationships with people.
00:13:28
Speaker
I would say first go to where they are. So I know Charity has been a guest on the podcast and in her specific instance, it was a certain professional photography organization. So it was a certain industry organization that she joined to get access to some people who were at sort of a more luxury level than she was at at the time. So go to where people are. I know in Annapolis here that we've had, there's been tons of meetups in the past and it's simply going to those things, putting yourself out there
00:13:56
Speaker
and getting to know people. But even that same tip that I talked about in or the same strategy that I talked about in tip one, writing handwritten notes, sending out a not tacky, you know, just thoughtful gift to some of these people and saying, hey, I love your work. You know, I admire what you've done in XYZ, maybe doing a little bit of research in their Instagram feed.
00:14:17
Speaker
and saying, I would love to work with you in the future. If there's anything that I can do, let me know. And going even the extra step of adding value. I mean, if you're a photographer, I always think photographers had it a lot easier because they can add value through things like headshots. Whoever you're reaching out to, you can provide, everybody needs images. So you can provide, hey, I'd love to come and shoot for you for 20 minutes or half hour. And yeah, sure, you're offering to do it for free. But
00:14:45
Speaker
20 minutes or an hour of your time could turn into thousands of dollars of revenue in the future. That's really interesting. One other thing I wanted to bring up is even in my own business, I have other Pinterest strategists who follow me and engage with me on Instagram. Even their engagement with me allows me to think about them if I'm ever referring out because I'm booked or maybe
00:15:05
Speaker
something isn't going to work out. So even, I think even like the whole Instagram messaging and being kind, engaging with their content is a really great way to be top of mind when you're looking to refer out. So that's my little tip for you guys in the service industry is to be genuine. Don't be crazy stalker, but to be genuine with people and build those relationships. Okay. So we've talked a lot about the vendors, which I think are super important, but what about those former clients that you enjoyed working with?
00:15:29
Speaker
What are some natural ways that you can nurture those relationships that will lead to word of mouth referrals among your other services?
00:15:37
Speaker
Yeah, so former clients are one of the best sources of referrals. I did include this as strategy three because especially if you're trying to jump a market, then sometimes former clients can be a letdown in terms of referrals. And what I mean there is if you're shooting, again, just going back to the photography industry as an example, but this applies to anyone, if you're doing work for $1,500 but you want to start charging
00:16:02
Speaker
$3,000 plus. Going back to the clients that booked you for $1,500, well, their friends are probably going to expect to also pay $1,500. This can be tougher, especially if you're making really big price increases. I think anything less than 3%, though, like if you're going up incrementally by like 3% in pricing, then you can kind of grow with your – or your client base can kind of grow with you.
00:16:28
Speaker
But just simply reaching out to clients, telling them how much you've enjoyed working with them. Again, I think sending them some sort of small gift. Anytime you can add some sort of personal note or thoughtful gift, photographers, again, just have so easy in terms of being able to send a couple prints from their session and saying, hey, we rely largely on word of mouth to operate as a business. We loved working with you and we'd love working with your friends in the future.
00:16:54
Speaker
And it depends on the season of life. I think for a certain season, while we were photographers, this worked out really well, because it was that season where our friends and their friends were all getting we're all getting married. As we got older, we found that this this strategy didn't work as well. And again, during serious price increases as well.
00:17:15
Speaker
that strategy wasn't as effective. But reaching out to former clients, getting reviews and referrals from them and encouraging them to leave reviews and referrals, sometimes people who love to work with you, it doesn't mean that they're going to go out and talk about you. I just think encouraging people and saying, hey, I'd love for you to leave a review in this place really does help people to actually take action and actually say, oh, I know somebody that you should work with.
00:17:41
Speaker
Okay, so many great points in there. One of the things that you brought up was reviews. So I would love to know how you get your Google, like on Google when someone searches Davy and Krista, even in your web design business now, how you get those reviews. Because I want people to write on my Google page, but it's difficult. You want to be like, if you had a great experience, will you go write a review? It can be kind of awkward. So how do you get those reviews on like Google or even other review websites?
00:18:09
Speaker
Yeah, I think exactly what you said. I know it feels awkward. We all have trouble talking about ourselves or asking somebody to write or say nice things about us. But I think it's as simple as working it into your workflow in a place that makes sense. So after you've completed work or proven something, so you always want to do it when customer satisfaction is really high. Not right after they pay their invoice necessarily, but after you've gotten results from them in some way.
00:18:38
Speaker
So, had you, for instance, after you increased our Pinterest traffic by a million percent, okay, so it wasn't a million, but it was like a thousand percent and said, hey, Davey, I would love for you to write a quick review for me because, again, I rely largely on word of mouth, yada, yada, yada.
00:18:54
Speaker
I would have happily gone and done that. And you know what? After this episode, I will go and do that. I'll go and do that today. Make a note of that right now. You just earned yourself another review.
Thoughtful Client Gifts
00:19:06
Speaker
But I think it's as simple as that. If in your process, I know that at the end of the experience, we generally send a client gift.
00:19:14
Speaker
including that, you know, with the client gift, I think that that makes sense. Occasionally, clients will kind of just give you an opportunity to do it in conversation. So they'll say something like, you know, I loved working with you, you know, words cannot express how grateful I am right now. You know, thank you. And just writing back and say, Hey, I'm so glad that you had a great experience. Here's where you could leave a review. And that would be helpful for other people considering my service.
00:19:39
Speaker
Yeah, so actually today someone messaged me because someone else I introduced a course on Pinterest and someone said they heard someone talking about my course in a podcast. And so I made a note today to go contact that person to be like, Hey, can you like package that up in text form so that I can use it on sales pages?
00:19:56
Speaker
or somewhere even get them to do a Google review. So if they've already said something nice about you, I'm sure they're very happy to put it in a form where you can share it with other people. Another thing I wanted to bring up is if you finally start working, let's say you finally land that luxury, that luxury upscale market. One thing that I love that you mentioned, you've mentioned the past is sending anniversary cards or even holiday cards. Because again, if you finally have broken into a market that you really love, being top of mind for those people so that they can recommend you.
00:20:26
Speaker
Another thing that I love that you guys do is you send Jenny's ice cream to all of your web clients after you finish their branding. And without a doubt, I bet you most of them Instagram story about it. So it's such a great way to be able to share about your client experience, make someone feel really loved and special, but they're also doing the marketing for you because they're so excited. Who wouldn't be excited to receive Jenny's? So I love that you guys do that in such an easy, really inexpensive way to make people feel loved, but then also increase marketing for your business.
00:20:56
Speaker
Absolutely. And I think gifts needs to be a whole episode on its own. But one thing that we don't do is send like branded gifts. We don't send things with our logo slapped all over it. Certainly, when we were shooting weddings, we didn't do that.
Content and Blogging for Visibility
00:21:09
Speaker
Choosing gifts that people will actually use, however, even if something like Jenny's Ice Cream, well, they'll eat. But oftentimes, people do Instagram about Jenny's Ice Cream. When we were shooting, we would send these artifact uprising calendars that could be stuck somewhere in the house. But they were
00:21:22
Speaker
They're really nice looking calendars with images from their engagement session. So we often had people reach out and say, hey, my mom really wants one of these. Can we get her one as well? So it's definitely something that people see and value. And, you know, in that case, it was something that stayed up all year. And so it was great marketing that we knew would stay up in that person's house all year long. That's so awesome. Yeah, just little simple things like that to make people feel really special. Okay.
00:21:47
Speaker
So we're getting to tip four, and there's going to be a lot. I think you have to say me as well. The next tip is blog, share, share, and share, then repeat. So talk to me a little bit about blogging because I know people are really afraid. They feel like they don't have time. They feel like it's not valuable. No one's reading anymore. You and I would totally disagree with that. But talk about content marketing in terms of increasing your inquiries.
00:22:10
Speaker
We think that if we just create the content that people are going to see it. And that's just not the case because blogs are so ubiquitous now. I think gone are the days, for the most part, with some exception, of where somebody's going to log on to the internet, log on to the internet. I'm talking like it's a diet now. But people are going to get online and then search for a specific blog just to read what that blog post is of the day.
00:22:35
Speaker
I think Gone are those days. There's some exceptions there. For instance, I read Seth Godin's blog every single day, but in my defense, it's a newsletter. His blogs are pushed out via email, so I get them to my email every day. Again, for the most part, I think Gone are those days.
00:22:52
Speaker
That doesn't mean people are not interested in your blog. It's something that people won't share enough. They share to their Facebook page once and then think that their entire audience has seen it and anybody who is interested in it has seen it. And we know just based on the algorithm how that works, that that's simply not the case. So under 10% probably are seeing that for people who like your page.
00:23:12
Speaker
One thing that we say is to share your content repeatedly at least twice in the 24 hour period, you know, a couple more times within a seven day period, and then every month after that, and make sure you're talking about it across all your different platforms, because somebody who sees it on Facebook might not see it on Instagram.
00:23:31
Speaker
So we can't assume that everybody who follows us in one place is following us in another place. So talk about it in all of those different places for as long as it's relevant. We spend a lot of time, for instance, this content. A lot of this content is based on a blog post. This content I still think is valuable and good, and it's helpful for people. And so I will continue to share this content until it is no longer valuable.
00:23:53
Speaker
So a couple things that I know that Dave and Krista have a great resources. They have a really awesome blogging workflow video that Krista did on showing how she blog stomps or images together. Make sure the Pinterest strategist tip that you have some vertical images that you can share to Pinterest. But one of the things that I like to do is just like you recommended, people are really afraid of blogging. They think it's going to take a lot of time, but a blog is a really great starting place for your, all of your marketing. Like you mentioned, you can do an Instagram story about it. You can,
00:24:21
Speaker
where you use the content in an Instagram post, you can share it on Facebook. Obviously, you want to share it on Pinterest. And if you're optimizing the blog post for SEO, then you're also getting the SEO value, which I think Davey and I would argue is super important. So don't see a blog, one blog post as wasted hour of your time. Really, you can take that content and share it across all the different platforms. It becomes basically just that landing page. Another thing that I want to bring up is
00:24:47
Speaker
When you have a website and you haven't blogged in over a year, that can be really dangerous. That can look like your business isn't, the lights aren't on anymore. So make sure that you do, even if it's just once a month, that you can get one blog post out a month to make sure that you're communicating to your clients that, hey, I'm still in business, things are really going and we're thriving over here. Just having that visibility on the internet is really important. What I like to do with blogs is I want to know what blogs are converting.
00:25:15
Speaker
One of the things that I recommend for service-based owners is to set up in Google Analytics a goal on their contact page so that you can see which blog posts led to people clicking over to their contact page and potentially taking action. Because for me, I can see which of my blog posts are leading to email signups.
00:25:32
Speaker
And that's super valuable for me to know what type of content I need to continue to write more of so that I can increase my email list. Do you have any thoughts about that? I think that is just genius advice. Because otherwise, you're guessing as to what content is converting based on maybe engagement or hoping that somebody leaves comments and things like that. And just because somebody engages with the content doesn't mean that it's high converting content. And I think that's a great opportunity to talk about personal posts, for instance.
00:25:59
Speaker
If you weigh a personal brand or building a personal brand, then of course you want to blog personal stuff. But to me, you're blogging the personal stuff so that the next blog post gets more engagement. Because personal blog posts don't always, I think for some people they do, but don't necessarily lead to signups on for email or people clicking over to the contact page to inquire. You're going to get plenty of engagement just from people who enjoy following along.
00:26:26
Speaker
I think it's so helpful to, again, going back to the very beginning of this episode, being able to track and understand what's actually getting your results and when it's getting your results, for sure.
00:26:38
Speaker
Yeah, I had something else about blogging. And you want to bring up SEO, of course. Yeah, you know, well, you had mentioned SEO. And of course, that's, that's so valuable. Oh, okay. So just creating content in general, I think is the best way to show that you're, you're, you're
Paid Advertising Strategies
00:26:53
Speaker
competent. So we're talking about in terms of blogging. I think a blog is sort of a, you know, even if you're blogging, it's going to go up on your blog, right? This podcast, for instance, of course, it goes up on iTunes and overcast and wherever, but it also goes up
00:27:05
Speaker
on my blog and I think that just creating content, blogging in particular, is one of the best ways to show that you're good at what you do and then the so important point that you brought up which is showing that the lights are on as well. Yeah, that no trust. Blogging is just so valuable that you can share that you know what you're talking about. That's so true. My whole business has really been built on my blog so I love blogging big time.
00:27:30
Speaker
Okay, so now we're going to talk about this fifth tip. And I know you have a lot of experience in this because you do have an ads agency. But let's talk about advertising. When do you know that it's the right time to advertise to increase inquiries? And how do you help someone think through that when they're at that point? Yeah, so as far as paid advertising goes, I will say that
00:27:50
Speaker
There are certain places that I like to advertise and there are certain places that I would never advertise. I'll focus first on the places that I enjoy advertising. One, Facebook. Like you said, I'm a Facebook ads agency with a couple of friends. Of course, that is one of the places that we like advertising. We like advertising there because it's one of the best places to get results.
00:28:11
Speaker
I will say that Facebook advertising works best for people who have a product that is already been proven out. It's going to be hit or miss if you have a brand new product and you're trying to advertise on Facebook as to whether Facebook is going to, quote, work for you or not. Just because something's not converting from Facebook on a new product doesn't mean it's the advertising aspect's fault. It might just be that the product itself needs some tweaking.
00:28:39
Speaker
So I will say people who have proven their product, maybe they've been in business for a year or so, those are the people that are really going to get a lot out of Facebook advertising. The kind of targeting you can do is just crazy granular. It's awesome. So being able to target local markets and people who fit certain descriptions or who like certain things or have certain interests and so on and so forth. So I think it's very effective from the standpoint of being able to connect with the kinds of people that you want to
00:29:07
Speaker
connect with and Facebook in particular, you don't need a budget of thousands of dollars a month. You could get started with something like $5 a day or a certain budget. Maybe you want to devote $100 a month to something just to kind of amplify who's seen things. So if you have a new blog post that you love and you want to make sure more eyes are on that blog post, you could
00:29:32
Speaker
run an ad toward to that session, or you could boost it and just again getting getting some more eyes on that session. I would say advertising is the fifth strategy we're talking about for a reason. So tread tread carefully don't go below a budget of $1,000 thinking that it's just some sort of magical unicorn that's going to result in you know, million millions of inquiries. Yeah, totally. I myself I run a couple ad campaigns on Pinterest.
00:29:58
Speaker
But I myself am starting to look into this as well. And I think that one of the things that I've taken away from what you said is that I had a proven organic strategy. So selling my digital product through my email list, it did really well. So I'm hoping by putting some advertising dollars behind it, I'm basically just increasing the audience that I can reach. So I'm super excited about trying that out, but I'm certainly not going to be putting thousands and thousands of dollars into it. I'll start slow.
00:30:24
Speaker
Sure. And, and that's, I think, again, for somebody like you, that's that I think you will, I will expect that you will get results from that. Because like you said, you have proven organic traffic. And I think it's, you know, a way a friend put it was it's a great way to pour gasoline on things, you know, yeah, and just and just amplify or scale or scale your efforts. But you have to make sure that your product is proven first. I mean, you don't have to you can always test it. You can also you can you can try to prove out your product through testing it through Facebook ads. That's fine. It's just a little riskier that way for sure.
00:30:54
Speaker
Tell us how you feel about paid preferred networks. What are they and are they good, bad? Do they work? I think in general, dad. I wouldn't spend a dime on wedding wire or the not. I just don't really like them as businesses. I think that most people that I've talked to that have experience advertising on those networks generally feel let down by the end of it. They get inquiries,
00:31:20
Speaker
those inquiries aren't very, you know, they're not qualified inquiries, and so they don't actually end up getting a ton of bookings from those listings. I know that there's probably people out there who have done it. You know, I'd love to hear from you. If you've had a great experience, I know that WeddingWire and The Knot are now one company. So if you had a great experience with whatever they now call themselves, that's fine. Reach out. We'd love to hear about that. But in general, I would stay away from those listings. They're going to cost way more than what's worth it in terms of return.
00:31:49
Speaker
I think that we advertised once with StyleMePretty. StyleMePretty had a curated network called Little Black Book. I don't know how it works at the time or even if it still exists, but you basically had to apply for it. Other people who were members had to write recommendations for you. We didn't find that we booked a ton from that, and so on that level, it wasn't worth it because I'm sure it would cost us over $1,000 to do.
00:32:17
Speaker
they were more likely to publish us. So we found that the amount of stuff we submitted to them for publication, we had a higher rate of being published by them while we were little black book members than when we were not. I think they would say, oh yeah, no, there's no correlation. But at least at the time, there totally was. So that might be an exception if you feel like maybe one of these publications or one of these networks can offer some side value like that.
00:32:46
Speaker
but really if you're looking for networks i would say again going to vendors like planners if you're in the wedding industry this is the easiest example we had a couple of luxury level high-end planners that had preferred networks that you could pay to be a part of and they would guarantee you certain days guarantee you certain inquiries or inquiries just in general
00:33:05
Speaker
And the value there was one, they weren't – that wasn't open to everybody. You were asked and so you know there was a limited quality amount in your area. Two, it was a specific person in your area so you're more likely to actually get inquiries from them and then also inquiries from people who are highly qualified because they trust this
Conferences and Networking
00:33:24
Speaker
planner. So if this planner is telling them to go work with you as a photographer or you as a floral designer or whatever, you could be pretty sure that they were going to book.
00:33:33
Speaker
So that would be the exception there. I would say in general, some of these big companies just stay away from. One other thing that I want to throw in there is this isn't specific to wedding industry, but as a service provider is going to conferences. But really all of this revolves around trust and people because we're reaching out to people. I mean, people don't change when they look at how they spend their money for their business or for their wedding. They're looking for people they trust who will show up on their wedding.
00:34:02
Speaker
who will give them a great experience, who make them feel and treat it like a special day. Nobody wants to have a wonderful photographer who's an awful, awful people person. So for me, going to conferences has been super valuable at building relationships. A lot of things have just kind of like catapulted from there. So if you're looking at making an investment for conferences and it seems like a big ticket item,
00:34:23
Speaker
really think about the ways and the types of people going and the ways that that could really build your relationships with other people. I 100% agree and I think that's really the value in conferences. Sure, hopefully you'll go and you'll pick up one or two things that are really helpful strategies or tips for growing your business. But I think that really the value in conferences and going to events like that are building relationships.
Importance of Relationship Building
00:34:45
Speaker
Yeah, and don't be self-promotional. Just be genuine and get to know people on a really relational level, and they will think of you when it comes time to refer you. A hundred percent. Thank you so much for joining me today for this conversation on how to get inquiries, hopefully quickly. I think, again, if you've been in business for a little bit and you have some of these relationships already built, these are all strategies that will help you get inquiries fairly quickly.
00:35:08
Speaker
or relatively quickly. If you're new, I think one of the big takeaways in almost every one of these points is how important relationships are. Be relational with your clients, be relational with the people that you're working with because that can come back around to you in very positive ways.
Closing Remarks
00:35:26
Speaker
Definitely. Thanks so much. This was a great, helpful conversation.
00:35:33
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to 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.