Lessons

Lesson Info

Steps For Releasing a Guide

a release outlined I talked about creating a launch here just some four tips for how to have an effective launch aziz you get to know your target market better you're going to know like what they respond best to you need to know where they embrace it the most you're going to know the actual best ways to interact with your target market but here are some things I would start with I would start with an email to that target audience so if you're releasing ah guide to the engaged section of your engaged phase I would start with an email to everybody who's in your you know who's a client of yours it's engaged right now email all of them announcing the guide facebook I would get it out there on facebook and I would target it and I boosted and I make sure that I was sharing this guide on facebook and some other social media twitter instagram is another place as well if you can use your instagram for that or your pinterest for that what I really want to get as your social media platforms that ...

are used to share your brand message this is part of your brand message this is a problem you're solving and its supporting your brand message you know boosted targeted we know how to do that now front thanks to the earlier segment we just went through and then also make sure that you send e mails to the contributors again I would very politely ask them to share it I would ask for that share um again if you've been very transparent and authentic with with these contributors with these other vendors of these past customers then you'll have told them hey this is great because I'm solving problems and has also allowed me to speak more to my my target market and buy including you be really great if you want to share it on dso that's something that again you know I just want to surprise them with a surprising surprising with it or spring it on them you want make sure that this transparency there there's a lot of value in making sure that they know about it I ever releasing a guide one time and I guess somehow we've forgot email somebody or their email had fallen off the list evil be like humans they're like oh my gosh I remember contributors I didn't know you actually released it yet it was great it turned out wonderful I've forgotten all the things I said and it looks great I'll go share it now and I thought oh man we missed a great op opportunity that person is very excited about sharing it we never even told him it was outhouse would they have known it was out let's say you know followed every single block post we ever do or something like that so make sure you tell the people that that contributed okay that's a lot of information right there that's a lot of information about guides especially for the most part from what I see photography making guys so you know it's kind of a newer concept for a lot of photographers let's go around I want to hear from you guys what are based on some of the things we talked about yesterday with understanding are authentic brand message in our target audience what is this problems you can solve in your business through guides so trina I started with us today so we'll start down here at the other end if that's all right completely different um so the ones I have written before and that I'm going to go home and modify out is like howto hang the pictures because a portrait not wedding but you know and breaking the what toe wears into different pieces because that's one thing I haven't done in a more general break it down I need something more on the chain of events like how we go through the portrait timeline and what happens when justus faras an informational pieces were on the list of things I've been going to do and haven't done um and then um some more stuff about prom and just um and when you start talking about what to buy how to choose what size is need to go on your walls and what colors is from tying that back into what to wear what to wear yeah yeah that's great because you can make the clothes have a full loop what you wear contributes to how you put on your wall what you put in your wall contributes the cars come your house which all loops right back to what you wear and you're also create a pattern that you set up with people that you're educating them too on how hey the evolution of this is to buy a print for your wall that's what my target audience typically does and you're telling them about that in advance I think it's great it's great part of doctors have I mean I know we talked about wedding photography porter for doctors have equal his big if not bigger than opportunity to utilize this content but specifically guides because because of the fact that there's so many different facets of going to create a portrait session yeah so the other thing I'm trying to figure out is how you would differentiate a white page from a guide are you thinking that the white pages air you know two and three pages of less like how do you are you are you do we use the term you know it is is it a simultaneous term like how do you guys think about that the way I think about white papers is there more of a snapshot in time versus a guide is more of a flush of flushed out on uh expert opinion piece there's opinion in guides white papers or more are supposed to be more factual we've never done white papers at shoot dot at it because I'd rather make sure that I can bring in outside sources to provide opinions and typically in white papers you don't want to have too many opinions and there it's one of what we don't want more factual yes so that would be where you maybe include a lot numbers are a lot of stats for things like that like eighty five prestige in eighty five percent of people who buy important sessions put images on the wall or something that you know that more of a white paper type of thing um well one of the things that you talked about yesterday was uh being timeliness timely with what you're given your client's right and only that but not overwhelming them those two things combined you know it doesn't do you any good or your client any good when you uh show them something that has a great information but it's you know it's not getting through them right and we've created a magazine I'm assuming a magazine is similar to what you're talking about with the guy yeah yeah but we've included a lot of information and I'm seeing that from what you're saying that uh we want to be able teo maybe chunk it down more so I'm thinking okay uh for our sales process after the wedding we uh send them something that discusses albums you know what what what er would have clients hunted clients in the past choose of album you know how many pages uh there there covers in terms of their color schemes of their house right right make it easy make it uh uh if it's easier for them the chances of them uh spending money with you go up they do you know so you bring up a great point which is you guys really want to make sure you you know barnes at a point where he's kind of already got a little bit of this process going but you have an opportunity now to really test how your audience responds you have a big magazine maybe they respond better to a big magazine maybe they respond better to you pulling out the topics that are in that and breaking it down into smaller bite sized chunks you won't know until you try but the benefit is that you get to try and you get to see what your specific audience actually responds best to maybe your audience responds best to three to five page many guides maybe they actually like the fifteen or twenty page guys maybe you like it all in a big kind of magazine style where they get to consume all the content at once at their own pace there's no rule of thumb there really isn't but you're look you're asking the right questions are they getting to read all of it are they reading through all the things are they getting value out of orbit or by the time they get to the last kind of topic in the magazine are they kind of overwhelmed you know these are the questions you want to ask so you can learn what's the best method delivery for your specific target audience but really quick eliminating the chat room and then a few other people ask questions how do you actually track the downloads of your guides and figure out which ones are the most popular in the most useful well that bentley service I talked about is probably thie easiest way to track a download and the way that you would be able to do that is that you know your guide I'm getting very specific here but your guide if you upload it toe wordpress it's going to have an actual link what access that downloadable file typically the pdf inward press when you click on that link it automatically starts to download you would want to take that link and turned into a bit lee and then you contract every single time that link it's access and downloaded it would count is a click so that billy is probably easiest there's far more robust software that's available through plug ins and the plug ins I would really I don't have a specific and recommend because you know we use kind of marketing software that helps us out with that but I know a lot of photographers who are doing who are doing this through some plug in software so I'd recommend looking around us from the world press plug ins it'll be a little bit more elegant of a solution probably for free or for a very low price that has a little more elegance to that model I just I just unveiled what I was thinking about it I know our clients really loved their creative portrait of themselves and with their wedding party but maybe slightly more but pain point or what they're not as excited about is their family formal photos eso I was thinking about maybe doing a guide on all about family photos whether or not to do them pre or post ceremony like do you know that your mom is gonna cry through the ceremonies may we do them ahead of time so she's not tear stained are there certain like cultural shifts or timing issues that you need to take into account that maybe go through the pros and cons on that make sure we get the most connected at least distracted family photos possible I mean come on family formals this thing we're all kind of about the fun part like when can I do when I came over with high balance on my family's you know what they want is what I want I think that's a huge problem that you know you're going to help and solve for them by giving them a lot of advice barbara well I actually was thinking about we had actually I had just seen a big old harry catalog on put out by a photographer on what to do with you I mean to portrait's to take with your prom dress trying to get people to be more use their dresses as opposed to just pictures and jeans and promoting it and trying to change the mind of our customers however there was no guide to it it was just really these were great pictures you know you wanted you oughta consider it so I was thinking well wouldn't it be great to take that idea and go out and photographs of people in prom dresses in more of a northwest form and say okay your mom wants problem dresses you don't you know because you're imagining something differently what if we spend it on its head and you know put in a barrel hiking boots us and throw in that dress and go out and do something wonderful with it that you will find more contemporary and give them options for doing it yeah really what a lot of times when it comes options options overwhelming for people and so when we talk about the choice the more choice people have the harder it is for them because they're worried about making the wrong choice or not an expert and if you given three choices like I don't know what to do and so unveiling what's behind each one and kind of recommending a different choice and so that when people run into that problem you can say you know I have a solution to help you out with that right that's great good I really do ah guy dot guideline on a timeline for wedding the photographer portion of of their wedding um I find that for me people I don't really understand how long it does take to do the photograph so if you can kind of break it down into different portions kind of gives them more realistic before they book have you picked for your book off yeah which would help me yes yeah it would solve that problem always getting a timeline scrunch down you haven't come alone yeah perfect trina so we shoot a lot of engagement clients a lot of them come in saying I just need one photo for the save the day and that's all they care about is getting that one photo so I'm thinking of is like how and why the engagement session so like how to personalize your session how to choose the location ways you can use your photos and then also discuss the importance of getting to know your photographer working with them and learning the poses so you're not doing that all on the wedding day learn from it you guys all have some great ideas I love it this is fantastic I'm glad that you guys are thinking in terms of solving the problems and you guys are even taking it a step further in solving their problem will also solving a problem you have in your butt that's the kind of second level that's that kind of more advanced take on guys guys already started going into it's exactly perfect because you're helping your helping usher in a better klein and by better I mean a more educated client that's ready to use your services more so but one that you've loved on and solve the problem for perfect great