Lessons

Lesson Info

Building Your Marketing Plan

this signal we're going to talk about building your marketing plan um marketing is probably one of the toughest things we need to do as photographers because it's basically putting ourselves out there and why so scared of being judged but if we put ourselves out there we don't want to be too much in people's faces we don't want to be yeah we just people don't like to draw attention to themselves and most women photographers I've met field same way like that's something that they really struggle with so we're going to talk about some marketing that tips and coming up with a plan that's actually gonna help you reach your target market which is really important when you identify who they are so we're gonna have two students come up enjoy may which is awesome and rawls again talk to a few more of our members in the audience about their marketing and where they're at and we're gonna work through that together so you can see obviously I'm still identifying and branding myself with with my we...

bsite but yeah it's got so much to do with how I market my business so we'll walk through this and I'm gonna ask you some questions about you know that irrelevant to identifying who your target market is so you know where that advertise we're too much where to put yourself out there too so who your potential clients and you know like whereabouts are they who are they like if we don't know who that is then then we don't know who to push ourselves towards if we don't know what our clients want we don't know what to to provide them with so we have to be able to identify all of these things within our business so what do your clients want where are your clients located you know what areas do you need to advertise in where do you need to push your products and your promotional material and when do they require service yes you know what old determines on at what point and where are we marketing so if you want to advertise in hospitals your potential clients are only seeing your marketing material after they've given birth for someone like myself who you know books clients in months and months in advance I want to really be marketing myself in an area where people are going during their pregnancy or early in the pregnancy and things like that so that's all going to help determine you know how to create this marketing plan and why should they hire you we just talked about you know your branding and on all of that so sharing with them communicating with him how how you know and why they should hae you and how will they acquire your service how do they get in touch with you how did they contact you and you just have to continually question yourself and your business asking yourself questions and put yourself in the shoes of a potential client and how and where and when and why all of those questions and that's going to help you really identify who they are how you going to do it and when and all of those other other tools that we're going to help provide you with as well so we've talked about what makes you unique and why they should hire you all of those things it's so incredibly important to identify them with inside yourself and share that with the world even though it's really scary because some yeah but you have to think from that place of what have you got to lose you know what if you had to lose and I am I was once told by somebody count to three if you're really really freaking out about something or doing something called walking into it and you building or going for a job interview close your eyes count to three and take three deep breaths then walk up to somebody give him your business card what have you got to lose um you know also thinking about your you know the demographic as well you know there's so much comes into this you know what your products and services are you a high end photographer are you a competitive photographer in the midfield or your budget photographer you know we all start somewhere I've been a budget I've been competitive and now I like to think that I'm more of a high end photographer so it's an evolution which has happened over time and I had to start somewhere so that I could continue to grow and move through that as well every year I reevaluate my pricing and in doing that I reevaluate my products and then in doing that I re evaluate hung in a market to those people so we've got to be consistently working at it and it goes back to we spend twenty five to thirty percent of our time running photography business taking photos the rest of our time is spent on all of this stuff and if we're not working on it we're not going to succeed five percent of businesses survive past first five years that's it so what you put in is what you get out it's actually really frustrating for me sometimes when I get on facebook and I hear people complaining about not being able to find clients if they spent more time focusing on finding clients then communicating with other photographers they would be busy so stop pitching yourself to other photographers start pitching yourself to your target market and identify who they are and frick and find them I didn't sway then I'm sorry but it's really frustrating because I hear can't constantly from people I can't find clients I can't get them in the door they're out there there's millions of them all around the world and I'm gonna create an exercise soon and I want people to share with me and google how many babies are born in this city and that's going to be interesting because there's enough clients there's enough babies out there for all of us new born photographers to photograph we just have to be able to communicate it to them why they should and how they get in touch with you and what are they likely to purchase it will all depend on whether you are you know hi made all low range you have to be able to offer products that people want so when I first started offering packages I had to identify what my clients were purchasing what they were currently purchasing what they weren't purchasing because I had an ala carte menu in my price list and it offered that many products it was so confusing it was terrible but then I started to see a pattern with what they're purchasing so I could and identify that you know what were they likely to buy and how did they want you know to present work on their images in their home and it all comes down to communicating with them and listening to them but being able to ask the right questions you know and do you offer a value you do with valuable show them how valuable you are through your service through your photography and through your products all of those things have tio communicate value to them and that's what I was saying before my favorite clients of the ones that can't afford me because they see how valuable what I do is which is pretty awesome and customer service it actually astounds me how some photographers treat their clients it really does so I come from a hospitality and a retail background where customer customer services k I would have been fired if I've been rude to a client the best advice or if it was ever given by one of my retail managers was leave your attitude at the door nobody wants to hear about your bad day we're paid to provide a service to these people you provide somebody with bad service they'll tell people about it I do all the time don't go there they're rude I went for dinner last night and you know out our waiter was very serious he was really serious and who wasn't very happy and didn't make us feel great you know I sort of hesitated in saying goodbye to him because it was like wow like he really made me feel that way so when you provide a good service for somebody they're going to tell everybody about you they're gonna market you but they're also going to do the same thing when you provide bad services well and guess what so many photographers in my city have provided bad service I now have the clients it's really cool from my business it's not very great for my industry and that's one thing that I think we all forget is that we're not alone fish in the sea we have to work together and improve the standards of the industry as a whole because if our industry continues to get a bad reputation then I'm out of a job and you know I love what I do and that's not fearful the other photographers that have to support families and pay for mortgages and all of those sort of things so you know what is your level of customer service how valuable are you to your clients yes we're providing them with value but how valuable are you to them and you have to earn that about you you've got to bend over backwards and even when you've got a client that's not particularly nice you still smile and wave you still have to be polite you still have to give them something that you've promised them you've set standards by providing them with pricing and information you need to follow through right till the very very end and there is no excuse because you will be one of those people that is out of business if it doesn't work customer service is key and it always is um say yeah like my boss said never attitude at the door like I remember you know early on when my twins wouldn't sleep through the night and I'd be so tired and I husband wouldn't wake up and I'd be cranky I would still get to the studio door or whatever it was and I would open the door and I would walk him to smile on my face and I would forget about that because I would lose myself in that session and I would I would communicate with them and it would make me feel better but if I continue to be negative and talk about our had such a bad day I didn't get any sleep last night how's that gonna make my clients feel not very good so following through from start to finish really really important I could go on about that all day determine your marketing budget what is it going to cost you how much do you have to spend based on your income at the moment and what do you goingto allocate yourself for the following year for marketing so we're gonna talk about in the pricing segment we're going to talk about you know how we come up with that that price how much do we charge but your marketing budget will come into that in innocence as well so we're going into that area a little bit deeper into the how much you should be putting in tow soon and then we've got to look at how will you mark it your business this so many different ways to do it and you know printing printing for our clients having artwork displayed in their home online if you're not online you're not seen because everybody has a mobile phone that's connected to the internet when they want something they google it you need to be visible online you can do mail out pamphlet drops it's actually really nice to get a postcard or a fly our that's got something nice on it than a bill in the mail so you could make somebody's day by putting something quirky in there or doing something fun and I will just add to that that minimal all about imagery minimal information when you're doing something like that make it short sharp to the point because when you send somebody a massive big pan flirt that's full of information really small riding they're not going to read it they want to look at the pretty pictures on doing giveaways um things like that events advertising at different events like fairs mark it's things like that I used to have market stalls all the time when I first started my very business and it was a great way to reach people your website on your website is one of the most important aspects ofthe your marketing material your website and your blawg so we'll go into that in a little bit of a little bit of depth soon social media if you're not on it and this over I don't know how many social media sites out there now cannot do you know how many there are I have no idea it's crazy but there are you know probably four five main ones that you should really beyond and probably three would be your minimum I'm on a few but I'm only really active on probably three of them because it is can be a full time job keeping up with them I am on instagram and I have a little basic little paces photography account on instagram and a personal one as well and I am on facebook and it's just little pieces photography by killing brown and then I am on twitter as well I am on pinterest panel on their very often and um there's a couple of new ones as well that I'm on and I'm even on one in china but I've travelled to china and done some workshops and I don't read their language so I don't actually know what they're riding on their but my husband manages that for me which is really great but they don't have facebook in china so you can access it you can access it from hong kong but you can't access facebook from china so social media over these very different so when you want communicate with people over there or share information you've got to be able to access them via their social media sites as well and it's such an incredible country to go and visit on dh public relations you know networking with businesses around you and creating contacts such a great way tio tio to meet new people and find out where pregnant women going if it's you know a local sort of maternity clothing store or in baby clothing store or you know even gymnasiums where they offer maternity exercise classes or aqua aerobics or something like that maternity yoga it there's so many places where pregnant women goes you confined them they're out there publications are advertising in different print publications like magazines and and newsletters and things like that they can get costly but I've done them in the past they weren't exactly successful for me which I thought they would be but I didn't I didn't research it enough at the time and I had advertised newborn photography in a publication that was more directed that older children so I was unless they were having on the second or third child I wasn't really reaching my target market and video theo now is like I don't know if you jump onto your facebook feed and you scroll down how many videos do you see now there's so many videos on there so if you are not using video to promote yourself um you know you're not spreading the word and I'm not great actually taking video footage of a bit shaky I know it's not something I've worked on a lot but I have a very good friend who comes and does it form a sow get him to come in and and video some segments and we put it out there and it's it's it's a lot of fun actually and I use an emoto to do that ideas and a motor to create slide shows and we create little videos to put without images and it's such a great way to show you his online so I have one had been wanting to create a show reel for my business said that I can share it on my website that people can come and watch and they can see how I work in my studio get a bird's eye view of what it's like to have a session with me and then that way they've already got an idea of what it's gonna be like when they come along they know what my studio is gonna look like they know what I look like I'm in the video they they know what to do so yeah it's I'm going to share one with you that I've been able to create with enomoto I was going to hire somebody to come in and do it and the wait list time for that was a really long time and we were looking at probably fifteen to twenty thousand dollars to do it with this specific person but I love her work she's an incredible artist so I was like all I really need something now you know I've got to get my business out there I want to be able to share it with you know share it with the world and share it with my clients so it's on uh youtube vimeo and it's also on my website as well and it's it's a little show real that I've been able to create with my friend garrett who did the videoing and we just used in a murder t create it and you'll be able to see that it goes for two minutes doesn't go for five to ten minutes two minutes because attention span is very short and it's just a quick into reduction to my session well frankly I just wanted to let everybody who's not watching no that inamoto is offering a special discount that is twenty percent off if you're not yet a member of an emoto pro you could get a code used the code kelly fifty keen and get twenty percent off that is good through the end of april two thousand fifteen so if you're watching it and it is still before the end of two that april two thousand fifteen go ahead and hand over head over to inamoto dot com kelly fifteen all right now let's watch okay let me press play and then we'll talk about a little bit more in a second ah wait ah ah wait so that was pretty cool hey like how easy was that you upload your photos and your videos I mean it doesn't take long to upload they grow up so quickly you add some tics slides with some information about you where you're located some incredible highlights that you've had in your career and and you pick a song you know triple scoop music that enomoto have music available from they've actually created a signature collection of music that I like because you know for me with my baby photography it was really hard in the beginning to find songs that had suitable words that really had that impact so I tend to use a lot of instrumental things because I find sometimes that the words take your way from what you're trying to share so I have I got these ten incredible songs in my collection a triple scoop music and I can choose any of those to go with any my slide shows and then you can create your own you know story and emotional emotional attachment to that but it was funny because sitting here when that baby smiled in its mother's arms everyone goes like what client is not gonna like that that is the best way for me to share what I do online creating a really simple video that didn't take long at all so yeah enomoto and trouble skip music two of my favorite companies for stuff like that because I mean they're just incredibly easy to use and they have such a great product as well that's available to us so when I think about all the other ways that I've spent all the all the other ways to mark my business that I've spent money on over the years that's the cheapest way and the easiest way that I have ever used it's so incredibly easy to do but yes we have we have timmy and patricia that are going to sit and talk to us about their marketing and and things that they sort of found hurdles with and areas like that do either of you want to start or doing me to ask you some questions e tried some marketing the mentioned before I did put image on barton center I put karzai went into james and I live in a very small city and on ly I can't see the infant is also everything for me is the city and it's only fifteen thousand there's no o b g y n there you need to go to the next city which is carpets christine taxes and can I ask how far like how far is the drive to the next major city mm probably twenty minutes half an hour drive okay it's actually not too bad no no everything's beers who need to go there to do anything but the a small amount of shops are even ice cream shop I thought you know pregnant ali the move craves on my scream I leave some card there and they were really nice but it's just there is no maternity shops there is only one shop they can buy clothes that's more of a boutique kind of style and there's there's not much I can advertise rough in the gym I even went to some restaurant you know fucking myself media people go to eat and eat and see my card that's exactly right so it's putting it's christina she's really putting herself out there and she's working hard at it which is incredible because a lot of people wouldn't do that a lot of people wouldn't walk into a ll those businesses and ask which I think is really wonderful that you don't have kids and I went with my kids I leave them with anyone else so I took them with me and I'll stop shot by shot yeah I just took one day and went to every single shop and I can leave my car there please what I would wreck and this is just in the town that you live in that you've left your cards or if you lift your cards in in some of the you've got one city that's thirty twenty two two thirty minute drive do you have any other terrors around you that close as well there are everything about between half an hour forty five minutes away sir is where I live my client reach is about an hour and a half's drive radius of where I live people travel if they can't find somebody else's offering a product in a service that's for them in their area they will travel I had a client travel seven hours for shut it butter shit with me because nobody in her area did it but she wanted me you've got to put yourself out there to be found if it's not working locally spread your wings and you know what online online marketing is probably something that would really work well for you in that because you know when someone is looking for something they tend to go to google advertising in places where people go is wonderful it is it is it's such a wonderful way to do that but your clients will be your number one way to market your business the next is online it's online because when a client going back to number one when a client advertises for you and promotes you it's coming from a place of trust and it's coming from a place of reassurance so those potential clients are feeling reassured because their friend went to you or somebody that they know I went to you they've already sort of got that right it's okay I'm going to go to this person because they did a really great job to such and such number two when they're when they're finding you online then they're going to be able to sort of look at your work they need to find that trust and all of those things but I think if it's not working locally if you start to spread your wings around in some of those other cities and visit them and if there is somebody that you could look after your kids get dressed like you're going for a job interview the day I walk into those obstetricians officers I was dressed immaculately I had makeup on I carried you know a small amount of things with may I didn't have my children with may and I know sometimes it can be hard but you know even if you've just got a friend even if you're just popping into a local business have a friend come with you so they can just sit around the corner on a bench or you know in a park or something like that well you will go and visit those stores there is always a way where there is a will there is a way always so I don't want to hear excuses from people saying but I don't have anyone to look after my kids we all have friends I've got friends I don't really have a lot of people to look after my kids and I've always found a way to do it so I think if if you start teo to spread your wings and look online that might open up some new avenues as well but how you going with how you advertising in the moment to me well I live in munich germany on dh first of all language is a barrier for me I feel confident enough to hang out with friends and go to shops and sell things for myself but not so much to go out there and promote myself I feel like I lack the words to actually be me um but I have I've designed these like accordion flyers that are really small and they only have photos and just my contact information um and I leave those everywhere I go and not just everywhere I go I specifically go to places to leave him there yeah gyms restaurants stores and I like walking I walk everywhere and I always have some with me and I put them in the windshields of every car I see parked eso like I really try but I do feel that the language is a barrier for me um I mean english is not my mother tongue either but I feel completely confident teo to talk about me and my business um and well I live in munich and munich it's really it's it's a big city it's one of the biggest cities in the countries is one of the cities with the highest income in the country about one point three million people live there and I did some research that three hundred thousand of those people are expats from an english speaking country excellent so that would be my first year market like my first target because it's something I feel comfortable with I also one of the things I've found that worked for me that started bringing clients in or at least getting more enquiries is that every single image I post anywhere I like the name of the image is I know how many words but it's like tammi nicole photography and all the the names of the cities and towns around it also what I specialize in in english and in german so whenever you you look for that and google like I don't know maybe my page is not the first one to come up but if you go to images there is just my images on ly I love that and also in spanish sorry yeah because my mother talking spanish so since I did that I started getting many enquiries from people from spain and latin america on dh the light I feel the language is a barrier many times but I started seeing that is actually good because I am one off the few that can provide a photoshoot to alan american person in spanish and when there will be a little baby and you're in such an emotional stage in your life it's nice to be able to use your mother tongue yes weldon struggling oh I can't really find the words in english or in german or whatever I'll just add to that like the communicating through language our body language is a way to communicate how we move how we open ourselves up to communication through body language is really really important so it comes back to that confidence within yourself from what you do and that fear of being judged being able to communicate openly without language is something that's hard to learn but it's universal I've recently traveled to countries I had no idea what they were saying absolutely none but I think it's incredible how you can still communicate with people in a way that is endearing through smile through touch through gesture and I've done for a shoot in both korea and china and none of them knew what I was saying but I still got hugged at the end of it because it's a way of opening yourself up and showing them and smiling and endearing yourself to them so I I understand how it can be a challenge but by putting your work out there for them to see and for them to be able to find you that's wonderful um but you don't need to be able to have an in depth conversation to show someone that you actually care you can do that through body language and the fact that you're putting all your images online and you're using your business name in certain key words and tag words it's wonderful because so many people are advertising now or so many people have websites photography is it's incredible how many you know photographers are out there I would actually hate to think how many there are around the world there would be so many but when you are searching for something thehe mt that comes up and you're in the thing it can get really tiring you know our attention span is so small there's a bounce right everybody has a bounce right on their website so there are certain things that you're going to do to be able to keep people on your website but problem is not everybody knows that so then when our clients have potentially looking for us they get so sick and tired of scrolling through people's websites and not being able to find what they're looking for navigate easily or it takes too long to load that they just go straight to images so that is probably you know one another you know incredible way to put your business out there I'm really terrible at it because I don't have time to do that in facebook's different when you upload a photo to facebook facebook actually designated number for it so it's pointless even trying to name a file to put on there but when you are putting images on your website you're blawg um that's when you need to give your images a name you know that's such a great way to do it because people do get sick of it it's um it's funny actually what does come up when you do search image is under your name or your business name and how many other photographers there tagging your business name in their photos it's really quite funding so don't do that that's not right but put your own business name where you you know like the city if you're in a major city so for me it would be a little pieces photography kelly brown brisbane newborn baby photos photography all those keywords when other photographers search for other photographers they will search newborn photographer brisbane when clients are looking for a new born photographer they search baby photos brisbane oh baby photos in brisbane or how do I find a baby photographer or something like that it's so simple they're not searching for all the keywords and tag words that were looking for were photographers so we're gonna think about you know the words that they're looking for make it simple it's so easy just to put yourself out there without actually having to put yourself in physically in front of somebody but you're going backto online you know for your website your your website as well you know we're gonna talk about in more detail should have up to date galleries it should have all the relevant information that your business needs and that your business your business provides in the form of services and products and contacted house and it should load quickly it doesn't have to have a million items on there it just needs basic information what is it that you do what do you provide how do they contact you and photos beautiful photos your best work on display and then you've got to be able to find you know out what your clients are looking for and sometimes you know I hear people say how or what do they search for talk to them you know what are you looking for in the searching when clients come into my studio and what and in the beginning iced always say oh how did you find me and it was either through a friend a referral or they googled and found me or something like that so being able to communicate them if they say google what did you search find it out write it down talk to them they're the best people to talk to because other photographers don't know unless they've talked to their clients so going back to your blog's and things like that posting regularly and keeping update information in there as well and adding descriptions don't put fifty photos and five words put one hundred fifty two three hundred words and two photos one photo even just something that represents what you do but describe it the more content the more information that you put on your side the more google confined you and then link your website to your social media sites thank your website to other businesses when you go to my block you know I've got other businesses advertising on there and then I when I do a post and if I'm going to share you know say that video I want to share enomoto I want to share garrett's business for creating and I want to share triple scoop music link all of those things back links what creates more connections out there for your ceo your search engine optimization if you don't understand all of that information and I don't understand all of it either because that's that's a whole other business I'm trying to be a photographer that's a whole other ball game and I don't have the time to sit and learn how to do it all there are people out there that can do it for you so when it comes to advertising online is there anything that you're doing at the moment to sort of get yourself out there for me just now is mainly facebook that's where I'm getting my business very few were finding me to google some off the girls help to me with seo I didn't have a clue how to use that so yes thiss week has been amazing because even a ceo I learned that I still have some problems with my website because I built it myself I friend but they're together for me but then I put all the templates and things like that I'm learning that part well consuming really time consuming I have to be going back and forth reading and learning to see how to be able to share things and tag and it's kind of hard but mainly on facebook and now I figured out what I can do it on point rest and then link my point rest to my facebook people click on pine trust then they click to go to my page so I get extract clicks as for google view so people can find me mort off there and your website should be linked as well to your facebook page is a swell but facebook you know it's a funny thing it's it's good that that feed that just continually goes I mean could you imagine how many photos were uploaded every single day around the world it's bizarre so when you're posting something if it's not engaging if it doesn't have anything that's special about it people are gonna scroll right on past it and it's not going to stay active in anyone's feeds but the beauty of what we do is that everybody loves babies like they do don't they so what I do with my facebook page and what I've been doing for the last few years is that at the end of every single session I always say to my clients it's gonna be a three to four week white but what I'm gonna do is editor photo for you this afternoon and I'm going to share it online is that okay with you if they say no that's fine I'll still email them a little sneak peek with my logo on it because I want them to get excited it's still about creating that incredible you know experience for my clients but when I share it online that babies usually only one to two weeks of age so not many people on their friends left list have seen many photos so they like it they comment I say oh my god look at this incredibly beautiful baby and they all are but I'm talking about it you know this is his name this's how old he is maybe remembering something quirky from the session and then they come in they like they share the tag everybody and their newsfeed will see it they all get congratulated on that which then brings more traffic to my facebook page and then when they like it they comment everybody and their news feed sees it it's such an incredible thing to do to bring more traffic in and pregnant people know pregnant people it's funny when you know when I was having my children on my friends were having children so you know those life cycles the majority of pregnant women know other people who have just had a baby or we're gonna have a baby soon it's just how life goes and it's um it's it's such a great way to bring traffic to business keep at your facebook page and remember to be active in there all the time you know I post once a day if I can I've been a little bit hopeless since I've been away but we've been working on other things but I really love to try and post every day on facebook and make it you know make it something that people want to you know communicate with and then what I do is when they comment they take the time toe actually write a beautiful comment and even if it's another photographer at the moment because actually offer service you know two photographers but with facebook when people comment on my posts I then reply I take the time to reply and I be active it's common courtesy never won but it also keeps my image in people's news faith keeps it coming back to the top of everyone's feed when I comment brings it back to the top of my fate in other people's faith it's such a you know people think I'm really nice and polite I am but I'm also smart a business I'm also smart putting myself out there and keeping my post active that's what I do I don't do it all the time but I am in the habit of replying all the time so yeah it's not always my intention to keep my posting feed but if someone writes a beautiful comment on there I'm going to reply because they have taken the time to comment so why shouldn't I take the comment the time to reply it's it is just common courtesy but it also does work in your favor as well as a ce faras business is concerned so yeah it's it's getting yourself out there and doing it in a way um my friend says talked this tweet to me about unintentional marketing it's usually the best way to put yourself out there instead of trying to force it down people's throats it's just being there and being consistent and putting yourself out there so as part of the bonus material there is a small marketing guide there and it breaks down each of those ways to market for you but ceo for your website on your block is really really important if you don't understand that this business is out there like my friend garrett he now runs a is this called garrett your blood mechanic it's incredible it's an incredible service of people because I for one don't have time to learn how to install certain plug ins and widgets and make them work and you know it if I want to change the layout of this I don't have time to try and find out how to do that you've spent so much time imagine if you had spent all that time yes doing other things now I've got a quick question way have our lack off images put on facebook because they don't photograph people everyday babies every day so when I have a lack of images to put how often at least about post images on facebook yeah I would post one one image that's it I wouldn't post for five from a session and if you do a really lovely shoot for someone and even if you've done a really lovely shoot like in the last couple of years go back through your images and go on I love this photo and continue to go through them and if it was it'd too differently find the ralph all edited again the way you do it now and post that and just continually putting information on there but you only ever need to put one image at a time and then the next day it'd another photo from that session and post it and then keep going so that you're being consistent and then if you run out of images if you are not getting it because it'll become a snowball effect the more you put out there you know the more people are going to see it so you'll start to get more enquiries so that's that's always gonna work in your favor but um gosh what was going to say that I know now when you start to run out of images and things to put on their start looking for useful tips you know what's another business that you've networked within your area are they running a promotion hey you know the coffee shop down the road is is you know running this incredible promotion when you're networking with other business is either online or in phys ical appearance like when you go into the premises and you're both sharing material from each other you can't always also share that online as well and then it's um it's approaching you know other businesses online that aren't necessarily other photographers or providing a product for other photographers I've seen a lot of people do giveaways and things like that that it giving away you know items photographers want not what clients want I'd rather find something that you know a mum once like if I wasn't if I wasn't working with photographers or providing something for photographers I would be looking for things that would help soothe the baby my little heartbeat monitor the amount of clients like where did you get that from way need one of those you know provide that information if there's any incredible services for for new mums or pregnant mums post that on your page give them something don't be looking if you want to do a giveaway if you reach a certain milestone give away movie batches give away anything that you know mums and dads don't often do for themselves little things like that or hamper packs that contained beautiful you know lotions for babies and things like that start to move away from what it is that photographers want and focus on what do our clients want because the amount of photographers out there that are running competitions is crazy just to get more more like through the page I've done it but I also have a service for photographers so I offer products for them but that's different questions but five days ago decided to run together away for another coming mini session for someone to win a spot but I said specifically to enter you have to be within an hour radius of me it's called the lower mainland in vancouver and I said tag a friend that also lives and there and that was an entry and within a couple days I had like one point one all right at one thousand one hundred entries and that's all local people on one hundred new life all local so it's not I don't care someone in the u s air australia are england likes my page I want someone in my city too like my page and so that was really exciting for me I just don't want a new studio so I wanted to kind of let people know and definitely that is such a great idea to get your service is out there you've got to start thinking at the bottom of my marketing plan it's his be inventive you know get creative with the way that you were trying to engage your audience and that is one of the course ideas I've heard so when you were offering like a give away on your page for reaching a certain milestone which is it is an incredible way to it to promote yourself give away it doesn't have to be a mini session or anything like that I can get b a voucher towards prince from a product from a from a shoot something like that you know he's fifty dollars towards you know products from my session or a hundred dollars or something like that but also referral programs are an incredible way to get clients in the door we talked about um you know creating these these flyers and handing them out you only need a little business card that has a has a referral cod it's small on the back he write her room you know little thing that says the referrals put the referral person's name and then you put a line and they ride it and on the front you put in there that this thiss voucher you know entitles you to a free session you can give a session for your session fee away but don't give your products and all of that other others sort of stuff away for free but you know that's included in my packages anyway so I'd be glad to say to somebody this entitles you to a free session um but it all has to depend on the way that you would you're pricing in products as well but if you give referral cards teo one of your existing clients you then have to offer them some in exchange so he's too referral cards you know if you if you can refer to people to me I would love to give you you know a a large print off one of your favorite images from your session things like that that are going to cost you a lot of money but they really appreciate it and by giving them something for referring people there then in turn going to refer more people it's like a catch twenty two but yeah like having a little voucher on it even just in your pocket where you could just walk up to pregnant people in the street and go you know I'm new to the area like you said you and you to the area or you know I'm just you know trying to build my client base whatever you're trying to do depends on your circumstances at that time hand them a card you know I would love to offer you a free shit free session fee you can find all the information on my website the details are on the card it's an incredible way to reach out to people by giving them something and printing on a business eyes card you know it is quite inexpensive as well for your furlough program when do you bring that up with your client is it after they have made the initial purchase of one of your packages on dh you know so that it's not actually usable for that original purchase or is that something that you mentioned like in the first inquiry or your phone call it kind of just depends like it's usually during the session if they've talked to me and I'm asking questions about them and they've usually sort of said you know in the course of conversation depending on what we've talked about that they've either got a friend who's just had a baby because when you're talking to new moms about their experience in hospital and all of that they'll start telling you about their friends experience and like giving birth and things like that all their red hot that hospital and start to listen if they know other people that are about to have a baby or or what have you just in conversation then you like well I'm actually need to give this person some referral cards but it would be if the end position but when people book me when they book me they know that my packages air going to cost a certain amount of money and that's what they're booking me based on so they can't use it towards that because it would be something different as opposed to what I currently offer special for your referrals like if it's all say a fifty dollar one hundred dollar credit are they stackable or is yours oh no they could get program they can use it like for one yet we would have to tailor it to yourself but for me I was found that I would give one person to referral cards and then once they had referred to people then they would receive something from me and the card on the back has a place for them for the person that's received the card to put the person's name that's referred them so that once I've got two cards or had two people come with referrals from that one person then I would give them something in exchange for just handing out my card so yeah it's not something that they could be redeemed but you could put that on there if you're worried about it you could put you know not to be redeemed on position this is for something in addition to your your packages and things like that yet I know that molly also had done the homework and we were talking about you being in kind of a different situation as well on dh maybe you could talk a little bit about yeah love to hear that because molly has been here with me before so we already have a relationship when we already know each other really well yeah when I started three years ago it was all new to everything I wanted to get everything in place all right away and I started a website and I actually linked it to google right away and um on google plus and most of the people that I get coming in enquiries I asked them how they found me and most of them found me in a google search I bet I haven't asked them what specific keywords except for but I looked recently at my google plus page for my business and it said I had thirty two thousand views and I hadn't really done much with it just block post that I put on there do keywords and categories and people confined newborn photography baby photography all of that and if I do a facebook post I like I do a block post I share it on my facebook page so that people go back to the website and it gets more hits on from there but yeah I just I had a period of about a year that I took a break and going back and seeing that I had thirty two thousand hits and not doing much like whoa but I'm starting to get more on the block posts and sharing images going back and re editing images like he said from years ago what I started and showing kind of what my style is now because before my business partner which I don't have any more she was doing a lot of the taking the portrait's and editing them so she had a a little bit of a different style and I had I didn't more like the business side of things and helping with posing more of an assistant type rolled and just the primary photographer so um finding when my style is now and putting that out there for people to see on my facebook page and you know not necessarily getting new models in but re editing images from that period of time ago in a year or two ago and showing people what my style is and I'm finding a lot of people coming in now they're like the comment on how they like my style and my imagery like the really soft images no like super bright colors or anything like that similar to your style but I had a maternity session recently and she hadn't seen a lot of my maternity work because I hadn't done a lot of it but she trusted me to come in and do a session for and she left and you know she gave me a hug like we've had a talk during the session and she said I made her feel really comfortable and I was kind of waiting on pins and needles when I sent her gallery to her because I didn't know if she was going to like that style because she hadn't really seen any maternity images that I had done but um about a day or two later she she actually went and posted on my facebook page before I even knew about it and did a recommendation like I highly recommend molly like she made me feel totally comfortable ah my images are amazing I love every one of them like it was hard to choose which ones I wanted and just like instant gratification of having somebody go out there and just talk about you like that without having told you first it's really nice that is incredible do you know it because molly and I know each other I know how hard she works at it she's consistent all the time she's always posting she's always sharing she's always communicating and if you are not consistent then people are going to find you I am I was scrolling through the group this morning that we've created for the boot camp and this people in their posting communicating in the sharing and I think it's wonderful to be able to do that but don't get too caught up in that because the more time you spend communicating with other photographers and focusing on them the list time you're spending trying teo to work on your business for your client's huge that's why she immediately deliver and they put every ounce of everything into those images that they're seeing and delivering it to them in person and having nice packaging and seeing them open it up it's just it's amazing watching them like their faces light up some of them cry someone give me a hug like I have like a fine by seven us beatbox that it's like it has there burst just statistics of their baby on the back of it engraved and the mom that opened that she didn't see it at first tonight I pointed it out to our do this for you and she's like she started crying gave me a hug and like that's what I like to to see is touching somebody like that you've created such an incredible experience from the start right to the end and you've given something and exceeded their expectations we've set the expectations and she's exceeded them by giving her something that she was not expecting he's brilliant they're coming back for a baby plan six months one year and then when they have another baby they're gonna come back again and if you do family shoot they're going to come back for that if you do weddings they're gonna come back for that maybe with their daughter's girl but I don't know but that's what the trick like if you're not just focusing on one genre you know you get them coming back forever keeping them which is such a wonderful thing to do um I just love hearing that because you know we've been talking about this for so long and over the last couple of years and since my first class and and sharing information and it's when people actually do they get what you put in is what you get out so when people say to me and I can't find clients I'm sorry they're out there but it's like can I said before what have you got to lose you know we don't have anything to lose doing not anymore now it's now or never like I used to be really say notice about it anybody else in this room my work out there and be criticized toward or or whatever I'm just I'm doing the best that I can that fits my style exact people that like it will come to me exactly and you know it's funny when you are on social media it's a it's a it is a funny place because you know you can get twenty incredible comments and then you get one negative comment and that shoot you down but a tent I tend to think that we focus too much on that ignore it remove it re read those positive comments and move on because we're not going to make everybody happy if are not everybody likes may I'm not the best photographer I love what I do I'm passionate about it and I want to share it with the world and I don't care what anybody else thinks that's why I'm sitting here and I'm successful in my business because I stopped wiring and focusing and I poured all of that time and energy that I was putting into that I pulled all of that into making my business the best that it could be and by doing that I reached so many people but it is like you said working hard at it you've got to be on the internet you've gotta be on social media you've gotta block post you got to spend the time doing it and then you've got to create an incredible experience with amazing customer service for your clients so they keep coming back these books something every day even if it's not a photo something about me or something about some aspect of my business that I'm changing or it's getting better just so they know something about me that's showing in their feet every day and they're seeing my name over and over again new products and packaging take a picture posted on online look what I've just got and you prop don't post it for photographers christopher clients go I've just got this incredible new proper and I can't wait for my clients to see it and put it on put one of their beautiful babies and focus on the client aspect off that instead ofthe you know look at where I got this from this prop shop blah blah blah someone may ask you answer it in a private message but um really honing in on what it is that your clients want things like that so yeah do we have any other questions can kelly I just want teo say thank you first of all teo everyone for for sharing your stories and experiences with everybody out there and remind everybody out there that part of that the worksheet that you get when you do it's the bonus material when you do by this class kelly takes you through all these questions and it's timeto start asking those deep questions and figuring out who your clients are what they want what you want to dio on daz you've seen everybody here d'oh so can I just have one thing to that it is bonus material and it is written um people don't like to read I don't know why but read it sitting read it don't scroll through facebook looking at pictures sit and read something and if you're really really struggling with marketing there's so many great incredible books out there that really focus on it and it doesn't have to be for photography marketing's global that was like the calendar that you have in there as well in terms of laying it out just going to the exercises of scheduling schedule I've put an example of a schedule on the bottom of it and and what you can do is just allocate what day you're going to do what I don't know about you but I'm like year I'll do that on such and such day and the day goes if you create yourself a schedule on your right right I'm gonna block this down on facebook that day this day this day this day I'm going to do that I might walk out you know twice a month to some shops and introduce myself with some cards schedule it for yourself so you do it it's the only way to do it um my marketing bonus material is a a shorter version of what I actually have on my website so I have a bit more in depth information on my website in my store as well if anybody's looking for more information but you know it's got all the stuff you need in the bonus material as well