Lessons

Lesson Info

Vanessa Joy: The Same Day Edit & How to Market It

We are going teo really dive in deep today we're going over a lot a lot a lot of different stuff just so I can get an idea of where all you guys are I would love teo just hear what type of photography you do if it's weddings and that kind of thing so if we could just go right down that was the awesome iris I do shoot weddings and in fact I've got an engagement session after the class tio and I've haven't shot any weddings at this point I d'oh event photography I do shoot weddings as well as musicians in my hometown I shoot weddings and families also um I permit I primarily shoot events of all kinds of sprinkling a couple weddings and just portraiture and landscape in architecture great fantastic so you do have you guys either doing weddings or events and that is primarily what this course is going to highlight on robin, I do weddings solely so we are going to reference weddings throughout the workshop today. However, this process can be applied for any type of photography if you're doi...

ng just families, they're just photos, I'm sorry just portrait and not necessarily events no, you won't get this done in the hour session that you have however it will show you the work flow to get it done very quickly afterwards and then eh an entire marketing flow from that. So we are going to talk about what I do on the same day of the wedding. So same the slideshow album all sorts of fun stuff, but what's really value about it is not even necessarily wowing your clients with all of this, but getting a workflow that flows for you that maximizes the ceo that is effortless that costs really little to no money at all in order each implement on dh what it does for your business from there, I don't do really any traditional advertising. I can't sell my subscription with the knot I do use um actually snap not is a different online source or guitar first feel the advertising use them. Um, but I'll show you why later they're not the traditional, you know, wedding list and you get a million, you know, wedding photographers in your area that are advertising on the seams spot, but this process has allowed me to grow my business. I was doing it in my first year of business, not quite to the extent I am now, but still with the same type of same day slideshow and I was able to go from absolutely zero weddings a year to booking nineteen in my own winnings in one year, so my very first year of business nineteen winnings and then the one after that it was forty and the one after that was thirty five, so I was able to just grow my business like that without spending money on advertising. But by using this concept, word of mouth on top of it has been able to actually have life because a lot of the work that most of us spend our a lot of the time that most of us spend doing the work host wedding I get done the night of so monday have a lot less work to dio can focus on things around the house. I can focus on my marriage, my family, and spend time doing stuff like that instead of, you know, sitting behind my computer. So I'm really excited to give you guys both marketing idea that has that will be successful when you implement it as well as free up a little bit of your life so that you can spend it doing other things on things that you enjoy. I can almost see it being used for corporate events, too. If you do any sort of corporate photography and you want to take it to a larger scale and provide maybe of ah printer with photo strips, you can do this for a mass audience to sell theirs. You know, forty or fifty people at this conference and you're shooting the conference, they could offer the attendees some sort of a gift at the end the same workflow and apply with some minor tweaks. It's this really cool? Yeah, so use this quiet teo however, you can buy it on dh. Most of all, I think the marketing and the workflow tactics from as well, you're going to see a drastic improvement in your business in your lifestyle. So let's, go ahead and get started. So this is what I sort of based the program out, the idea that which bridesmaid is going to be your next bread, right? You're sitting down, you're at a wedding? Yeah, you're focusing on the bride, obviously, but the truth of the matter is that when you were at a wedding, you are sitting there in your prime target market, it's your demographic that you want to reach its tons of women and yeah, sure, the men too, but we'll see the women who are planning these weddings you know, between the ages of twenty two and twenty eight is usually your prime target audience, and most the bride's maids tend to fall into that category, and even if they're married probably remarried nok supposed to support of a marriage, and I think the words here don't say deep no, but you also have this element of, you know, friends sort of all go through these life events around the same time so that, you know, you might have bridesmaids were already getting engaged or might be engaged in having you started planning their wedding, and maybe they don't want to do that, they overshadow their friend's wedding kind of things that they might be waiting till that wedding's over. So, yeah, you've got this really niche audience captive, not even necessarily just the bridesmaids, but all the other guests at the wedding. You know what rob said, you kind of have that group of friends where you go through these things of life together and all of those people that you want to reach her at the wedding. So how can you get those brides, maids, those guests, all those women in that audience to remember you and one of the things that I hope that all of you guys they're doing, regardless of, you know, separate from this is I hope that you're keeping track of your your lead source report where you getting your business from where you getting your leads from and that's something that, um I analyzed and I used a program called tab a t a b e it's our client management software, so it's fantastic, but I took a look on this is our leads for support and I took a look at what works I need to know what's working what types of marketing or actually working for me um there's really no comparison here it's not even close previous client which is word of mouth of it came in from some other source it's on there it's not even competition even rob doesn't know word of mouth is the strongest thing that drives business in my door sir. Previous clients talking about you however other things to not ignore here are your vendors talking about you? Obviously rob is my husband so we have a pretty good vendor relationship here e I'm a vendor is that what you think of me from the vendor? No, you are okay, okay, his graph from a vendor now you have your own separate seen prabhat no, I know that but below that we have referral and you can see some other ones on there might be saying mike anguish kim from the palace generic vendor there all on there. These are the top twenty um in my report. So vendors talking about you's definitely significant as well it's all word of mouth as well as referrals friends you know, my friends how do I make sure that the people around me who are getting married know that hey, I'm a wedding photographer so these are all different types of word of mouth, whether it's the client's talking about use the vendors talking about use your friends talking about you these are the things that actually work on top of that, we also have google searches here, so google search your ceo definitely very important do you get income from that as well as online networks like snap wear, wedding wire, that kind of thing, those air all on there? So the idea is that you can get word of mouth ceo, online networks, all of that that works your business, all of it is optimized through the same day at it. So you know what works for you and then through the same thing that we're going to take all of those things and make sure that we're actively working on them and doesn't have to take a lot of time just do with the night of the wedding one of my, um one of my goals, I guess is our concept is that I'm getting paid to be in the wedding, right? I have to be at the wedding that's gonna be there, so while I'm there while I have to be working, I need to be a sufficient as I possibly can write do as much as you can, they're, um and so if I can do my ceo, my word of mouth working with my online networks and all those sorts of things while murray to getting paid for being at the wedding it's just a huge plus so what I would like to do I want teo go on the internet and internet chat rooms and take a little poll so in the chat rooms we can get ready for that I want to know how all of you create word of mouth with your previous clients so I think we're in the mouth is definitely something that's in everyone's business and I want to know how you create word of mouth in your business because I've got my it here we'll talk about that but I also want to give the opportunity for all of us to share what we do for word of mouth and how we get people talking about us and get them in our door so what we'll do is we'll start with our audience here why don't we start on jared side this time since iris a video first every time? So what are some things that you do to promote word of mouth in your business? One of the easy things is just a little value added surprises, so for instance after engagement session especially if we're doing the wedding will go ahead and give the bride and groom three best shots that you know we had chosen and put that in something that's perfectly formatted for ah facebook cover on dh then it'll just say roger's global dot com right down in the bottom so just giving them those little extra things that has, you know, our branding on it is eyes something that they could be excited about yet still, you know, promotes the business I love that surprises keep that in mind I'd like that go ahead currently, I kind of have the same thing I mean, I really try and create and amazing experience for my brides and on dh their fiancees throughout the entire process and and obviously surprised I guess and we I mail out a thank you card after an engagement session, I give him a welcome packet just to make sure that they feel really secure and happy with what they're getting, you know? And and then a week before the wedding, we mail out like a starbucks gift card or something just say, you know, go take a date day off from the wedding before you go, and so just these little I love that you're creating a customer experience is huge that will definitely get people talking about you and awesome. Go ahead in. Yeah, one of the things that I do on the actual day of the wedding as I'll play a slideshow, you know, next to my stack of business cards that has photos from the engagement session in the bridal session on it because they're the bridal party and their guests and their friends see me there and I'm working on him interacting with them but the other half of them being drawn to me is seeing my final product so obviously since third not seeing the wedding pictures right then they I at least have something from the previous sessions to show them so they get the pairing of this is me and this is how I work but this is my my deliverer able so love that yes so showing off not the wedding pictures but engage in session brattle session that kind of thing definitely effective I suppose the only who almost all my business comes from word of mouth and and it's and it's mainly I guess being involved in the creative process with the client from the get go now I don't have much experience on the photography side it's mainly on the on the corporate video side but that's how I get them to tell their other you know they're friends or other colleagues and stuff about about what I do is just being intimately involved from start to finish on the creative so that we get to the chute that they're very happy well what's done that's awesome just building that client vendor relationship that's that's absolutely huge great I'm trying to work on my social media so you know definitely do the facebook and post photos up and try to encourage them to share but yeah, you know I'm not very consistent right now and I'm on twitter but not you're good at that because it's a lot you know, keeping up with social media especially since every three seconds there's a new social media outlet to be a part of and do right anyone else have that kind of stress every time someone's like have you heard of loverly have you heard of like no, I haven't and I don't want teo so yeah, but social media is a powerful tool so you definitely want to use it but you don't want to spend all of your time using it so do we have any people online that would like to share their their word of mouth tactics? Yeah couple people have been great and sharing what they already dio uh uh ryan ryan pearson says make an impression that put everyone at ease now only to your bride but the attendees family and wedding party everyone is nervous about having their picture taken if you can my mitigate that with fear that fear with a joke then things will go a lot smoother on the way in and post after afterwards perfect that's so great bedside manner that's yes very warm and comfortable it's that's great uh arson photo says that they post photos that night of the wedding on facebook and created facebook banner I love it very good we'll talk about that okay perfect. So we have lots of different ideas on dh I'm glad that we're about to share them all. One of the biggest consensus, I think with all of those and something that ties them together would be how you're interacting with your clients because their clients or the one that the ones that are going to talk about you and they'll talk about you one way or the other, they're either going to say great things about you, bad things about you or what I think might be worse. Average things aboutyou difference, indifference. S o our goal is obviously to create a positive word of mouth and a lot of it. So just a little side note because I did want teo talk. We talked a little bit about how you stay on top of social media because that's a lot. So social media, how much time do you guys spend on social media? And, you know, it's, hard to keep on, you know, I would say twenty hours a month, maybe on social media, maybe that's an average ish, but you probably send a lot of time on social media, right? It takes up a lot of your time during the week andan fortunately, it'll distract you during the week while you're trying to actually work? I mean, you know, that's probably happened like, let me just do some staff I'll post on facebook and I'm working here and then you something distracts you and an hour later you're still there it's like darn pinterest so you spend a lot of work, so instagram interest, pinterest, instagram, but, you know, I think said that once before and I should invent new social media thing, so pinterest, instagram and twitter, twitter, twitter, yeah, as well as facebook, but also how many of you guys they're listed, even unlike those free sites like wedding wire will out, you have free listing or maybe you got a trialist staying at like snap not have you has ever gone to your own listing and you look and you realize those pictures are like three years old? Yeah it's like, wow, that is not accurately representing me at all, then what's even worse is if you're paying for it and you're like paying to not advertise yourself the way that you want to put your best foot forward. So all that stuff top with working on seo like think about how much time you spend doing all of that stuff and how much would you like to not spend any extra time doing all that stuff? I wanted to point this out, so this is one of my photos that was on pinterest and it trended on pinterest. It was fantastic. I was really happy about it. Three hundred and twelve repentance, one hundred forty five likes. I thought that was pretty good. I did not do that. I do not pin that. I did not do anything with that what's really important about this. And why I'm mentioning is you can only do so much. Even if with your assistant the night of the wedding, you can only do so much what you want to make sure that you do is if you are paying for some form of advertising, make sure that you're aligning yourself with a corporation or a photographer listing page that is working for you. That has your best interests in mind. Snap not. And this is the only one of the biggest reasons why I decided to cancel the knot. But go with snap. Not it's just snapped, not dot com. They did this for me. They pin pictures for us. They have a ton of followers on pinterest. They pin pictures for us and tag us. You can see our little tags in there and hashtags and everything else. And they do this for me. So one of the reasons why I really like them if you are going to pay with paid advertising that's the most I would say about paid advertising make sure that you were going with somebody who has your best interests in mind and that's doing something extra for you not just paying for your little half an inch on their website do you work with people that are going to work for you and not just take your money so definitely um something to talk about so same day at it it is my opinion that there's nothing better that you can do for your business than to do your best work and let everyone see it if you do your best work and hide your little light under a bushel it's not going to be very effective I think we all know that we always want to get our best work seen so how do we do that? I do it through same day at it so traditionally a same day at it is a fly show essentially played at the reception. This is the traditional view of it that's been around for years. I learned that first from david j he's the one who inspired me to do my first little slideshow um great inspiration mine early on however, for me I've got a whole little list of what the same day at it means to me yes, I do play a slide show presented at the reception I also do a same day album that I give them at the reception I upload the photos to facebook and I tagged the bride the groom as many bridesmaids and groomsmen as I can the mom's vendors reception halls everyone I create an online gallery so that my clients can have an online gallery um to look at and so that their guests have pictures they can look at right away and potentially purchase I create an an emoto slide ships owen online photo slide show my block post is about ninety five percent finished all the photos were there all the vendor listings they're they're all of the hyper links from the vendors too their pages are there only thing I have to do is write my little paragraph about how lovely the wedding wass of horrible on that I'm a photographer I'm not a writer so that part like it's one paragraph but itjust dreads may like I really loved the wedding but I only have like three adjectives that I know he's a great guy like I know amazing great and amazing greeting old like film critic articles to get inspiration like outstanding spectacular three stars you know anyway that's the last five percent that's all this is done the night of the wedding in addition, my photos are already ready or already submitted for publication to major boggs and magazines and I already have all of my second photographer's photos acquired right away and backed up that's not even on the list of all the same day at it that way is the same day at it in here I'm wowing my clients and promoting ort of mouth I am doing my ceo I'm doing my facebook and I'm fulfilling products for my clients as well um working on credibility beginning published somewhere and I have all my second photographer photos so that I'm not waiting a week for him or her to send me a dvd or something like that so that is what we're going to do today crazy crazy lot in that amount of what he really is I mean and that would take a ball monday if you just left that for monday on monday after working maybe two weddings in one weekend you wanna relax? I call that martini monday for tv a massage monday yeah, so it is so much more than a slide show and I'm going to show you that it works and why and how it works. So the first part of this andi actually and a hit on it before is that it's relevant marketing so when anna goes and she has a slide show no it's not the wedding pictures but it's the actual couple it means so muchmore when marketing is relevant so the wow factor is there the holy crap I can't believe you just handed me an album the night of my wedding even the pictures I can't believe that these pictures are up here they're on facebook I have guests coming up time bright did you see your pictures on facebook holding up their mobile phone so that I could see all the pictures? They go crazy? They absolutely love it, rob. Actually, if you're doing video, rob actually does something similar it's not a full same to edit where it's displayed and projected in the audio and everything like that he does offer that, but what we find is actually more effective and that is doing just a visual loop of shots, you know, twenty video shots, three seconds each, whatever it might started out even less than that, so I'm not like five video shots just we call the looper and this five video shots it wasn't even color correcting was putting him out there and just test the waters because I've got a brand new laptop mac book I want to see the power of it so I right on the wedding during cocktail hour too strong together and the nice put on a loop in quick time sort of play over and over again, and I noticed that there was a crowd of people standing over watching I was like, well, that's, powerful and yeah, so we put him outside by side photos and video when we work together and it's fantastic is that there is no greater thing that you could see on a wedding, I think that twenty to thirty people like hovered around your stuff and then you watch this twenty to thirty people leave and go talk about you for the rest of the night. Yes, not that we're trying, we're not trying to be we're not trying overshadow the couple. I mean, obviously we do this very subtly and, you know, when people are doing that, they like it because it becomes another form of entertainment sort of a side, no it's, a sideshow and then they go back to partying and dancing, and while they're on the dance floor, they're saying, wow, did you see that slide show? You know, so it kind of carries over into the party and then a new group comes out and the idea is that it teaches others to talk about you you have questions, actually, yeah, okay, so hard and I over here going, oh my gosh, how do you do all of this and a button? Because they're like, you know, like at a wedding or whatever where it was like, how do you do it, there's going to be amazing, so we are super excited about this and there are quite a few other people in that chat rooms that are excited too but seriously I'm really excited to learn like how many minutes you can do this in the wedding or after the wedding? How late do you stay up? Wei have a beer after the wedding? I don't wait all right? So you're saying what this is is it teaches others to talk about you yes it's fantastic to do the full same day at if you're doing video with the audio and it plays once and it allows everybody but then there's no reason to really talk about it anymore because everyone has seen it, but even that I'll show it and then while we're packing up our gear is pretty much done after that I still have I'll put it out on the laptop anyway because that was mark mute the sound and just let that loop so because it is people will go over and are curious to see it say it again what people always look for themselves like when they see a video yeah, so it's like they want to kind of go was I in that e like a business card? Maybe I'll find on the website later on eso this method really teaches others to talk about you I just have a small digital picture frame that I used on dh people are just you know come into it all night and then going around and talking to other people about it so it's really a very effective way to get other people to talk about you starting the neither wedding and then it continues so we're talking about it being relevant so the reason why it's so relevant if you have a piece of advertising maybe a print ad or I don't know a picture up in wedding planner studio or an album at a reception hall yes it's good advertising but it's not advertising that's relevant to the client who is looking at it and it's not relevant because normally they don't know that couple so when you show them pictures you're advertising because its your work but you're showing them pictures of somebody that they know it's then relevant to them they know these people they're emotionally invested in that photograph then and it's so much more powerful that way than if there just looking at a photograph no matter how beautiful it is of somebody that they don't know so it's free advertising that is relevant to your guests the guests at the wedding it definitely makes an impact I think that your pictures are better than they really are if they're the first that everyone sees right? You want to get them on that emotional high if your pictures or the first that the couple sees that anyone sees at the reception they're going to have a higher emotional impact and they're going to be better than they really are. You ever have one who looked like a bad day in a wedding? You know, bad day cools off your, you know, firing on every cylinder frightens, you know, it happens on dh, maybe your pictures are not exactly what you thought they could have been or, you know, you just have one of those days if you kept those pictures to your client's fast, like we do it the night of the wedding there floor, they're completely happy in florida anyway and it's, because you're reaching them at that higher emotional impact on that, that level of excitement and intensity at that time, something with the video that's? Why? I don't feel like I have to be a perfectionist with that because there's a blown away that they're actually seen video that day, and obviously this is not to say, you know, just throw like your crappy photographs have them, we do actually edit them in a fast manner that, you know, they're beautifully polished photographs and usually the ones that they end up hanging on their walls, they're putting in their albums, so also speed equals quality. I'm sure you guys at one point or another have had to wait for something that you wanted right and you're really excited about it at first but then when I just like took longer and it's later it's just not that exciting anymore, you know? So speed really does translate to quality that's one of things I know rob has been working on the typical at least from our experience in new jersey the typical video auger for timeframe from the wedding until they get their videos roughly nine months tio tio some run shorter than that for a long time I ran like a six to eight month turnaround and it's it's almost acceptable and brides I've just gotten used to it but we've been striving for like a four to five months on average turnaround, which is not bad considering we did twenty, twenty five weddings a year we did thirty two last year actually yeah and that when the sooner that started delivering the videos of the client the happier they were and obviously you know over the years you get better at your craft so that is better work but it's because of the speed a lot of times the speed of delivery that means quality to your client and speed equals quality as long as there's quality in that product that you're giving speedily you don't want to scare you best give something good best exactly this also helps you build vendor relationships because on top of the bride and groom wanting these pictures, the florist wants those pictures the hair and the makeup artist wants the pictures, the reception hall wants those pictures everyone wants these pictures a lot of times I feel like in our own minds we devalue our photography just because we're used to it, you know? Yeah, these pictures that's what I should be taking and you know they're just pictures, but everybody else those are amazing pictures, they can't take pictures like that you can take pictures like that so this is help me build my vendor relationships by getting these photos that are quickly turned around and then I can send all the vendors and helped them promote me as well. So these are all things that healthy promote that instant gratification that speed obviously facebook marketing pinterest and then like jerry talked about, it opens a door for surprises little things that you could do just make surprises so much easier to do so surprises mine would be the same day album I used to give my clients a key chain a little digital key chain and that was my little surprise to them so definitely helps out in that aspect ondas allows you to start delivering all of your products sooner I've had clients with their albums, you know, three months after the wedding very, very quickly, because having the same day at it and the way that I photograph and what photographs specifically to put in the same day at it, I do it intentionally so that it can fulfill these things faster. So they're thankyou card designs that I give them that's a form of marketing, I do give them their free thank our designs, and I just throw my logo on it. Um, they're thankyou card designs, they're proof books, their wedding albums all get done a lot faster than they only d'oh, and then everything is also publication ready. So I'm going to show you guys how to take the right pictures so that your same day out of pictures can be directly what you send to all the publication submissions that you won't do so the work is already done. They're the one thing I will not here, we'll talk about it a little bit leader is that details are the key details are thinking whenever you look on a log or in a magazine it's you see details, you see maybe one photo of the bride and groom or one photo of the entire bridal party, but the details is what everyone focus on because breads buy magazines from look on logs for details that's what conditions? It's about inspiration you know what I brought in room look like right right the dress is considered a source of inspiration to so you know you'll see one photo of the bride may be alone in her dresses up yeah mostly details mover all room shots table settings centerpieces yeah, all the fun stuff it is so I upload on the night of the wedding two to bright lights too bright lights is a website that has just simplified the whole process of submitting to log the magazines for publication you guys have to see some nodding some writing frantically so because some of her to to write laid some of not if you haven't heard of them definitely check him out it it just has done wonders and I will show you specifically what it is that it's done for my business um not every editor not every publication is on to bright lights so what I do is after I blogged and I'll show you how I write my blog's very specifically I emailed my blood going from that wedding two editors that are not on two great lights um and the result is more than half of what I submit is published. I would say actually roughly sixty to seventy percent of my overall wedding work is published somewhere on dh that's great because my brides love that with bride is not going to be like freaking out over the fact that she's in a magazine or she's on styling pretty or something but I don't spend a ton of time doing that it's all in the same day at work flow it's funny actually the very first time I ever submitted for publications I hired my friend and she was great she's very detail organized person, but I had hired her I had made contact sheets of the weddings I wanted to submit what ended up coming too like five hundred pages worth of paper that I was sending out. I think maybe two, ten to fifteen publications and emailing them in like a fedex envelope with my contact information with the dvd of all the pictures on the contact sheet, and it was like a huge and expensive production it doesn't have to be that way anymore thank god, because I don't think I would find the time to do that anymore. Um, getting published adds credibility to your work, so when you can put on your website or your blogged or facebook or whatever does hey, I was published here and published here it adds credibility to your work for the client's simple as seen in segment, you know, not that we're trying to make herself seem more grandiose, but at the same time it does kind of that's what you get for level didn't is but you know you it builds trust strong builds, trusting credibility and there is a ton of less work on monday. So, again, like I mentioned before, the second photographer photos. The blogging, facebook, marketing, the online gallery, the slideshow and submitting for publication. All done on the night of the one thing. So this here monday. Work gone.