164: How to Continue Marketing Your Business During Busy Season

 Welcome back to the show my friends. We have got a real time topic for you. This is off the cuff. This is me touching base. This is heart to heart photographer, to photographer. We are in the thick of it, my friends. We are here in yet another busy season. It’s fall. You’ve got your clients who want the holiday cards, you’ve got the mini sessions, you’ve got the larger than normal print orders.

You probably even have the inquiries coming in, even though you are fully booked. And if you’re a people pleaser like many of us are, you’re trying to squeeze things in to every nook and cranny of your schedule and your day and your week, and there’s nothing left because you are. Doing a fun, a ton of sessions.

You are editing all said sessions. You are doing all of the fall family things because fall is is busy for family things and kid things. You’re probably overwhelmed. That’s, that’s what’s normal for this time of year, especially if you are a family photographer. And while I don’t love that and I don’t love the cyclical being overwhelmed in the fall and all of that, it kind of is what it is.

Even if you have prepared yourself to not be fully burnt out, which if you’re a listener of this podcast, I really hope that that is the case. You are still at max capacity. Fall is still a season where we have more than normal going on, and there’s a lot on our mind, a lot on our plate, a lot on our calendar, and I just want to kind of give you a virtual hug.

It’s normal. It’s normal to feel this way. Okay. I don’t want you to feel the fully burned out version of this that can often happen, but it is all, it is totally normal for you to feel the I’m just at capacity. This is a lot I’m ready for. I’m ready to slow down. I’m ready for a busy season to be over. It feels like you barely have time to breathe.

What happens for us in busy season is oftentimes we feel like we don’t have time to breathe, like we don’t have time to do our things. Uh, we’re barely keeping the bare minimum afloat. And so what do we set down? We set down our marketing. We set down our marketing because it feels optional. It feels optional because we’re at capacity or over capacity.

We don’t have room to add any more sessions. We don’t want to add any more sessions. The mini sessions are sold out. The fall and winter calendar is full. Our brains are at capacity, so we set the marketing down. Here’s the problem with that. I want you to continue to market and we’re gonna talk about this today, how to do this in a season when you are overwhelmed and busy.

Because you’re planting seeds for your slow season. This is not just about marketing for today’s inquiries, for the inquiries that you’re going to have to turn down because you are already at capacity. These are about planting seeds for your slow season. How often have I heard this complaint? All the women I coach over all the years.

How often have I heard the January, February complaint? My inbox is empty. There are no leads. I’m not getting dms. Nobody is coming to my website and filling out my contact form. Nobody is replying to my monthly emails. Nothing’s happening. They panic, and when I ask them, well, what have you been doing to market your business?

I’m often met with crickets. That’s because January, February is right after busy season when most of us set marketing down because we feel like we don’t have the capacity for it. There is a risk involved in this. If you choose to completely set your marketing down, the risk is that your audience will forget you and that your competitors will start, will start to fill the gap.

That’s not what I want for you. I don’t want your audience to forget you. I don’t want you to stop being top of mind. I don’t want your competitors to fill the gap. I want you to continue to book into slow season. I want you to find a way to market consistently that works when things are crazy, and you are super, super busy.

So that’s what we are going to talk about today.

Welcome to the Shoot at Straight podcast, where honesty meets heart and real talk actually means something. I’m your host, Sabrina Gebhart, and each week we get vulnerable, practical, and just a little bit bold so you can feel seen, supported, and ready to take the next step in your photography journey.

Let’s go.

Okay, so if there’s a risk of going quiet, and maybe, maybe you’ve lived through this before, my friend, honestly, if this is not your first year in business, if you’ve been at this for a little while, you, you know what I’m talking about. You know what happens when you completely set down your marketing? We don’t, we don’t want that.

We gotta figure out a better way. So how can we not go quiet during busy season? How can we continue to show up, but in a way that makes sense, in a way that we have time for, in a way that will serve us and our future bookings, but not take over Because we are capacity, we have very little time to give.

How can we do this? There’s a couple simple things that I’m gonna share with you, and I’m hoping that this is going to kind of motivate you and make you realize that you do actually have time for this. You can sneak this in and it’s worth the effort. Okay, so a couple of, a couple of little quick ideas.

Repurpose what you’re doing. I know this seems really obvious. I know it seems really, really obvious, but again, so many family photographers just fully just set down marketing. They just are like, I don’t have time for this. I’m at capacity anyways. I’m just not going to, and so we stop doing the obvious repurpose what you’re already doing when you’ve got sneak peeks for clients.

Share them to Instagram. Share them to your email list. When you’ve got client stories, something funny that happened at a session or miraculous a comparison of this year over last year, I’m not asking you to write some long-winded blog post. I’m not asking you to dig through the archives if it’s hard.

Often. It’s really easy. If you’ve got a gallery software, go in and type their last name. Grab an image from last year. Compare it with an image from this year. How fun is that? Or tell a client’s story about a cool location they picked or how much their child has grown, or something hilarious or ironic that happened at the session.

It’s not rocket science. Tell stories. You have them. Just tell them. Also the easiest and the lowest lift, I think, personally is share your behind the scenes. I do love sharing behind the scenes of you at a session, have somebody take a video, uh, set up a tripod, set your phone on the ground, whatever, but also behind the scenes of you doing your job.

We know that your job is much more than shooting the session. Can you take a behind the scenes clip of you, culling of you unpacking your bag, of you cleaning, your camera, of you, editing of you, uploading of you on a client call. If that’s something that you do in your workflow of you responding to emails, clearing your inbox, there are a million things that you do in this business beyond just photographing the clients.

Take a singular photo, take a five second clip of video, anything like that, doing the thing, sharing behind the scenes. I’ve said this a million times on the podcast, but people are nosy. They love to see what we’re doing. They are fascinated to see what really goes on in the life of a photographer. Share those clips.

It’ll take you 15 seconds to take a photo of your laptop with, you know, you’re in the middle of culling. Take a photo of your laptop on your desk, or wherever you’re working. Post it to Instagram Stories and say what you’ve got going on today. I’m currently calling families X, Y, and Z. Then I’m sending off this gallery.

Then I’m off to school, pickup and play with my kids. That’s enough. Another thing that you can easily do to to market your business while you’re in busy season is I want you to think about a really, what is the simplest way that you can batch your content? When you hear me say this, do not hear me say that.

I want you to batch 30 days worth of content posting every single day. You know, carousels, reels, stories, all the things. No, no, no, no, no. We are simplifying how can you batch content so that maybe you’re posting once a week. Maybe you’re doing stories a couple times a week as you see fit, but like one intentional feed post a week, that’s better than nothing, and it is absolutely enough.

Can you schedule it? Can you write those captions ahead of time? The same thing goes for email. If you’re gonna send out an email two Mondays a month, can you write the emails on Sunday afternoons? Can you write the both emails for the month in one afternoon? How can you simplify the process so that it’s not taking up brain space every single day of the month?

You’re just doing it. You’re just batching it. You’re batching the bare minimum and you’re getting it done ahead of time so that it’s off your plate. And then can you automate in any way? Can you use templates? Do you have prompts for whatever AI bot that you use? How can you make it even easier to just continue showing up?

I’m not talking about preparing super intentional, in-depth launches. Again, I’m not talking about posting a ton of content every single day of the month. We’re talking about the bare minimum of continuing to show up so that you do, you are not forgotten, that you stay top of mind. Are you ready to uplevel your photography business with more ease, profit and clarity?

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You can join online only or upgrade to include an absolutely incredible in-person retreat. The next round open soon and spots are limited. So get on the wait list now at sabrina gehart.com/mastermind-waitlist.

What are you marketing? I said that a minute ago. You know, you’re busy, you’re booked, you’re at capacity for the year. Your sessions are sold out. You’re booking into next year. So like what’s the point? That’s something that I get asked a lot, Sabrina. What am I supposed to market if my sessions are full?

If my calendar’s full? Let’s talk about it. Let’s, let’s simplify this. Here’s three things. Number one, absolutely use the fact that you are at capacity or almost at capacity, and that you have limited availability. That is marketable in and of itself. You know why? Because it creates urgency with your audience if you are booked.

Amazing. Tell people that. Tell your audience that it’s gonna get them to take action in one of two ways. Number one, they’re gonna get on your email list so that they have future opportunities to work with you, okay? And that’s a win because you’re getting a new email subscriber that you can nurture, and now they realize that there is a sense of urgency in hiring you because you book an advance.

Great. The other way they could take action is maybe they’re willing to postpone their holiday session, their fall session for an early Q1 session. Maybe they wanna do a New Year’s card or a Valentine card. I have lots of families that do that every year, so this would prompt them to do that because again, you’ve created urgency because you are booked or have extremely limited availability that is marketable.

Number two, you can market gift certificates or any kind of mini session or wait list that has a seasonal relevance. Let me give you an example. If you are booked for your fall minis and your full family sessions for the rest of the year, amazing. Maybe you also do Christmas Tree Farms or Santa, if you have availability for that, even though we are a couple months away from that, you can still market it.

The other thing you could do is maybe you’re completely booked for the rest of the year in every offer that you have. Incredible. I’m so happy for you. What’s the next thing? Maybe you do personality portraits in January or February, if that’s the next like quote unquote offer that you have outside of full sessions.

Start talking about that. Start pushing people to your wait list for that, telling them that that’s the next thing that’s coming. And then the third thing you can market for is just connection based content, personal content. This is the easiest stuff. This is the stuff where you’re showing up is you.

Again, it’s that behind the scenes, it’s what you’re doing in your business. It’s how you’re staying afloat. It’s how you’re balancing being a photographer and a mom. It’s the things you’re doing this fall, and it’s not all photo related. Okay? It can be about your journey with a personal stylist, or the trip to the pumpkin patch, or how you’re decorating your porch, or this new diet that you’re doing this fall or whatever.

Okay? Fill in the blank. Personal connection content. This is the easiest to create because you’re not having to think of quote unquote marketing things, but again, it’s keeping your audience warm. You are staying top of mind. You’re giving them a chance to connect with you and to like you, and to resonate with what you’re sharing and being interested in that without selling all the time.

So that’s another thing that you can do. It’s keeping, it’s marketing your business without selling because you’re marketing yourself and that’s really easy content to do. And yes, you can do it on social media, but you can a hundred percent do it on your email list. If you are somebody who wants to continue blogging and enjoys the writing process, you can blog about that kind of stuff too.

It does not have to be complicated, my friends. Not everything has to be about what your current offer is and what you’re currently trying to sell out and what’s currently happening. Stop thinking about it that way. When you are busy and in busy seasons, we’re just looking for consistency. We’re just looking for ways that you can continue to show up without completely falling off the map.

I’m gonna give you a couple of really short, quick tips to make things maybe easier for you. Um, number one, if you are not a fan of like voice notes, start using voice notes. Okay. Talk about a time saver, everything now transcribes, like every kind of voice note, any kind of app you use that has voice notes, gives you the transcription feature at this point.

Transcribe your captions. I mean, it may only save you 10 seconds of typing, but 10 seconds is 10 seconds, especially when you are in a season of overwhelm. Transcribe everything. You can also, if you’re a fan of transcription, uh, you can voice, note and transcribe your entire blog posts. I did that for years, so that can really be a gift for you.

Another thing. I already said this, but I’m mentioning it. Mentioning it again because it’s worth it. Share b-roll share behind the scenes real life. What’s going on in your life? What did you have for breakfast? What’s, where did you go for your latte? Are you scouting locations? Um, what did you have for lunch today?

Show your messy desk or your stack of cards or whatever. Those little snippets, it does not have to be polished, in fact. Honestly, the messier stuff is the better it does these days. Anyways, stop worrying about, oh my gosh, if I’m gonna post something, it’s gonna take me 10 minutes. No, it’s not. Take the photo, share it to stories, put you know, three sentences over it or nothing over it for that matter, just so that your account is active.

Again, I mentioned this earlier, but on social, I don’t want you to feel like it needs to be all or nothing. It’s not. I either post every day or I don’t post at all. Change your expectation with yourself. When you’re busy. Allow yourself to say, you know what? One feed post is amazing. I’m gonna do that. I’m gonna sprinkle in fun real stories when I can, but I’m gonna commit to one feed post so that I stay active and alive.

And that’s it. Let yourself have that breather. Yeah, I want you to pick it up and go harder when you can, but it’s better than nothing. And then I want you to continue to schedule one email per month. You are busy, but you need to stay present. And again, this email, let’s let it focus on simple connection.

What are you reading this month? What’s the best thing you ordered online this month? What are you currently binging? What’s the best date night you’ve had? It does not have to be this long, beautifully written prose. It does not have to have all of these offers and all of this availability just show up.

Done is better than perfect. Give yourself grace in the season. How can you pull back but still show up and market your business? The last thing I wanna warn you of before I wrap this quick episode is I wanna give you a permission slip. Let’s say this is, this is me giving you permission, my friend. It is okay to scale back.

It is okay to simplify. It is okay to do less in this season. It is okay to continue to show up for your business, but on the teeniest, tiniest little scale, just don’t disappear. The balance of giving yourself permission, especially for those of you that are the doers and the go-getters and the Enneagram threes that only like to win.

I’m really talking to you here. Allow yourself, give yourself permission to go slower, lighter, easier, simpler. This balance, this permission slip, is going to be what makes marketing sustainable for you in the busy season. I also wanna remind you that if you are silent now, if you completely pull back now, it is going to be harder to ramp back up later.

That’s just the way it is. I’m sorry. I’m just being real and honest with you. It’s the truth. My friends that I coach that completely step away from marketing and then they get back in, they have a harder time getting going. They’ve lost all their momentum. Their audience has lost all that momentum and it’s harder to get going.

I don’t want that for you. Allow yourself to scale back and not completely fall off so that you don’t go full silent. I want you to continue going slowly so that come January, you have your energy back, you have your momentum back, you’re ready to dive in, and you also still have things moving forward.

You still have an audience that’s engaging with you. You still have people opening your emails. You have not fully fallen off, and so there’s still things leads coming into your pipeline. Momentum is built now. When you are super busy, how you handle things now is what is going to be the momentum that takes you into next year, even if it’s really light.

Tiny touches with your audience. Just to wrap this up, it does not have to be an all out marketing season. You’re at capacity. I get it. I’ve been there. I’m right there with you. You are at capacity. Just show up in little tiny ways, and I promise you will thank yourself later. This isn’t really the time for you to jump into a course, like no, absolutely not.

However, if you feel like listening to this, it resonated with you, but also you kind of always consistently struggle with marketing and you’re tired of the runaround and never knowing what you’re doing and feeling good about it, just take that as maybe a little sign, a little, a little nudge. Maybe you should grab my marketing that attracts course.

You could grab it now, but put a pin in it. I do not want you to start a course right now, but maybe you should grab it and commit to going through it in January because let’s, let’s get off the hamster wheel. Let’s get off the struggle. Let’s finally have a marketing strategy and a depth of understanding so that we know what to do to call in these ideal clients and have the business that we want.

That’s it for today, my friends. We’ll see you next time. Thanks so much for listening to the Shoot at Straight podcast. You can find all the full show notes and details from today’s episode@sabrinagehart.com slash podcast. Come find me and connect over on the gram at Sabrina Gehart Photography. If you’re loving the podcast, I’d be honored if you hit that subscribe button and leave me a review.

Until next time, my friends. Shoot it straight.