135: Do THIS With Your Marketing For Better Results

Welcome to the shoot it straight podcast. I’m your host, Sabrina Gephardt. Here, I will share an honest take on what it’s like to be a female creative entrepreneur while balancing business, motherhood, and life. Myself, along with my guests, will get vulnerable through honest conversations and relatable stories because we’re willing to go there.

If you’re trying to find balance in this exciting place you’re in, yet willing to talk about the hard stuff too. The shoot it straight podcast is here to share practical and tangible takeaways to help you shoot it straight.

Welcome back to the shoot it straight podcast. My friends today, we’re talking about marketing. We’re still talking about marketing because it’s that time of year where Slow season is wrapping up and inquiries are starting to trickle in and we’re starting to think about the spring and summer and fall offerings.

And so marketing should be on your brain. And if it’s not, I’m hoping that this episode, the last episode, the series that I’ve been in is kind of getting you there, but Today, I’m going to give you like one quick hot tip. This is just going to be a little quick little marketing nugget that I want you to take with you.

So marketing experts are constantly telling you to do this and that, and you’re probably confused, right? You see something on social media or you read something or you hear something from a business bestie. You try it. And then you hear something else and so you try another thing and you keep doing it over and over again, right?

You keep trying to try all the things that all the experts quote unquote are telling you to do and nothing ever seems to work. And you’re wondering why this is the case. How are people saying that this strategy works, this technique works and yet you can never seem to get any traction and you’re frustrated.

I get it. I hear this all the time over and over again. I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that marketing is super easy and straightforward. It is not. If you are frustrated, if you’ve been trying things, if you feel like you’re spinning your wheels, my friend, you’re not alone. Marketing is not easy.

There are entire undergraduate and graduate degrees on this topic. There are so many nuanced details and strategies based on. What type of business you have, what kind of customers you have, where you’re located, what your industry is. I mean, it’s a whole thing. What I’m going to do today is I’m going to, again, give you one little nugget, something that if you add this into what you’re doing, if you try to do this, if you focus on just this one thing for a little bit, you’re going to see a big difference.

What I see most photographers doing is like I said, they’re trying all the things. They’re trying all the things from all the experts that they’re following online. They’re trying to do the same things that their competitors are doing. They’re trying to do what they read about in a book or what they heard about in a course or in a group or from a, you know, an expert.

They’re trying to do all the things and they’re not being consistent with anything. So we photographers, we want to see immediate results. We want to do a thing one time and have an inquiry land in our inbox or multiple inquiries land in our inbox, and we’re frustrated when that doesn’t happen, and that’s just not how things go.

Gone are the days where we can simply throw out an offer online and have it booked immediately. Gone are the days where a sale or a special promotion are enough to bring in bookings. Gone are the days where our beautiful portfolio is enough to get us inquiries. If you’ve been in business long enough to remember those good old days, when all of those super simple strategies worked, yes, they used to, and yes, it was.

A decade ago. Here’s the thing. It doesn’t work anymore. You need to change your mindset and your strategy because those simple things of dropping a promotion of sharing your portfolio of throwing a new offer out there just to get bookings. That doesn’t work anymore. Stop thinking that it does. We need to change the mindset.

You need to know going in that any marketing strategy or technique that you implement is going to take some time and we’re going to try some new things. Okay. So in case you didn’t know this, if you’re new to the podcast or maybe you haven’t been paying attention, I have a marketing course and it’s called marketing that attracts.

This course breaks down five organic marketing strategies for photographers, helps you understand how they work together and how you can build a successful strategy on your own. So I’m going to just drop that right here. If you do need deep marketing support, I highly recommend it and I’m going to have it linked in the show notes.

But today I’m giving you one simple tip that is going to change how you market your business. This tip is the underlying principle for the entire course that I have. The entire course is based on this one principle. I have coached hundreds of photographers with this one strategy over the years, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that it works.

Here’s your big tip. Are you ready? I want you to focus on building relationships. That’s it. It’s not about creating email sequences or marketing maps or launch timelines or a killer social media strategy. And yes, all of those things are great and they will definitely make a big impact on your marketing if they’re done well.

But if you are currently overwhelmed and frustrated with your marketing efforts, instead of overwhelming you with all of those detailed strategies, if you can do this one thing for 30 to 60 days. If you can focus on one marketing thing for 30 to 60 days, I want you to focus on building relationships. I promise that you will see a big difference in your results.

So you’re probably thinking, all right, Sabrina, what does that even mean? Don’t worry, I’ve got you. I’m going to explain. So, When you use your marketing channels, let’s define those your social media, your emails, your blogs. I want you to use those channels to focus on relationship building. What that means is you are focusing on creating personal connection between you And your potential clients between you and the person that is viewing your marketing on the other end.

This may sound complicated or convoluted if you’ve never done it before, but trust me, it’s actually super duper easy. The goal of relationship marketing. Of marketing that focuses on relationships is this you want your potential clients to fall in love with you. You want them to fall in love with you the person so that when they need a photographer in the future, they can’t fathom hiring anyone else.

They are obsessed with you. They adore you. They immediately reach out to book a session when the time is right for them because you have created a connection. You have built a relationship. Friends, this has happened to me so many times over the years. I can’t tell you how many times I have received an email or a DM from a new client who’s telling me that she’s followed me for years and she’s finally pregnant and she can’t wait to finally hire me for her own newborn session.

How did that happen? I use marketing as a way to connect with potential clients. I do want to insert a important side note here. If you are following me on Instagram, currently in real time, you won’t see much of my content or my marketing geared towards my photography business anymore. That’s intentional.

I’m not growing that part of my business anymore. I still photograph clients and I work with new clients. They come to me through referrals and Google. But the vast majority of my marketing these days, these days, it’s geared towards you, my fellow photographers. So just in case you’re hearing this and you’re like, I want to see it in real time, I’m going to go check out what Sabrina’s doing on Instagram.

Just know I’m not aiming my marketing toward photographers. I mean, I’m not aiming my marketing towards clients, photo clients, I’m aiming them towards you. So how do you do this? What does this look like? How do you create connection and build relationships with your marketing? Like I said, it’s super, super, super easy.

I’m going to give you four little tips for this, for this relationship marketing. Okay. Number one, share about things that you and your ideal clients have in common. Make a list of all the things that you like and that you could talk about at the drop of a hat. Maybe it’s books, plants, food, naptime, shopping, baby routines, whatever that is.

Then I want you to consider what’s on your ideal client’s list. What could they talk about all the time? Step into their shoes. And then when you look at both of those lists, there will be a cross section that overlaps. There will be similarities. That’s where I want you to start. Those are the things that I want you to talk about.

Those are the things that I want you to start sharing about. And I know it’s going to feel counterintuitive because I’m not asking you to share about photos. Or your offers. Remember we’re focusing on building relationships. We’re focusing on creating connection. How do you get your ideal clients to connect with you by talking about things that you both have in common?

I want to interrupt this episode to tell you about a totally free 21 day challenge that is. starting very soon. So one of the questions I get asked the most as a business coach is about marketing. Photographers are constantly asking me how to get more inquiries from ideal clients, how to make social media actually work for them, and how to feel more effective and consistent in their marketing.

And while they’re asking these questions, I often hear the same frustrations. Marketing feels tedious. Nothing seems to work. I can’t stay consistent. It’s overwhelming. My friend, if that sounds familiar, I have something so exciting to share. I’m hosting a free 21 day marketing challenge in March called Magical Momentum, and I want you to join us.

Here’s how it works. You’ll get 21 days of fresh done for you marketing prompts designed to help you show up with ease, connect with your ideal clients and get out of that marketing rut. And the best part, you won’t be doing it alone because we will have a group Instagram chat where you can cheer each other on, share your wins.

Stay motivated and ask questions. If you’re ready to build momentum, make marketing feel fun again, and connect with your ideal clients in just 21 days, join the challenge at sabrinagebhart. com backslash challenge. Let’s make marketing magic together this March. Tip number two, share about things that you would if you were at a play date or a social event or in a text thread with your besties.

Stop overthinking it. Consider your marketing messages to be for one person. One person. When you think about your monthly email that you send out or the Instagram stories that you’re sharing, instead of asking yourself what does everyone want to hear about, ask yourself what one person wants to hear about.

Speak to her. And speak to her, again, the same way that you would speaking to a woman in a face to face social situation. What are you talking about? I am venturing to guess it’s probably going to be one of the things that I mentioned in tip number one, the stuff that you guys have in common. Okay. Speak to one person and talk to her like you would if she was in person.

Stop stressing out about being on a screen or behind a computer. Connect with people the same way you do in person. Tip number three, stop trying to make everything about your work and your business and start letting it be about you as a person and your life. Yes. You need to sell sometimes, and that’s another conversation for another day.

But hear me when I say this, when you use your marketing to build connection and focus on relationships, selling also becomes so much easier and you become more successful with it. Again, your audience has become obsessed with you and they’re ready to purchase when you do sell. So stop trying to think about, okay, in this email today in my Instagram stories today on my blog today, how can I sell?

How can I promote these offers? Remember for the next 30 to 60 days, we’re focusing on building relationships and connecting with our ideal clients. Stop making it about your work all the time. Tip number four. This one is so big, but honestly it makes the biggest difference. Stop taking everything so seriously.

We are so lucky that as photographers and creative entrepreneurs, our businesses are innately fun. We create art. We create beauty. We do something that is personal and joyful. So why do we act like our marketing efforts are life and death? They’re not lighten up. Have fun. Again, give yourself 30 to 60 days where the only thing that you are focusing on across all of your marketing channels is connection and relationship building, and then just see how fun and easy it gets.

And here’s the kicker. You’re probably thinking, okay, Sabrina, great. This sounds great and fun, but I need to book clients over the next 30 to 60 days. I can’t wait to sell. I hear you. And are you ready for my response? You will get inquiries and book clients during this period. People aren’t going to forget that you’re a photographer.

They will still see your work and you’re behind the scenes. They will still find your website and look at your portfolio. Just trust me on this little experiment. Now that I’ve shared what this can look like and why it’s so important, this strategy of focusing on building relationships and connecting with your ideal clients.

I want to share an example with you. I have a student in my membership, the round table. She participated in a hot seat, which is like mini mentoring, uh, with me about a year ago, Katie was struggling to show up on social media. She knew that she was missing out on the marketing possibilities over there, but she was honestly terrified.

She was terrified of. People thinking that she was being silly. She was terrified of showing her face. She was terrified of people like thinking like, what is she doing and judging her? And so on this mini mentoring in this hot seat, we talked through it and we talked about, well, Katie, what type of content do you like to consume?

Well, shockingly enough, she loves to consume when people are talking face to camera or sharing behind the scenes of what’s going on with their day. Or parenting tips or funny stories, she loves that kind of content. And so I flipped the script on her and I said, is it possible that your followers and your ideal clients love that kind of content too?

She said yes. And so then I coached her through getting started with using social media specifically as a way to create connection and to start slowly. I told her that I absolutely did not expect her to immediately go from never sharing anything personal to talking to face to camera all the time, every single day, like an influencer.

No, no, no. We’re not doing that. We’re going to take slow, tiny, baby steps. And I gave her some encouragement on how to start, how to start simple and small, and here’s what happened. So I follow Katie on social media. Um, I follow all of my students and I love to see what they’re doing and encourage them and cheer them on.

And I immediately started to notice a shift. I started to see her sharing stories. I started to see her share things that were not related to her business, little snippets of her day, of her children, selfies, various things. And over time it has grown and grown and grown. And I can literally see her blossoming over there.

I can see it become easier and more fun. She’s taking it less seriously. So I sent her a message the other day and I said, Hey, I’m going to share your story in the podcast. I would love to hear from you. How’s it going? How is it affecting your business and your client relationships and your inquiries?

Like what’s happening now that you have lightened up over there and you’ve gotten over your fear and you’ve done the thing. And she sent me several voice memos telling me about how much higher her engagement is. How she gets feedback and responses, people ask questions, they reach out about wanting sessions on this, that, and the other, and it’s just created a more fun atmosphere.

She did not tell me that her, you know, she’s flooded with inquiries. That’s not what we’re trying to do. Remember, we’re trying to create connection. We’re trying to create a space where when your clients are ready to hire someone, it’s you. It’s always you because they love you. We were just working on specifically social media for her, but I want you to hear that this makes a difference.

She went from being terrified that she was going to look silly. And that what’s the point and social media never does anything for me and I share my images and my offers over there and it’s just quiet and, and I don’t get any kind of interaction to now she’s more playful over there. She shares more life and more stories and more personal things, things that her audience will connect with.

And her engagement over there, it has, has done a 180. It’s completely different. She’s getting comments and messages and people are sharing things and it’s working. So imagine if you were to do that on social media and then also do the same thing in your email and on your blog. And again, just focus on it for a little bit to see what happens.

When you stop putting so much pressure on your marketing to only sell all the time and only share your offers and only share your portfolio. And when you loosen up a little bit and have fun and create a space to connect and build relationships with your clients and your future clients, it gets so much easier.

It gets so much more fun and I want you to experience this. Okay. So that’s why I gave you this quick little dirty episode today with this little marketing tip. And I really would love your feedback on this. If you’ve never tried this, I want you to commit to trying this. I want you to commit to building this into what you’re already doing, or if you’re not doing anything, focus on this one thing.

And if you have done this before, you’ve heard me talk about it before. Maybe you just organically started trying it on your own. Like you had an intuitive hit that that’s what you should be doing. Come tell me how it’s working. Come tell me how it’s working when you focus on connection. Not only do we build those relationships with our potential clients where they have to hire us when they need photos.

When we’re the only people they can imagine hiring again, it makes it so much easier when you are selling your offers. Because they are just obsessed with you and they want to work with you when you have these new things coming out. But it also makes being a small business owner, not so lonely. When we start actually getting that feedback from our audience, they hit reply to our emails, they send us DMS, they leave us comments on things.

It’s those little nudges of like, Hey. I’m not just screaming into the void. People are paying attention. They’re interested. They’re responding. I’m not in this alone. And I’m telling you again, I’ve said it a hundred times in this episode. It just makes the whole thing more fun. And marketing can be real fun.

Okay. So if you’re not having fun with your marketing, definitely give this a try. Alrighty, my friends. Again, this was a quick, quick little episode about marketing. I’m really excited to hear your feedback on it. I would love for you to send me a DM on Instagram at Sabrina Gebhardt photography. Let me know what you thought.

I would love to hear from you. That’s it for today. My friends. We’ll see you next week. Thanks so much for listening to the shoot it straight podcast. You can find all the full show notes and details from today’s episode at Sabrina Gebhardt dot com backslash podcast. Come find me and connect over on the gram at Sabrina Gebhardt 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.