136: Marketing Jar Approach with Dayna Schaaf

Sabrina: On today’s episode of the shoot it straight podcast, I have my friend Dana Shoff with me, and we are talking all about marketing. And I’m going to tell you right now, grab your pen, grab a notebook, because this episode is jam packed with actionable steps, tangible takeaways. It is like a full on masterclass in marketing.

So even if you think your marketing is kind of going okay for you, I promise there is something that you are going to take away from this episode and I can’t wait for you to hear it. So let’s dive in. 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 to 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, I’m so glad to have my friend Dana shop back with us. We are diving straight into some marketing goodness today, which is something that she and I both love to talk about. So I know that this conversation is going to have us dropping some serious knowledge so get out your notebook and your pin and get ready to put your marketing hat on and learn some lessons that are going to really help you reach some new clients and Help your business to get out there more because that’s what we all want is more eyes on our business more inquiries more clients And we’re going to go there today with marketing, but it’s been a minute since you’ve been on the podcast.

So before we dive in Dana, will you introduce yourself to the listeners?

Dayna: Sure. Hi guys. My name is Dana. I am the marketing director over at this can’t be that hard, um, which is an education platform for photographers. But before I worked there, I worked individually with photographers and other solopreneurs helping them learn how to market their businesses.

So I have been in the marketing space for over a decade at this point. And I feel like You know, I really love helping people figure out, it feels like a puzzle to me, figuring out how to unlock your marketing for your individual business. It’s a little bit different for every single person. And I think with photography specifically, there’s like a little bit of, you know, specialness that we have to like tease out there and try to figure out how to make a marketing plan that works for you.

So I’m hoping that’s what we can get into today.

Sabrina: Yeah, I’m really excited about it. And I do think, I don’t know if marketing, I don’t know why marketing feels so hard for photographers. Is it because they didn’t come from a business background for the most part? Is it because they think their photos should market themselves?

Like, But it is a thing. It is a thing. You see it all the time. I see it all the time. Like people struggle with two primary things that we both talk about pricing and marketing. Yes. Those are like the two big hangups that people feel like if they can get under control, it’ll be all unicorns and rainbows.

Right. It’s just hard. There is strategy in marketing, even as a solopreneur artist, like you still have to have a marketing plan. So today we’re talking about this really unique way of looking at your efforts that you call a marketing jar. So I want you to tell me what is this all about? Sure.

Dayna: Okay. So I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this story before.

It’s like this little Fable or I don’t know story where somebody gets up and they they say they have this jar Okay, so I want you guys to visualize this as I’m telling this story They have this glass jar and they put a bunch of rocks in the jar and they fill it all the way up with rocks And they say to the crowd is this jar full and they say yes it is and then the person says hold on one second and they grab like a handful of pebbles and they sort of drop them in the top and they like Blinko in between all the little, you know, rocks and they fill in the spaces and they’re like, how about now?

Now is the jar full? And they’re like, oh yeah, you’re right. Now the jar is full. And the person’s like, hold on one second. Actually they take a handful of sand and they pour it in the top. And the audience is like, surely now the jar is full, right? And then the last step, they take a glass of water and they pour it into the jar.

And they’re like, now actually the jar is full. And normally I hear this story told around like time management, like you do the things that are the most important to you first, but I think it really works for marketing too. So let me just label everything, give everything an assignment. So your water is your social media.

Your sand is going to be your weekly emails. Your pebbles are going to be things like blog posts or other things that you might do like monthly for your marketing for your business. And then your rocks Are those bigger, like, maybe two to three times a year events or networking opportunities that you have?

And the issue that I see with people as they are building their marketing jar is they’re doing water first. So everybody’s like, social media, social media, social media. And I think this goes back to what you were saying, is like, people do feel like their photos should speak for themselves. And that’s only one, that’s actually like the advertising side of marketing is like your photos themselves, right?

The marketing side of it, and I think why people struggle with this so much is because marketing requires you to actually take yourself outside of the business. And like, look at, how can I get people to pay attention to my photos? It’s not, can I get people to see that these photos are good. It’s like, I need people, just eyeballs on these photos.

Like, you’re running an art gallery, how do I get people in the door, right? And that is a little bit of a strategy that is hard for people, is to like, remove yourself from the situation and talk about yourself. I think that’s the other thing that’s hard. People struggle to talk about themselves. So I see people do it on social media, and they put, you know, they fill up their jar with water, so again, let’s go back to that visualization.

Imagine now, we did it backwards, and we filled the jar all the way up with water, and then we put sand in. Okay, did you ever do this at the beach, where you like, put water in a bucket, and then you put sand in, and then you made like a drippy sand castle, right? Okay, maybe that would work, sand in the water, but then if you start putting pebbles and rocks in, what happens?

Your water overflows, right? So you get completely overwhelmed with your marketing. And I think that’s what happens to a lot of people is we start with social media. We fill up our capacity with social media. And then when we try to put in these bigger pieces that actually are more impactful than social media, we’re completely overwhelmed and now we’re burned out.

So my hope today is that we can talk about how you can flip the script on that. Let’s start with our rocks and plan our marketing for the whole year. So that basically everything is supporting the rocks that we’ve put into the jar, right? We’re going to start with our rocks, then we’ll fill in our pebbles, then our sand, and then we’ll just fill in the cracks with water.

And I think maybe a little side benefit of this will be that social media won’t feel so overwhelming because you won’t feel like you’re depending on it so much because you’ve got this whole marketing plan working for you.

Sabrina: I love that so much. And that’s such a great visualization. We could talk about each one of those things for a whole podcast episode separately, but I love starting with the bigger things and then whittling your way down.

And also one thought that came to my mind is when everyone is starting with social media. What happens when you do get somebody from social media it when you have put all your efforts into that and your website is lacking or your you don’t email your list or you have no blogs like there’s nothing there.

There’s nothing fruitful on the other side of it when you’re putting all of your time and energy into this thing that just disappears, you know, 100 percent and then like how hard

Dayna: is it to get somebody from social media. To actually, like, follow through, I think everybody would say that’s pretty difficult.

If you don’t have the structure, exactly what you’re saying, set up to catch them when they are interested, like, if you’re not pulling them over to your email list or you’re not giving them a website that has a pop up that they can, that you can, like, capture their information so that you can keep in touch with them.

Or maybe you do have that set up, but now you’re not, you don’t have an email list, or you’re not emailing them regularly. You are putting so much, it’s like literally just letting sand run through, I mean holding water in your hands, we’ll stick with water, it’s just like picking up water, it’s just gonna run right through your hands, and you’re gonna burn yourself out.

You’re picking up water, it’s running right through your hands. You’re picking up water, it’s running right through your hands. So You have to build those other structures first in order for social media to really be more effective because then when it does hit, you’re going to have the systems built to capture all the people.

Sabrina: Exactly, exactly. And that’s where, like you said, you can sprinkle it in and have like A way more simple social media strategy where you’re not having to show up all day, every day to work so hard just for the water to run through your crack, the cracks, you know, like you’re actually, you can put in less effort and have the people stick around because you have like that foundation laid.

So I love that. And I’m curious what your thoughts are. Why do you think everybody starts in reverse? Why do you think people are starting with social media?

Dayna: I think it just feels easy, right? Like the, the barrier is pretty low, like, especially for photographers, uh, in other niches, actually, I don’t see people gravitate towards it as quickly, but as photographers, it’s a visual medium, right?

And so Instagram lends itself to that. So it’s really easy to be like, I have these beautiful photos. They should speak for themselves. I’m just going to post these and people should just be like. I’ll hire you, right? And I think there was a point in time where that it really was that easy because it was like Instagram was new and digital photography was a little bit new and people didn’t have phones that took really great photos.

So like, you know, that was sort of a 10 years ago solution. And now we have to catch up with the times. Again, it’s like, make sure that you’re putting your effort where it counts. So that the whole point is so that you don’t burn yourself out. And I know that’s what you coach on all the time is like, we have to work smarter here.

Let’s talk about how we can start with rocks, and what does a rock, like, look like, and when should you do them? I actually have seen you doing a rock right now. You’re doing these, like, personality portraits?

Sabrina: Is that what they are? Yeah, yeah. Once a year. I do personality portraits generally in February, sometimes January.

And I thought of them six or seven years, seven years ago, I think at this point as a way to serve my existing clients outside of busy season. And I wanted it to be a micro offer, a no brainer expense. I didn’t want it to be, even though I’m a more expensive photographer, this is meant to be cheap and quick.

Like that’s what it’s for. They’re a win win. I get to serve my existing clients. I also have new clients come in that have always wanted to see what the fuss about is about, like, so to speak, like, is she worth it? And so they get to slide into this cheap price point, test me out, see how I am with their kids.

And then they become full paying clients. But they’re so fun for me too because creatively they’re different than anything I do. So I do these once a year and like you’re saying, it’s a once a year thing. So it has a big lead up, a big T, it gets a lot of attention and then it’s done. It’s like a

Dayna: one big push.

But I think what’s key, I want to point out to you guys. So I wanted Sabrina to explain that from a photographer’s point of view because a couple of things that you said, number one, you do it in your not busy season. That’s important. As photographers, I think every, every niche has a, has peaks and valleys.

That’s a huge business struggle that we need to get our minds around is like, we’re not bringing home the same paycheck every single month, right? And so in order to sort of even out those peaks and valleys, it’s important to plan your rocks in a not busy season. Plan them, look at your year and be like, Hmm, it’s usually quiet in January or February.

I’m going to plan a rock there. So that’s the first thing I want to point out. Number two, I love that you were like, this is a no brainer expense. I want to lower the barrier to entry so much so that people are just like, I, I have to do this. I would be silly. It would be silly if I didn’t do this. Right.

And it not only provides value to your regular clients, your existing clients, but it brings in new business as well and supports your big, your overall business, those clients then go on to become bigger clients. Right. And number three, this is repeatable. You have been doing this for six or seven years.

Now, I’m sure the first time that you did this, it felt like a big lift. It was like pretty, you know, like, okay, I gotta get my head around this. How do I price it? How do I do it? Where do I do it? Like, there’s a bunch of questions. So the first time that you plan a rock event, It’s going to be a lot of work like that.

So I want you to make sure as you’re thinking about your rock event that you’re like, is this duplicatable? Can I do this every single year? Because the first time it is going to be the most work. But if you’re thinking in a big picture kind of point of view, you’re like, okay, I’m going to do this every year in January or February.

So next time the lift will be half as much. And then the time after that, even half that. So think about something that you can duplicate over and over again. Think about something that serves your current market but makes it really easy to bring in new people. And then number three, make sure that you’re doing it in that like slower valley of your business.

So I love, for family photographers, that might be like, you know, like you’re saying, school portraits, personality portraits, it could be, you know, like, any kind of like, a mini session. Anami did these splash sessions one summer where she like, did underwater photos of kids. Like, it’s just something, and you know, actually I want to point out a fourth thing that you said.

It stokes your creativity. Do something fun, like, do something that, like, lights the artist inside of you so that you have fun, your clients have fun. And, like, again, these are not their family photos that they’re getting for the Christmas card. This is, like, something fun and different that is, like, just, like, a unique photo of their kid or their pet or themselves or their, you know, whatever that is different that they, you know, that that might give them something to latch on to.

Like, they might be like, I have enough pictures of my kids. Smiling and looking at the camera. But what I don’t have are these pictures of them running through puddles or playing in the snow or, you know, whatever. So I like that as the sort of bonus, like fourth thing is like make it fun, make it creative for yourself.

Sabrina: Yeah. Uh, it’s been, and it’s been so good for my business. It’s something that my clients now like eat up and they wait for. And as soon as the doors open, I mean, the thing sells out really fast because they just can’t wait. But it’s also like the quick cash injection that my photography business needs.

That does not take a lot of time because like you said, I have worked out the kinks and perfected it over the years. It is a few hours of my time that makes me four or 5, 000. The editing is quick. The calling is quick. I mean, I have this sucker down. But it’s just enough of an injection to like help get you through busy season when nobody else is, you know, booking anything.

But I have a question. So when, when you say rocks and you know, events, this kind of thing, would there ever be a situation where it’s not actually photos where it’s like a collaborative type thing in your community or something like that?

Dayna: Yeah. I think what you want to think about in terms of a rock is it is a way to inject new people into your business.

So. This is one actually, you know, offering some kind of photo session, but another way would be like a networking event. Like, you know, if you get the opportunity to donate to a silent auction or, you know, do some kind of collaborative charity fundraising event, those would all be rock type events, right?

They take a little, a lot of your time. They almost take like, I want you to think about your, you know, your year in quarters. It would be like a, a quarter’s worth of. marketing mental energy, right? Like it’s a, it’s a bigger deal. Like it’s something that you’re not going to do in a week or even a month.

It’s going to take six to 12 weeks to kind of like think of the idea, reach out to people about it, prep it, final, you know, the first, especially the first time around, like it takes a lot of time. So if you are sort of new to planning a marketing strategy for your business and you don’t have something already that you could categorize as a rock.

Just start with one, and then if that goes well, give yourself two for the year. That should be plenty, including, like, your busy season is its own boulder, right? These other rocks, like, one to two in your first year of, like, building this marketing plan is plenty. So, we’re listening now, you know, it’s, like, we’re in Q1.

Maybe your Q2 is also a little bit slow. So, like, plan one for Q2, and if that goes well, you could plan one for Q3, right? Don’t overwhelm yourself. Like, just look at the path right in front of you and just start with one. And again, I want to just hit this again home. Make sure it’s duplicatable so that you can do this again next year, right?

But yeah, I think you’re right. Sometimes it can actually be sessions, but sometimes it could just be a collaboration. Maybe there’s a dance studio in your town that wants to do, like, you know, some kind of, like, portraits. Try to find, I always try to think about when I’m thinking about marketing, I’m always like, think about your ideal client in a Venn diagram with other businesses and like, what overlap do you have?

If you’re like a newborn photographer, what businesses also serve the same clientele as you, where you could have some kind of overlap.

Sabrina: Yeah. I love that. Yeah. I think there’s so many ideas for collaboration as. They’re not specifically photo related, like you’re there as the photographer representative, but like example, like if I’m, you know, a newborn photographer, then maybe myself and a newborn boutique and a lactation consultant and a da, da, da, da, da.

Maybe we co host like a women’s shopping night at a local something or other like where I’m just there and I’m meeting people and I’m answering questions and I’m out in the community and. I’m probably having a way for people to sign up for something and give me their email address, but it’s not photo, like I’m not, my camera’s not there.

I’m just there to meet people. And

Dayna: please, you must have a way for people to get on your email. Like, okay, so let’s pause and talk on that. You have to have a way for these people to stay in touch with you. If you don’t have an email list set up yet, just print out a piece of paper and give, have people like name, email, and phone number, like, I’d love to stay in touch.

Like, I send one to two emails a month with, you know, sometimes I say stuff like, I share, you know, special offers and fun tips for da da da da da da da, and I send one to two emails a month. Most people will be like, great, sounds good. If you’re a little more savvy and you already have like an email signup form, you can bring an iPad or your computer and people can sign up that way.

But that is so important. I see people all the time putting a lot of energy into these events. And again, water through your fingers. It’s just like people are showing up and then you’re just letting them walk right out the door. Don’t do that. Make sure that you’re figuring out a way to stay in touch with people.

To your point, this could just be, you know, like, I’m now thinking about in the summer, there’s always like, you know, parades, family events, things like that, like, you could show up and, you know, be a part of an event, like a, let’s call it like a 4th of July, you know, parade for families, You know, I saw somebody do this where they just set up like a little, they had a booth at a thing and they did have their camera, but they were just offering like a quick snap for people for free.

And then they were like offering their email address and it was just like a one off, you know, get a picture of your family today. You’re all dressed up and looking cute for the 4th of July. And then they were able to grow their email list by a bunch. So that’s the goal of a rock event. We’re trying to get more eyeballs into our marketing world, specifically onto our email list.

Sabrina: Yeah. And I love that you say, don’t try and do more than two of those because When you think about like, you know, Jane, the local photographer, you can only serve so many people. And so truly every, every single name you get on your email list is gold because that’s another potential client. Like if you’re creating so many events that you are, have hundreds of email addresses pouring in, uh, you can’t serve all those people anyways.

You know, so like, yeah, it’s kind of like really focusing on the small, more intentional. Like if you could get five or 10 names from something like that’s awesome. As opposed to like, I need to go to every convention and get hundreds. Like that’s not doing you any favors. That’s a

Dayna: quality over quantity thing, right?

It’s like, make sure that again, so if you’re going back to your lactation consultant, like newborn for like that kind of event. Those people that are going to come to that are very much your ideal clients. So if you got five or ten of those, I would much prefer that than, you know, if you go, like you said, to like a bridal expo and got a hundred email addresses because you just can’t serve all of those people.

Sabrina: Okay, we talked about rocks, so you’re saying pebbles are the more, like, monthly type things. So, blogs, and what else would you, what else would go in there?

Dayna: I mean, I really think blogs are the main thing. If you do, like, if you are, like, a YouTube person, or you make videos, you could also put a specific type of social media in here, like, more of a long form type of social media, like, maybe you want to.

Spend a bit of time making a piece of content that is a bit more editing heavy, like a slideshow or something like that that you put a lot of effort into the issue with putting that on social media is who knows if it’ll do good or not, but like, you know, if you’re if you’re the type of person who does vlogging or blogging in this case, if you are a podcast person, like it’s stuff like that, where it’s things that you would do monthly, but I think for most photographers, blogging is where it’s at.

Oh, we could do, I have a whole nother episode on blogging, but I just want to say blogging is not dead, but the way we do blogging is different. And it’s sort of similar to the rock mentality in that you are not blogging individual family sessions, so to speak. Like, you’re not like, I, you know, here’s this family and dah, dah, dah.

Instead, you are thinking about things that people are Googling, your ideal clients. What are they Googling on a day to day basis? Where do I find? You know, these cute shoes for my kids or what are the best playgrounds in my neighborhood for three year olds? If you are able to give that kind of information in your blog and try to find a way that you can like intersect it.

So maybe it’s like. five family friendly hikes in your town that are photogenic. Like something along those lines where you’re able to cross over the idea of like photos with something that your ideal client is looking at. That’s the kind of blog that is going to live for a long time and get you the kind of traction that we’re looking for in those pebble type things.

If you’re not in the habit of blogging, one a month might feel like a lot. So do one every other month or one a quarter. Again, thinking long term here, I’d rather you spend the time to create a really awesome blog post that is going to feed Google for a long time than crank out 12 blog posts in a year that are just kind of like garbage, you

Sabrina: know?

I always recommend to people, uh, if you’re slow in January and February, bang out those blog posts. Yes, baby! Future you will be so happy when you’ve got stuff auto posting the rest of the year because you took care of it in the beginning. Uh, it’s not fun unless you happen to be one of those people that loves writing.

Most people don’t like it. Even if you do like writing, you probably don’t like this kind of writing. Um, because it is tedious and technical and it’s just not fun. It’s necessary. Like it’s absolutely necessary. And again, going back to what we said earlier, where if we’re spending any effort whatsoever on social media to pull people to our website, we want to have something for them while they’re there to make them stick around.

That’s where your blog comes in. Yes. Your photos. Yes. Your pricing guide. But like, if they click over to your blog and they’ve got these, these great pieces of content, like you said, that they’re like, Oh my gosh, I’ve been wondering about this, or I want to read this, or I want to know those five things.

They’re sticking around longer, which is helping Google and you’re, you’re getting a gold star for time on page and all of that. You have to have something on your website for them to ingest when they get there.

Dayna: Absolutely. And so this is kind of where the strategy comes into play. So let’s go back to your personality portraits.

Maybe you would write a blog post that’s like my best tips for getting real smiles from your kids or something along those lines, right? And then you write that blog post, that blog post. Now you can take that and make it. You could turn it into a lead magnet. You could turn it into several social media posts.

You can send little bits and pieces of it out in your emails. So again, by starting with that rock, your big picture idea, I’m going to collaborate with this business or whatever. Then you think about what kind of blog post could I write that would support that? How can I take that blog post and break it into emails?

Or what kind of emails will push people over to read that blog post? And then if you start thinking about, oh, what kind of social media posts can I do that will encourage people to hop onto my email list or to go read my blog post? As you go down the ladder into that marketing jar, everything is pushing towards the rock at the top right.

We’re we’re just directing people always, always back up to the top as opposed to the other way around.

Sabrina: That’s one of the things that when you, when I hear photographers grumble about like blogging and having to do it, and there’s just so much pushback because it’s time consuming and it’s boring and it’s not fun and all this.

I just am like, but are you forgetting how much content you can create from that work? Like it’s it’s going to pay off in so many different ways. Just do it already. Yes.

Dayna: Yeah. Yeah. You’re right. And it is, and again, it’s like, I get it. It’s a lot of work, but it is going to pay off as opposed to when I hear people grumble about like, I don’t want to make two reels a day.

I’m like, I get that. Cause we don’t know if that’s going to pay off or not. But we do know that a well written blog will pay off. It feeds Google, it feeds your email list, it feeds everything. So yes, that is something that is worth putting your time into. Yeah.

Sabrina: Yeah. A hundred percent. The sand you said is emails, which I love to talk about emails and I know you do too.

So talk to me about if I, if I’m the photographer that currently is sending like maybe two emails a year when I’ve got like many sessions open or something, how am I all of a sudden going to go from that to best case scenario? Like what’s my strategy?

Dayna: I hang up. I hear from a lot of people. It’s like, I don’t want to bother people with my emails.

So, number one, I actually think it’s rude to only send an email when you’re selling. Like, it’s like, that’s actually worse. You’re like the, you’re like the cousin who only texts you when they need money. Yeah, or like when their kid is selling Girl Scout cookies. Yeah. You’re like, great. Yeah. Good to hear from you.

Sabrina: Yeah. Like, that’s nice. Okay. It is. You’re literally just asking for money, asking for support. It’s, I agree with you 100 percent on that. It’s cringe. It is. It is. It

Dayna: is. You are going to go into email jail because if you don’t email your list every six weeks, you get dinged. So, I’m not going to spend a ton of time going into this.

I know a lot of photographers use Flowdesk. They have a blog post on this and it’s called Warming Up Your List. So if you haven’t emailed your list in a while, go look at that blog post. Learn how to warm up your list. Whether or not you use Flowdesk, that’s a great blog post. You could also just Google how to warm up your email list.

Now we know you have to email your list at least every six weeks, right? So what do you say? That’s the second thing that people are like, well, I don’t want to bug people and I don’t know what to say. You just have to talk to them like they’re your girlfriend that you’re catching up with like once a month.

You know what I mean? Like they just want to know kind of what is going on in your life. What is happening in your world behind the camera, you’re a real person, and my guess would be that a lot of your clients would be like your friends if you met in a different way, right, like you could see yourself probably being friendly with a lot of your clients, so take that sort of approach, and figure out again that Venn diagram, what do you have in common, if you’re a pet photographer, you know, you’re talking about your dogs, what did you do with your dogs that month, you know, if you are a family photographer, what are you doing with your kids that month, Maybe you’re sending out recipes for, like, kid friendly meals, or you’re, you know, sending out, you know, links for your favorite dog toys that people can keep and, you know, keep their animals busy with, or if you’re a newborn photographer, you, you know, you’re just offering resources to people, building karma, essentially, when you’re sending out these emails, so that people want to open your emails.

I’m making it sound a lot easier than it is, I know, writing emails is an art, but you will get better at it as you continue to do it. And so I would suggest right now at the top of the year, while you have the time, you sit down, you plan out your rocks, you plan out your pebbles, just give yourself, say, I’m going to send one email a month.

Do every month of the year and be like, okay, in January, I’m going to talk about, you know, my favorite soups. In February, I’m going to talk about, you know, my favorite date night spots. In March, I’m going to talk about, like, you want to think about what’s going to be topical for your people. Once you sit down and just kind of brainstorm out that idea, This is a great place where AI can come in and help you brainstorm.

Help me brainstorm five great date night, you know, topics for whatever town that you live in, right? That that’s the way you do it. You just think about something that’s topical and you talk to them like you’re talking to one of your girlfriends.

Sabrina: One of the things I’m asked about the most as a business coach for photographers is marketing.

Students want to know how to find their ideal clients. How often should they email their list? How can they use social media effectively? What makes a good blog post? You get it. Marketing is a beast. And if you’re like most photographers, you’re overwhelmed and probably pretty frustrated with the marketing part of your business.

My friend, if this sounds familiar, hear me when I say this. You are completely normal. There is so much out there about marketing books, blogs, courses, coaches, gurus, marketing specialists and social media accounts. And they’re all telling you to do something different unless you actually went to college for a marketing degree.

It’s no wonder you’re confused. You started your business because you love taking photos, not because you’re a marketing genius. But the truth is that marketing does play a big role. You do have to find clients. You do have to make money. And therefore, marketing is something that you do need to learn if you’re going to run a profitable and sustainable business for the long run.

The great news is I’m here to help. In my new course, marketing that attracts, I’m helping you filter through the noise and sharing five organic marketing strategies that actually work for photographers. And I’m giving you the inside scoop on how to do them ideas for what they can look like in your business and all the resources you need.

to have confidence in clarity to market your business. And don’t even get me started on all of the additional resources and bonuses inside this course. There are swipe files, templates, bonus trainings, organizational tools, worksheets, and how to videos all the way to your heart’s content. So if you’re ready to stop throwing spaghetti at the wall and get clear on a marketing strategy that will bring you results in your business, Check out marketing that attracts at the link in the show notes to learn more now back to the show.

I love that. And I say, I say the same thing. I’m like, you’re over complicating this, you know, if you know how to be personable with any human, which everybody does, like how, what would you talk about if you were at. A birthday party, a play date, cocktail hour, like whatever. What are you talking about with the women around you?

Assuming your clients are women, which maybe they’re not. But for me, they are. And so what am I talking about? We’re talking about our favorite finds on Amazon. We’re talking about hilarious stuff we saw on TikTok. We’re talking about what books we’ve read. We’re talking about parenting struggles for the age group.

The list is endless. When you think about it, like talking to one other counterpart, whoever you’re serving, it makes it so much easier instead of thinking about like, okay, well, I can only talk about photo related things. And so, no, you don’t know you, you want to talk about, you want to connect with people.

And guess what? You’re sure you want to take photos for them and you want to serve them in that way, but like, that’s not going to be the connection point, you know? And I love, you just gave everybody a bunch of great

Dayna: ideas. I love to read. So like, one thing you can do in your emails is say, Okay, every email, I’m going to split it into sections.

I’m going to talk about what’s happening in my life right now. I am going to offer them a resource that is like, Relevant to this time. So date ideas, offbeat date ideas. If you forgot to make Valentine’s plans, whatever. And of course you’re going to add some photos in there, but I know you guys can get creative and be like, look at, you know, here’s a session I did, or I did these personality portraits.

And another great thing is you could just add one photo, or you don’t even have to add them in your email. You could say click, like, get them excited and be like, I took these cute personality portraits with a hyperlink, and then they click over to, you know, some, to your website, now they’re over on your website.

And then maybe at, I love this strategy, in your PS, that is such valuable real estate, add something there that they start to expect from you. So I am a voracious reader. If I was sending out emails, I would be like, P. S. My favorite book this month was Boom. And so people who open my emails and are also readers, they’re going to start scrolling right to that P.

S. to be like, Ooh, what’s Dana’s book of the month pick? You know what I mean? There’s something like that that you’re really great at exactly that you would talk about at a cocktail party.

Sabrina: I love what you, you said this without saying it, but this is exactly what I say when I’m teaching marketing. Take the heavy lifting out of your emails and create a formula that you fill in the blank every single month.

So you said a story and then, you PS same thing. Like, I don’t care what your formula quote unquote is. But it makes it so much easier than looking at a big, fat, blank, empty, nothing. And you’re like, I don’t know what to put here. When you have a formula, you know, okay, well, let me go think about some links to grab and what’s a resource.

And then you can back into the little story that goes at the top and it becomes so much easier. So mine is a story. And then I give three links to things I’m loving that month. And it’s completely random. I try and fit some sort of toy or children’s thing in there. Sometimes it’s all mom related stuff.

And you know what? I don’t even think hard about it. I go to my Amazon account and I look through what I ordered this month and I pick stuff out. Like it’s so easy. And then I share a blog post or a podcast I want them to listen to. And then my PS is like, PS, I have availability for X, Y, Z this month. And it’s just like a, a very quiet little backdoor thing.

That’s like, by the way, if you want to book something, here’s my available. Here it is.

Dayna: Yeah. That’s like soft marketing. So just in the back of their mind, they’re like, Oh, that’s right. Sabrina’s a photographer. Like, I love opening her emails. Oh, that’s right. She’s a photographer, right? That’s kind of like the vibe that we want to get from emails.

Yeah.

Sabrina: Yeah. Yeah. But like you said, it’s training people to want to open those emails. I want them to open them because they know I’m going to give an awesome recommendation to something because I’m going to tell a story that relates to them. Not because, Oh, what is she selling this month? Like, that’s not, that’s not a thing, you know, like you said, you don’t want to get sent to email jail for being marked as spam or auto deleted all the time.

Which is what I do with the retailers who send too many sale emails. I just immediately, I see gap come through immediately to trash. I don’t even open it. You know, you don’t want to be that. Don’t be the gap. Okay. Don’t be gap,

Dayna: but also don’t be that random email that comes in. And I’m like, Who is this?

Who are you?

Sabrina: Yes.

Dayna: And I’m like, how did I even get on this email list? I’m immediately like unsubscribed because I haven’t heard from them enough. So that also feels violating. And I do think that that getting an email jail, not emailing your list enough. Now you’re an email jail. Now people aren’t opening your emails.

So now you’re like, Oh, I really don’t want to send emails. So then you still don’t send emails. It’s like, it perpetuates on itself. So. Get out of that bad cycle and get into the up cycle, which is just going to be emailing your list at least once, if not twice a month, I would say would be the sweet spot.

Sabrina: Yeah. Yeah. I’m like, let’s start with once. And then once you get into that rhythm, then let’s increase it. Yeah, definitely. Okay, so now we’re to water, which is social media. And a lot of people, this is, we’re going to have probably 50, 50, 50 percent is like, tell me how to do it better. And then the other 50 percent is like rolling their eyes.

Cause they want to pretend that social media doesn’t exist, but how does it fit into this process?

Dayna: Take that email that you just wrote to your people. You looked at your Amazon and you were like, I don’t know, tell me the last thing you recommended to people. Was

Sabrina: it like, um, I recommended a, some hair texturizing spray?

Ooh! Uh, I recommended a book, and I recommended like a loungewear two piece set situation.

Dayna: Love it! Okay, so all of those could become social media posts. I know I’ve seen you posting your outfits of the day, or like whatever. That’s a story. Post your little loungewear set. You could be like, I recommend, I sent the link to this in my email.

If you guys want to get on my email list, here’s the link to sign up for it, right? That’s a story. Boom. So that’s how you pull an idea from there. Same thing with the texturizing spray. It’s like, that could be a reel. That could be a story. Like all of these are just like little ideas that you don’t want to just live in one place.

You can pull them over to your social. So I like to think about the, like, when I’m giving people, like, if you feel overwhelmed by social. I would just give yourself a schedule, like on Mondays, I post something that is like a resource or something that is helpful for people. On Wednesdays, I post something that’s like a little bit silly.

And on Fridays, I post more of like a sales email. If you’re kind of already in that habit, you could do this as like a three, two, one, where you’re like three times a week, people come to social media to be entertained, educated, and inspired. Those are what we, what we want, right? Like we’re just, we’re scrolling, we want to be, we want to be entertained.

If you can stop our scroll and educate us about something, amazing. If you can like inspire us to take action, even better. So you could do three times a week, you’re just entertaining people. And that can be, entertainment doesn’t have to be like you’re doing TikTok dances. Entertainment can be as simple as a really nice reel that is, like, timed out to music that has, like, all your beautiful photos, or a carousel that I want to slide through, right?

Stuff like that. I mean, social media strategy really could be its whole own email, or whole own podcast. But three times a week, you could educate two times a week. You could try to entertain us. And then one time a week you could sell something, right? Like, so again, same as email. You don’t only want to be showing up on social media when you’re selling, you want to make sure that you are, again, just talking to people on social media.

Like you would talk to your girlfriends. Shocking. I know, but if you are social on social media, it will, the algorithm will play back with you. So it’s like really try to go on there and be like, wow, what an incredible tool that we have to reach people that we otherwise wouldn’t be able to reach to stay in touch with our friends that we otherwise maybe wouldn’t be able to stay in touch with, and that’s just as simple as like liking people’s posts, commenting on them, sending them a DM.

It’s really that simple as far as. engaging with the algorithm and making it love you. But I think as far as like, whatever your social media strategy is without a whole new podcast. It’s like exactly what we said with the email, make a schedule for yourself, make a, like a routine and just stick with that.

So it’s like, okay, it’s Monday. I need to post something that is boom. Okay. It’s Wednesdays on Wednesdays. I do this on Fridays. I do this, right?

Sabrina: Yeah. I think people overcomplicate it so much at the end of the day, like you said, it is a free tool that we have access to, to connect with other people. So like Stop sending it all the bad energy and stop taking it so seriously.

Like, I would rather you use your business social media account for fun more of the, more of the time than to have so much pressure around content and selling and going viral and da da da, like. Relax. You know what I mean? Like, let it be fun. Let social media, when you have all the other parts of marketing implemented and the foundation is there, social media can be fun.

It can be the place where potential clients come and they see your photos sprinkled in, but really they’re getting to know you and your personality to where they’re Like already obsessed with you before they’re even pregnant, right? That I tell this story all the time. I have been a newborn photographer for 14 years now, and I cannot tell you how many times I have gotten some sort of DM to the effect of, I’m finally pregnant.

I cannot wait to hire you. I’ve been following you for years. And I’m like, my job is done. That’s amazing. My job is done. Yeah. You know, because I’m just. Sharing stuff. Yes. I’m sharing business things and tips and resources. I’m also sharing like personality stuff. Like you said, I’m sharing my outfits. I’m sharing my favorite finds.

I’m sharing my kids volleyball games. I’m sharing our travel. I’m like sharing my dogs, whatever. None of that stuff is going to necessarily bring me clients. It’s giving people a way to connect with me to where they’re like. I already know she’s talented and that she could take great photos, but I like her.

Dayna: I’m choosing her. That’s exactly right. It’s like that you’re teaching them why they want to hire you as a photographer. That’s where social media really can start to show your personality and bring people into your world. I do want to give a couple of concrete things that you guys can do for your Instagram to make it more searchable and workable for you.

So number one. You have your username, which might be like, you know, at your name photography, right? But then there is a section that is called your name, and I see a lot of photographers repeat that. Like, it’ll be like, You know, Dana Schaaf photography, Dana Schaaf photographer, instead use that name to put in some SEO rich words that might help people find you.

So I live in Phoenix, Arizona, it might be like Dana, you know, it might be like Frenchie loving dog photographer, Phoenix, Arizona, that will help people that tells the algorithm like people that like Frenchies that live in Phoenix that are, you know, are looking for photographer would come and find my.

Account. So that’s one concrete tip that you guys can do. Make sure that your name is something that has some key words in it that people are looking for. It should probably be something about where you live, the type of photography that you offer, and I just wouldn’t repeat, if your username, your at username is your name, I wouldn’t repeat your name there.

If you have a different name for your photography business, like Annamie’s is Megapixie, so she might say Annamie Tonkin, you know, Chapel Hill family photographer, because her name isn’t in her username. So just don’t, don’t repeat yourself in those two spaces, because those are searchable in Instagram.

And then the other thing is, make sure that your links are set up correctly, right? Like, now we don’t have to use LinkedIn bio anymore. Instagram lets us put a couple of links in there. Also, don’t overwhelm people with, like, 50 links when they click a thing. Like, it would be great if you could be, like, you know, I would have something about, like, get on my wait list for something here.

I would always have a way for somebody to get on some kind of wait list, even if it’s just a generic one. Join my email newsletter and then like maybe some kind of resource that they can download. So that way having those links makes it really easy for you to, you know, go back and say, you know, my links are in my bio.

Or if you guys listened to my last episode on this podcast, I talked about using many chat for that reason. I think since I talked about that, it has become even more commonplace for people to use that. And we’re just very used to it. And then the last place you can share links is in your story. You know, people can click on a link right in there.

So I would just say, make sure you have that stuff set up so that when people are able to find you and when they are able to find you, they’re able to stay in touch.

Sabrina: Yes. I love that. And there’s Instagram, how to, and strategy is truly like a, its own series of a podcast. There’s so much that goes into it now.

There’s so, so many things that go into it. But to your point, again, having your name and having your location, I cannot tell you how many Instagram accounts I go to that I can’t find one or either. And I’m like, ah, you are just losing. It’s dead in the water, dead in the water. Does I don’t care like you might as well not even show up over there because if I cannot find your name or the location that you serve.

It’s not doing anything for you. So if you are listening, check right now and make sure your name and location is in there.

Dayna: And put those, put your little location. I’ve seen people starting to do this and I love it. You know that little pin emoji at the bottom of your post when you’re sharing something, you could just put the little red pin and then say, you know, family photographer, your and then slash your city again, Instagram is reading your post.

So that’s. telling it who to show it to, right? That’s how you can sort of use the SEO of Instagram to get your posts out to people.

Sabrina: This has been so jam packed. I knew we were going to need like a pen and a paper. I’m obsessed with everything we’ve talked about, but I love to leave listeners with like a tangible step.

And I feel like we’ve covered so much here. And I know just based on the students that I talked to that a lot of people listening are not doing any of these things or all in the wrong order. And so. Maybe they’re a little bit overwhelmed. Is there one step that you would recommend listeners taking today to better their marketing?

Dayna: I think if you’re listening in real time and it’s Q1 right now, this is like marketing people are like, hold my beer. It’s our time. Like plan your rock. So if you’re listening in Q1, Time is a little bit quieter. I would say focus on planning your rock, or if you have the capacity, plan your whole year. And I have this worksheet for you guys so that you can visually see all the, everything I’ve talked about, rocks, pebbles, sand, water.

You can plan it all out. Figure out what your rock is going to be for the year. Write out what your blog post topics are going to be. Sit down and brainstorm, you know, a bunch of email topic ideas so that later you can go back to them. If you’re listening in Q1, plan. That’s my action. I think if you’re coming to this and it is later in the year, it kind of depends.

Are you in a slow season? If you are, plan. If you’re kind of in the middle of like chaos, I would say start with your email marketing. All roads should lead to email, so make sure that your email list is up and make sure that you have a way for people to get to your email and just start trying to write one email a month.

Sabrina: And I fully agree with you. I think people get overwhelmed at the thought of like planning their marketing for a whole year. But when you have the bandwidth to do that early in the year, future you is like so freaking thankful and high fiving past you because the later you get into the year, you don’t have the bandwidth to intentionally like map things out because you’re just in the moment.

You’re just trying to survive busy season and, and all of that. And so when you can sit down with your calendar and give yourself a couple of days to think through. What’s happening with my personal life? What’s happening with my kids schedules? What’s happening with seasonality? What do my clients need?

And you just plug and play like what’s happening in every month and you can start to create a plan. It is so much easier to think through when you have that bandwidth. So I love that recommendation.

Dayna: Yeah. And I, our brains love like to function in that channel. So like when you’re in the planning mode already, just.

Dive deep on that and let your brain be in that space because if you try to hop from like, Oh, I have an idea. Okay. Now I’m going to try to execute it. And then I’m going to come back and try to plan more. And then I’m going to try to execute that. It gets really overwhelming really quickly. So for people who just get like super overwhelmed, I would say just Sit down, set a timer and brainstorm for one hour.

And I bet you in an hour, you could storm at least the ideas for your whole year, because when your brain’s in that mindset already, it’s going to start firing.

Sabrina: Yes, exactly. I love that. And I will make sure to have that worksheet linked in the show notes. So that’s. Such an awesome gift for the listeners.

Okay. Dana, this has been fun, but I’ve got some rapid fire, fun little questions. No, no, we’re not skipping these. Okay. They’re too important. Everybody immediately

Dayna: starts sweating.

Sabrina: Everybody wants to get to know you. Remember, it’s about connection. This is how, this is how people are going to love you. Okay.

What is a hobby or something fun that you’re pursuing purely for joy this year?

Dayna: Ooh, I love this question. Okay. Purely for joy. I really struggle with this because I’m a type 3, Enneagram type 3. So everything I do feels like it has to be like, have a purpose, and be business related, and like, whatever. It’s so hard.

I love baking. So baking is like a hobby that I do that, and cooking I would say both, but those are things that I like to do to relax and they also are like things that feed my creativity.

Sabrina: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I am same, same. It is so hard to get me to slow down or to do something that’s not attached to productivity in some way.

Um, it’s so hard, but I am like bound and determined to do a couple of things this year. More stuff just for fun and also out in the world. Cause I feel like I just live in my little office hole in front of a screen and I need to be out with people. So I am trying to do some hosting this year for fun things to like interact with people.

I love hosting, but also to like meet new people, just all the things. So I have two things. I’m so jazzed about already for Q1. Number one is I’m hosting a watercolor class for beginners at my house. I am like. Beside myself so excited.

Dayna: I wish I was your neighbor.

Sabrina: Okay. Well, here’s the second one. I’m going to say you’re going to want to steal so you can have this idea and do it as well.

Okay. I’m hosting a girls night book swap, which I’m also, which I’m also real excited because there’s the theme and I’ve already got all these ideas for decorations and we’re going to all bring our books and mingle and have snacks and swap books. So I’m very excited about that. That is so cool. I love that.

Yeah. Okay. What’s something that you are always up to talk about?

Dayna: I love, oh gosh, I’m such a nerd, you guys. I love organizing. So like, I’m always up for talking about, um, like when you were like, my Amazon finds, I was like, tell me more. Like, tell me all the cool things that you find on Amazon to like, Organize your kitchen lid pots or like your spices or I just I’m obsessed with all of that kind of stuff So I am always game to talk about that or books.

I’m also a voracious reader. So like hit me with your books Yeah, I’m always I’m always reading.

Sabrina: Yes. I have two things. Number one is like all the biohacking stuff. We talked about our, our rings, uh, before, before we hit record. So I love all of the biohacking things. Talk about naturopaths and supplements and what you’re doing and all this.

I love all of it. And then I also love to talk about all of the lore behind Taylor Swift and all of the theories because I think it is wildly hilarious. All of these theories and I’m not any of these people that has like spreadsheets to keep track of things But there are those people out there and I think it is so entertaining so I can talk about that for hours It’s kind of ridiculous.

Dayna: Yeah, it is really wild what it is I’ll spend their time doing like tracking where she is in the world.

Sabrina: Oh, yeah, it’s hilarious. It’s hilarious, but I I enjoy it Okay, what is something that you have up your sleeve for 2025?

Dayna: I don’t know if this is something that I have up my sleeve, but something I’m really excited for is I’m gonna become an auntie for the first time.

Yay! I know! My sister’s pregnant, so I’m like, in full auntie mode. I’m like, buying all the cute baby clothes that I can find. I’m like, re taking up knitting so I can knit her a blanket. I’m like, so, so, so excited to be an auntie. And yeah, so, I think that’s like, taking a lot of my mental energy right now, which is great.

Okay, that is

Sabrina: so fun. Do they live near you?

Dayna: No, they live in, um, Sun Valley, Idaho, which is Oh, man. Like, uh, it’s so pretty, but it’s like such a small town Hard to get to. Kind of hard to get to, yeah. Um, it’s actually not so hard from Phoenix. So, yeah, I think I’ll be able to see them quite a bit, and I’m just so excited.

I wish we were neighbors, though, because I would just, like, live at her house, which I’m sure she would love.

Sabrina: Oh my gosh, that is so fun. I love that so much. Okay, last question. What is a business tool or hack that you’re loving right now?

Dayna: I’m gonna say Airtable.

Sabrina: Yeah.

Dayna: Although I think maybe for photographers, I would say, well, I don’t know.

I guess, yeah, Airtable. It’s just, once you really learn how Airtable works, it’s like, I feel like it’s like Excel for creative people. Like, it’s way more visual. It can do cooler things. I feel like I can track so much and really take so much of the boring work out of your business. I am not a numbers person.

I hate math. So I feel like everything that, you know, it’s like anything that I can do one time and then never have to do it again. That’s why I love Airtable because I’m like, I’m going to just. set this up one time and then it will just do it for me.

Sabrina: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I actually had Coley get me set up with a whole bunch of Airtable stuff, um, in December, uh, which I’m really excited about for this year.

So she does have. Oh, I’m going to have to think of it to link. She’s got some sort of air table template for photographers or something. Um, I’m sure I’ve linked it on the podcast. I’ll find that link you guys and put it in the show notes as well.

Dayna: Maybe that’s my hack is like, if you aren’t good at something like air table or whatever, just go find somebody who is good at it.

Like I, I don’t know if anybody else can relate to this. I kind of was brought up like do everything yourself kind of person. And I’m really, I’ve been really fighting against that in the last couple of years and being like, it is worth. the money to hire an accountant. It is worth hiring somebody who is an expert in, you know, setting up mini sessions so that I, like, to lower the barrier to entry for myself.

So again, Airtable, I’m not an expert at it, but I have invested in people who are teaching me how to do it, right? And maybe that’s my business hack is like, just invest in the experts.

Sabrina: Yeah, that’s, that’s always what I say is outsourcing. I’m like, if you don’t have somebody, if you’re not paying somebody to do something for you, it’s time.

It’s time. It’s time to find somebody to give something to just outsource something, get something off of your plate. I don’t care what it is. Yeah, that’s always my business hack. And I, I said it recently, but I think I’m to the point now where I’ve outsourced everything. I think, I think I have that many things outsourced.

I think, uh, everything that’s left is requires my face. So, uh, which is awesome, which is awesome. That’s I just. Let people do things for me, you know, you’ve reached like the enlightenment level of outpoursing. I love that. Oh my gosh Dana, this has been such a great chat I knew it was going to be I cannot wait to get the feedback from this and hear from everybody So listeners if you loved this episode send Dana or myself a DM on Instagram Let us know what your favorite part was what resonated with you.

Those links are in the show notes But thanks for being here my friend. Yeah, thanks for having me All right. That’s it for today, guys. 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.

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.