EP 30: Marketing Master Plans

00:00:59 [Dana]
And the second summer hits or you get busy or it’s busy season, everything just flows right out the window, and that creates this feast famine cycle where you’re like, now I haven’t planted any seeds.
00:01:09 [Dana]
So now for the next three months, it’s gonna be a drought.

00:01:13 [Alison]
Hey.
00:01:13 [Alison]
I’m Allison, military spouse and family photographer.

00:01:16 [Melissa]
Hey.
00:01:16 [Melissa]
I’m Melissa, also a military spouse, lifestyle newborn photographer, and SEO expert for photographers.
00:01:21 [Melissa]
Between the two of us, we have a combined twenty seven years of and have lived through nine business relocations.

00:01:26 [Alison]
We’ve coached each other through all these challenges, and now we want to share our experience with you.
00:01:30 [Alison]
On this podcast, we’ll give you actionable steps to help you keep it moving.
00:01:36 [Alison]
Alright.
00:01:36 [Alison]
Right.
00:01:36 [Alison]
Hey, guys.

00:01:37 [Alison]
Thank you for coming back.
00:01:38 [Alison]
In this episode, we have Annemie and Dana, cohost of the consistency club membership, which, full honesty, totally saved my tail this past spring when I had nothing to share or send to my email list for my photography.
00:01:51 [Alison]
The consistency club is literally a marketing director, okay, which is so awesome.
00:01:57 [Alison]
So Dana and Annemie, welcome.
00:01:59 [Alison]
Thank you so much for being here.

00:02:00 [Alison]
Can you guys give us a quick intro and background about your marketing journey?
00:02:04 [Alison]
Sure.

00:02:05 [Annemie]
I’ll start.
00:02:05 [Annemie]
I’ll jump in because I’m the photographer of the two of us.
00:02:08 [Annemie]
Yeah.
00:02:09 [Annemie]
I think like a lot of photographers, marketing was one of those things that for many years just felt like this never ending chore.
00:02:15 [Annemie]
We joke around that it’s a lot like laundry, and it needs to be done.

00:02:19 [Annemie]
But it’s, like, one of the most permanent features of any business, you have to find clients.
00:02:24 [Annemie]
And there’s no, like, real great handout exactly how that works.
00:02:28 [Annemie]
Something that works for somebody else might not work for you.
00:02:31 [Annemie]
There’s things that you have fun doing and things that feel like a total drain on your time and energy.
00:02:36 [Annemie]
I would never social media person.

00:02:39 [Annemie]
I’ve I’ve always been the person who had, like, a handful of followers, and then I’d be like, here’s a pretty picture.
00:02:45 [Annemie]
What do you think?
00:02:46 [Annemie]
I really enjoyed blogging and writing newsletters.
00:02:49 [Annemie]
I’ve always answered myself a bit of a writer and enjoyed doing that.
00:02:52 [Annemie]
And so I always tried to lean into the things that felt good, but it was as my business progressed, I started to notice that really the key wasn’t what you were doing as much as it was how consistently you were doing it.

00:03:04 [Annemie]
And I also noticed that it was better to diversify in a small start up by doing one thing really well.
00:03:10 [Annemie]
But then over time, it’s good to be in a few different places because your ideal clients, some of them are gonna love social media.
00:03:18 [Annemie]
Some of them are gonna be in in their inbox all the time.
00:03:21 [Annemie]
Some of them are gonna wanna meet you at the local charity fundraiser.
00:03:25 [Annemie]
And so as you can build that out to try and put a fair amount of effort in a few strategic directions ended up working well for me.

00:03:33 [Annemie]
But so on a long and an ongoing journey.
00:03:35 [Annemie]
And and I guess I’ll introduce Dana by way of saying that I had never felt Ford help with my marketing as a photographer.
00:03:44 [Annemie]
But when I got into education and I had a slightly bigger business, there was room in the budget to hire somebody.
00:03:51 [Annemie]
And I was like, number one, get social media off my plane.
00:03:55 [Annemie]
Enter

00:03:56 [Dana]
dance.
00:03:57 [Dana]
That’s a perfect intro.

00:03:58 [Annemie]
So I will pick up the wall.

00:04:00 [Alison]
There you go.

00:04:00 [Dana]
Hi, I’m Dana.
00:04:01 [Dana]
And my background is in digital marketing specifically, mostly started in social media, but then started growing because of what Anani said into email and just understand, especially the solopreneurs, but all businesses, we really need to have multiple avenues of marketing happening all at the same

00:04:18 [Alison]
time.
00:04:19 [Alison]
Am I?

00:04:19 [Dana]
So I was working for a lot of individual business owners doing social media marketing.
00:04:24 [Dana]
And what I very quickly realized is for the amount of money that the average individual business owner.
00:04:31 [Dana]
So in this case, let’s just talk about photographers.
00:04:34 [Dana]
What the average photographer can afford is just like not enough hours for a full social media plan, let alone email.
00:04:42 [Dana]
So I felt like I was doing a kind of very mediocre job for a lot of people.

00:04:48 [Dana]
And I was like, there just has to be a better way to do this.
00:04:51 [Dana]
And then I also had some clients like Omni that were like business.
00:04:54 [Dana]
I was like, oh, wow, this is so much better because they have capacity.
00:04:58 [Dana]
I can do a full marketing plan for them.
00:05:02 [Dana]
And so then fast forward like a year or so, I was like, what we really need is everybody just needs like a me in their back pocket, writing their 100%.

00:05:12 [Annemie]
Their and I was

00:05:13 [Dana]
like, yeah, that would be great.

00:05:14 [Speaker 7]
And then I’m like, how do I steal data?

00:05:16 [Annemie]
You’re gonna have to get through me first.
00:05:17 [Annemie]
So I

00:05:17 [Dana]
can back play.
00:05:18 [Dana]
But honestly, we were like, this is what everybody needs.
00:05:21 [Dana]
So how do you do that?
00:05:22 [Dana]
How do you bring how do you put a marketing manager in everybody’s back pocket?
00:05:26 [Dana]
And that is where the consistency club was born.

00:05:28 [Dana]
So the idea is that we bring you every month email and social media templates.
00:05:34 [Dana]
They’re actually so fun because they’re like mad libs.
00:05:36 [Dana]
We give you the idea and then you fill in all the details.
00:05:40 [Dana]
Because again, when I was like coaching people through doing their own social media, everybody would get stuff

00:05:46 [Annemie]
to do this.

00:05:47 [Dana]
And then number two, they’d be like, I don’t know what to do.
00:05:49 [Dana]
Like, you’d get stuck in the ideation phase.
00:05:52 [Dana]
And then some people don’t like to write some people do, or they, yeah.
00:05:55 [Dana]
Or they don’t like to write emails, but they like, they are fine writing social media or vice versa.
00:06:00 [Dana]
We just leapfrog over like that 80% of the work.

00:06:04 [Dana]
And then you just are able to open up these templates and you’re like, okay, here’s what I’m writing this week.
00:06:09 [Dana]
And it it’s usually what we hear is, oh, it sparks an idea or you’re like, it does.
00:06:14 [Dana]
Yeah.
00:06:15 [Dana]
It really does.
00:06:16 [Dana]
Mhmm.

00:06:17 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:06:17 [Alison]
Same.
00:06:18 [Alison]
I’m sure

00:06:18 [Dana]
this has happened to you where you open a template and you’re like, Oh, okay.
00:06:22 [Dana]
That’s right.
00:06:23 [Dana]
I forgot about this story that happened three months ago.
00:06:26 [Dana]
Okay.
00:06:26 [Dana]
That’s what I’m gonna write about.

00:06:27 [Dana]
But we have given you tell a story about a time that something happened and we’ve written it out for you pretty much exactly how you should write it.
00:06:34 [Dana]
And you just fill in all the details and then send it off to your list.
00:06:38 [Dana]
And it really cuts your marketing time down by honestly, like, I would say we do 80% of the work for you.

00:06:44 [Alison]
For sure.
00:06:44 [Alison]
I can’t think of any specific, but last spring when I was doing one of them and I had nothing to write and I realized, oh, pre PCS season, a ton of people are gonna want to do mini sessions.
00:06:53 [Alison]
I’m gonna take this template.
00:06:54 [Alison]
It was one of the email templates maybe in March or April, and I was just like, gonna take this idea and run with it.
00:06:59 [Alison]
And I think it was, like, something about their favorite products, and it was, like, voting about their or adding a new product.

00:07:04 [Alison]
That’s what it was.
00:07:04 [Alison]
It was about adding a new product to your print price list or something like that.
00:07:07 [Alison]
And I was like, it’s a vote.
00:07:08 [Alison]
I need people to vote on locations.
00:07:10 [Alison]
Let’s just do that.

00:07:10 [Alison]
And so I took something that y’all had already written and just wham bam.
00:07:14 [Alison]
Got into Canva, did it.
00:07:15 [Alison]
The synergy of it is something that I just don’t stop enough to think about on my own.
00:07:20 [Alison]
I did the I did the social media post, then I did a story, and then I linked the voting post into the email that Domino’s connected.
00:07:30 [Alison]
There’s a whole book somebody wrote about Domino marketing.

00:07:32 [Alison]
What is it?
00:07:33 [Alison]
Oh, yeah.

00:07:33 [Annemie]
Yeah.
00:07:34 [Annemie]
What is that?
00:07:34 [Annemie]
The

00:07:34 [Alison]
domino.
00:07:35 [Alison]
The domino.
00:07:35 [Alison]
The domino.
00:07:36 [Alison]
That was simple.

00:07:37 [Dana]
I remember that post, Allison.
00:07:39 [Dana]
I actually remember I was like, I’m gonna vote on a location.
00:07:41 [Dana]
I wrote that post and totally marketed it right to myself and was like, wow.
00:07:47 [Dana]
I can’t wait to, like, vote on this.
00:07:48 [Dana]
And then I was like, wait a minute.

00:07:50 [Dana]
This looks awfully oh.

00:07:51 [Melissa]
There were.
00:07:52 [Melissa]
So sold to

00:07:53 [Speaker 7]
on my own marketing.

00:07:54 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:07:55 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:07:55 [Alison]
And then on top of that, it was a vote.
00:07:57 [Alison]
It’s my highest interacted social media anything, I think, for all of 2024 still.
00:08:01 [Alison]
Because it was a carousel, because they had to switch through, like, higher engagement.

00:08:05 [Alison]
So I got fed to more people, which is automatically just capitalizing on the algorithm that I didn’t think about.
00:08:11 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:08:11 [Alison]
You thought about.

00:08:12 [Dana]
Yeah.
00:08:12 [Dana]
I was gonna say that’s the other part of it that like, you don’t even have to think about is like in the background, we’re like, okay, how do we do the best kind of post that’s gonna make the algorithm happy?
00:08:22 [Dana]
What’s making the algorithm happy?
00:08:23 [Dana]
Easy.
00:08:24 [Dana]
Oh, fickle.

00:08:24 [Dana]
Mhmm.
00:08:25 [Dana]
So what is working or how can we get the most engagement out of this?
00:08:28 [Dana]
Or if we’re asking you to write one post, we’ll often give you ideas for how to reuse that in different ways.
00:08:34 [Dana]
Yeah.
00:08:35 [Dana]
Including like blog posts.

00:08:36 [Dana]
And that’s something we specifically cover in consistency.
00:08:39 [Dana]
It all comes together.
00:08:41 [Dana]
And really

00:08:42 [Speaker 7]
to ask about with those so I know with blogging, like, when I recommend blog templates to clients and stuff, they can reuse those kinda year after year or spend them.
00:08:50 [Speaker 7]
With social media being fickle, could Allison take that same idea for that post and then, like, a note and say, hey.
00:08:55 [Speaker 7]
I’m gonna do this, like, once a quarter or once a month.

00:08:57 [Alison]
100%.

00:08:58 [Dana]
Social I

00:08:58 [Alison]
have a Trello board, and every list is by topic.
00:09:01 [Alison]
Evergreen family, evergreen newborn, a to where post, why I only do Sunrise sessions, each specific things, and each card is a caption with hashtags or anything else.

00:09:09 [Speaker 7]
Why have I hired you to do my social media?
00:09:11 [Speaker 7]
What the heck, man?
00:09:12 [Speaker 7]
Like,

00:09:13 [Alison]
because I ain’t got the bandwidth.

00:09:15 [Dana]
I love that idea, though, Allison.
00:09:17 [Dana]
And we do say that very often.
00:09:19 [Dana]
So we have a podcast for the members where we teach them some kind of marketing lesson.
00:09:23 [Dana]
And then we talk through that month’s templates and give some suggestions and ideas.
00:09:27 [Dana]
But very often I’m like, look, if a post hits for you or something, not only can you just save it in Instagram because you can literally just repost your old content like a year.

00:09:38 [Annemie]
Yep.
00:09:38 [Annemie]
It’s okay.
00:09:39 [Annemie]
The whole idea of saving it in Instagram and then not posting

00:09:42 [Speaker 7]
it and not having to reupload it, I’m just like, no, I’m mind blown.

00:09:45 [Alison]
Right.
00:09:45 [Alison]
I’m like, are

00:09:45 [Dana]
you serious?

00:09:46 [Alison]
You can just without even leaving the No.

00:09:48 [Dana]
What I’m saying is, you know how you can create saved folders now in Instagram?

00:09:52 [Alison]
I have so many dozens of dozens.

00:09:53 [Dana]
Great.
00:09:54 [Dana]
So create one that’s, like, my top performing posts.

00:09:57 [Alison]
Okay.

00:09:57 [Dana]
And that way, when you’re, like, feeling really stuck for inspiration, you can go back and be, like, what hit this time of two years ago?
00:10:03 [Dana]
And to answer your question completely, Melissa, it’s like some stuff is gonna be usable.
00:10:08 [Dana]
We try to when it’s usable.
00:10:09 [Dana]
I would guess that like the real, so we’re gonna give you, in social media, I give you two reels, two posts, and two stories.
00:10:16 [Dana]
I would guess the reels are probably not gonna stick around as long as the post might stick around a

00:10:23 [Speaker 7]
little bit longer.
00:10:24 [Speaker 7]
But, yeah, I use interactive, like, story stuff, I would imagine.
00:10:27 [Speaker 7]
And then if something you know, it might get replaced by something new, but pretty much those polls and stuff really do well.

00:10:33 [Alison]
Yes.
00:10:33 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:10:34 [Alison]
Always.
00:10:34 [Alison]
But those audio, sometimes those real audios come back around a year They do.
00:10:37 [Alison]
Nine months, eighteen months later, and they’re trending again.

00:10:40 [Alison]
Yep.
00:10:40 [Alison]
And I’ve downloaded that video, uploaded it with the same audio, and it has done well a second time.
00:10:46 [Alison]
Yep.
00:10:46 [Alison]
No shame.
00:10:47 [Alison]
No shame.

00:10:48 [Speaker 7]
Hey there, photographers.
00:10:49 [Speaker 7]
Struggling with what to blog about?
00:10:51 [Speaker 7]
Tired of staring at that blinky cursor, waiting for inspiration to strike?
00:10:55 [Speaker 7]
Yeah.
00:10:55 [Speaker 7]
We’ve all been there.

00:10:56 [Speaker 7]
That is why I created the blogging club.
00:10:59 [Speaker 7]
Imagine this.
00:11:00 [Speaker 7]
Every month, you know exactly what to blog.
00:11:02 [Speaker 7]
No more guessing games or frantic Googling.
00:11:04 [Speaker 7]
Each month, I’ll walk you through SEO friendly blog post outlines with examples, teach you the latest SEO and marketing tips in a mass, and support you live in a monthly q and a to answer all your blogging questions.

00:11:17 [Speaker 7]
Plus, we’ve got a community to cheer you on after every post.
00:11:19 [Speaker 7]
Let’s take the guesswork out of blogging and start driving those dream clients to your site.
00:11:24 [Speaker 7]
Head to the bloggingclub.com and use code t b c trial to get 50% off your first month and join us today.

00:11:32 [Alison]
And there’s a social media manager I follow as well who even said, Allison, you need to share this content every week.
00:11:38 [Alison]
She was like, make a new reel every week about the same concept of the Sunrise session.
00:11:42 [Alison]
And I was like, every week?
00:11:43 [Alison]
Are you sure?
00:11:44 [Alison]
Mhmm.

00:11:44 [Alison]
100%.
00:11:44 [Alison]
So I’ve been sharing things every quarter, every other month as a caption, static post, which a lot of people don’t see anyway.
00:11:50 [Alison]
But it was so freeing for her to say, do this every week.

00:11:52 [Dana]
Mhmm.
00:11:53 [Dana]
Yeah.
00:11:53 [Dana]
Because that

00:11:53 [Alison]
stuff is so fleeting.
00:11:54 [Alison]
So very fleeting.

00:11:55 [Dana]
And only just a small percentage of your followers are gonna see any given post.
00:11:59 [Dana]
You know what I mean?

00:12:00 [Alison]
Exactly.
00:12:01 [Alison]
Exactly.
00:12:01 [Alison]
Which is why I just rinse and repeat with the evergreen content.

00:12:04 [Annemie]
I’m gonna butt in here to say this is exactly what I love about the consistency club.
00:12:10 [Annemie]
It was like when we were talking about it and thinking like, oh, I think we’re gonna start this.
00:12:15 [Annemie]
I was like, oop that we can make it work like this.
00:12:17 [Annemie]
And now that we’re two years in, this is exactly what we hear from people time and again.
00:12:22 [Annemie]
It’s not that photographers don’t have the creativity.

00:12:26 [Annemie]
These are

00:12:26 [Dana]
some of the most creative

00:12:27 [Annemie]
people out there to come up with these ideas.
00:12:29 [Annemie]
A lot of us at this point have a fair amount of knowledge about marketing and what good strategies are and all that sort of stuff.

00:12:36 [Dana]
It’s the implementation.
00:12:37 [Dana]
It is

00:12:38 [Annemie]
the sitting down after you have shot a session and edited a session and updated your website and written a blog.
00:12:44 [Annemie]
And then being like, great.
00:12:45 [Annemie]
And I have to write a newsletter up with this week’s social media posts.
00:12:49 [Annemie]
That’s so much creative energy.
00:12:51 [Annemie]
And the thing that you are being paid to do is not figuring out what the trend, the next trend on.

00:12:58 [Annemie]
I was supposed to say TikTok, but God knows I don’t even have TikTok fame.
00:13:01 [Annemie]
I can only spread myself so thin.
00:13:03 [Annemie]
And we do, we drop a podcast every like, a private podcast every month for our members where we’re talking about the sort of overarching marketing strategy.
00:13:13 [Annemie]
So you get, like, a little dose of strategy, and then you’re also getting templates.
00:13:18 [Annemie]
And I like to think I guess you could skip listening to the podcast part, but that’s fun.

00:13:23 [Annemie]
It’s like having a business conversation, hopefully, with friends.

00:13:26 [Alison]
So It is.
00:13:26 [Alison]
And it’s a really good reminder of things that I already know about.
00:13:29 [Alison]
I’ve known for a while, but we forget the strategy behind this.
00:13:32 [Alison]
Why should we do something that’s sympathetic?
00:13:34 [Alison]
It’s so easy to get into the rat race of which where I tell people to do education and then pull back in.

00:13:39 [Alison]
No.
00:13:39 [Alison]
It’s the why behind the why.
00:13:40 [Alison]
Seven layers down.
00:13:41 [Alison]
Like, how

00:13:41 [Annemie]
can I write a newsletter that doesn’t I have minis coming up?
00:13:44 [Annemie]
Here’s the picture.
00:13:45 [Annemie]
Right.
00:13:46 [Annemie]
Hope y’all are doing well.
00:13:48 [Annemie]
Overwhelm of everything.

00:13:49 [Speaker 7]
Sometimes a lot of people just like somebody to tell them what to do.
00:13:52 [Speaker 7]
Yeah.
00:13:52 [Speaker 7]
From, like, telling you this is the post you need to send out this month.
00:13:56 [Speaker 7]
This is the email.
00:13:57 [Speaker 7]
Like, for me, I’m telling clients this is the blog post you need to write this month.

00:14:01 [Speaker 7]
I’m just saying, I’ve thought about it for you.
00:14:03 [Speaker 7]
So you don’t have to think about it.

00:14:05 [Dana]
You just go in and do it.
00:14:06 [Dana]
Yeah.
00:14:06 [Dana]
Just do it.
00:14:07 [Dana]
Turn that part of your brain right off.
00:14:09 [Dana]
And the other part of it is encouragement.

00:14:11 [Dana]
Like, I think you just need someone in your ear being like, you got this.
00:14:15 [Dana]
I know it’s summer and you’re crazy.
00:14:16 [Dana]
I mean, do what you can or whatever, or it’s busy season or whatever the feeling is, is I don’t feel slow right now, but like this isn’t gonna be forever.
00:14:25 [Dana]
And I think it, Melissa, to your point, it gives like, a sense of community.
00:14:28 [Dana]
I’m doing this with a bigger group of people, even though you can’t see every part of the club.

00:14:33 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:14:33 [Alison]
It’s literally a club.

00:14:34 [Speaker 7]
And because you guys have them customize it, it’s not that you’re gonna be posting the same thing.
00:14:38 [Speaker 7]
Allison took that idea and made it her own.
00:14:40 [Speaker 7]
It’s not that you’re like, oh, I’m posting the same thing that somebody else is posting.
00:14:43 [Speaker 7]
No.
00:14:43 [Speaker 7]
You’re gonna make it you, your audience, your clients, that kind of thing.

00:14:47 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:14:47 [Alison]
And if somebody did take my post, I would feel flattered.

00:14:50 [Dana]
Exactly.
00:14:50 [Dana]
I

00:14:50 [Annemie]
mean, is that not the entire thing with reels and trending this, that, and the other?
00:14:55 [Annemie]
Yeah.
00:14:55 [Annemie]
Yeah.
00:14:55 [Annemie]
I love it when we get tagged by our club members and or sometimes people will send us their version of that month’s newsletter.
00:15:03 [Annemie]
And they’re on the place.

00:15:04 [Annemie]
You end up telling a story that is yours, not mine.
00:15:08 [Annemie]
I’m just giving you the sort of, like, the shell of here’s the idea.
00:15:12 [Annemie]
We write examples.
00:15:14 [Annemie]
Yep.
00:15:14 [Annemie]
So you’re getting here’s the way I would interpret this.

00:15:17 [Annemie]
Mhmm.
00:15:17 [Annemie]
And then here’s the the template itself.
00:15:20 [Annemie]
Yeah.

00:15:20 [Dana]
Yeah.
00:15:21 [Dana]
Yeah.
00:15:21 [Dana]
To your point, I am on several people’s email lists at this point just because I like to see what they write and stuff.
00:15:27 [Dana]
And it’s first of all, everybody goes in a totally different direction.
00:15:29 [Dana]
But second of all, people who I am their ideal client, when I get their newsletter, I’m like, oh, what’s going on?

00:15:34 [Dana]
It really immediately pull you in because I think you do a great job of helping them think of how to.
00:15:43 [Dana]
Put their flavor on it and tell their version of the story.
00:15:45 [Dana]
So it rings really true for every single person, even though everyone’s more or less, like, working out with the book.

00:15:53 [Alison]
And that story concept has been the biggest help to me because I don’t think in stories.
00:15:58 [Alison]
I just don’t give myself the time.
00:16:00 [Alison]
So I don’t consider myself a writer or a storyteller.
00:16:03 [Alison]
So to have those templates and those examples, one, makes me think, like, yeah.
00:16:08 [Alison]
But then like, sometimes I do have, I’m like, oh, oh, this thing did happen.

00:16:12 [Alison]
I that would be a good thing to share.
00:16:13 [Alison]
And I would have never ever taken the time to sit down and pull that up, much less use it.
00:16:20 [Alison]
Hey.
00:16:20 [Alison]
Yes, I’m talking to you.
00:16:22 [Alison]
How are you feeling about this move?

00:16:24 [Alison]
It’s a lot to process, but I’ve got something for you.
00:16:27 [Alison]
I want you to grab my pre move checklist to make things a little easier.
00:16:31 [Alison]
Even if you’re not sure where you’re going yet, it’s not too early to start.
00:16:34 [Alison]
But you could be losing time on that SEO juice if you dilly dally.
00:16:38 [Alison]
Head over to alisonbell.co, that’s alisonwith1l,bell,.co, to get your pre move checklist.

00:16:45 [Alison]
You got this.

00:16:47 [Annemie]
Think about when you’re at a cocktail party and you don’t walk into a cocktail party being like, I’ve got these eight stories I’m gonna tell.
00:16:54 [Annemie]
Instead, you walk in, you start talking to somebody.
00:16:57 [Annemie]
They’re like, oh, I there’s a traffic accident that happened in front of me on the way here.
00:17:01 [Annemie]
And I’m like, oh, yeah.
00:17:03 [Annemie]
One thing sparks the next thing sparks sparks the next thing.

00:17:06 [Annemie]
And so when you’ve got examples and so in the mix, you’re in that sort of thinking in that direction, the stories we all have stories.
00:17:14 [Annemie]
The stories don’t have to be, like, epic stories.
00:17:17 [Annemie]
It can be like this morning, I was trying to get ready, and my toddler came in and spilled cereal all over the floor or whatever.

00:17:24 [Alison]
So the whole concept is the consistency club.
00:17:27 [Alison]
What does consistency in marketing mean?

00:17:30 [Dana]
I was just gonna say, I feel like the harder emails to write, the harder posts to do are the ones that are not specifically like I have minis coming up.
00:17:38 [Dana]
Right?
00:17:38 [Dana]
Like when you have something to say it, you’re like, okay, I know what I need to do.
00:17:43 [Dana]
The harder thing to do is to stay in front of people over and over again, even when you don’t have something to say.
00:17:51 [Dana]
And especially when you’re not selling, because the point of being really consistent in marketing is marketing has this like lag time to it, where I use the garden analogy a lot.

00:18:01 [Dana]
It’s like the same day you plant the seeds is not the same day that you pick the vegetables or whatever.
00:18:05 [Dana]
That’s Yeah.
00:18:05 [Dana]
You have to plant the seeds, but then you have to water them.
00:18:08 [Dana]
You can’t just plant the seeds and then be like,

00:18:10 [Annemie]
I’ll be back in three months.

00:18:11 [Dana]
It’s like you have to plant the seeds and then serve them every day.
00:18:13 [Dana]
And we

00:18:14 [Alison]
I use this exact

00:18:15 [Speaker 7]
same example for SEO and blogging,

00:18:17 [Dana]
but that’s also marketing that it’s Yeah.
00:18:19 [Dana]
Don’t go true.
00:18:20 [Dana]
And the point of why we called it the consistency club is because I think what we saw with a lot of photographers, I think Anami, you were basically saying this when you were talking about when you were doing your own marketing is when it’s slow season and you have a little bit more time and you’re like, I need clients.
00:18:36 [Dana]
You’re like, okay, I’m gonna be really good about writing my emails and doing my blog posts and doing my social media.
00:18:41 [Dana]
And this second, like summer hits or you get busy season, everything just goes right out the window.

00:18:46 [Dana]
And that creates this feast famine cycle where you’re like, now I haven’t planted any seeds.
00:18:51 [Dana]
So now for the next three months, it’s gonna be a drought.
00:18:54 [Dana]
So the idea was to get people to be really consistent with our marketing.
00:18:58 [Dana]
So you’re like always planting seeds, always watering, always weeding, like always, and that’s actually always harvesting so that it like creates a bit more stability in your business throughout the year.
00:19:09 [Dana]
And it’s really important to stay in front of people, not just when you’re asking them to book with you, even photographer who only works, let’s say, or the majority of your work comes in the fall season or right before the holidays, fall or spring, wherever you live in the world.

00:19:24 [Dana]
Even if that’s true, you still need to keep in touch with people year round because otherwise, it comes across as weird and gross.
00:19:32 [Dana]
Right?
00:19:32 [Dana]
Like,

00:19:32 [Speaker 7]
you’re like,

00:19:33 [Dana]
I’m here by myself.

00:19:34 [Annemie]
Yeah.
00:19:35 [Annemie]
But, also, how many of us have gotten a newsletter or seen, like, post on social media and we’re like, who is this person?
00:19:44 [Annemie]
Who is this company?

00:19:45 [Alison]
How did I

00:19:45 [Annemie]
get this how did I get on this list?
00:19:47 [Annemie]
I’m Like Yeah.
00:19:48 [Annemie]
You don’t if somebody signs up for your email list in November and then you don’t bother emailing them until May, not only is that person not going to remember who you are nine times out of 10, they’re probably going to feel like you bought their email address somewhere.
00:20:04 [Annemie]
Yeah.
00:20:05 [Annemie]
That is not the tone that you want to set.

00:20:08 [Annemie]
Instead, you wanna show up and deliver value, and you need to do that consistently.
00:20:12 [Annemie]
And it’s hard, especially when you’re like, what value do I have to give in this?
00:20:17 [Annemie]
What can feel like a one way?

00:20:18 [Alison]
Is there a minimum effort that defines consistency?
00:20:21 [Alison]
Is there a number of emails or number of posts or anything that means you’re consistent?
00:20:26 [Alison]
Great question.

00:20:27 [Annemie]
I would say that it’s on the medium.
00:20:30 [Annemie]
It depends on the size of the content.
00:20:32 [Annemie]
It depends on the audience.
00:20:34 [Annemie]
But when it comes to what we are doing in consistency club with emails and social media posts, so we talk a lot about and I won’t go into the whole four tiers of marketing.
00:20:47 [Annemie]
But, basically, social media and newsletters are the bottom two tiers, and they’re the most frequent.

00:20:52 [Annemie]
They’re the kind of lowest lift, but they’re also you have to be more regular with them.
00:20:58 [Annemie]
Whereas, like, blogging is bigger content on for a longer period of time.
00:21:02 [Annemie]
It can be less frequent Yeah.
00:21:05 [Annemie]
And still have good effect.
00:21:06 [Annemie]
So with newsletters, I say every other week for a photography business.

00:21:11 [Annemie]
It also depends on the business.
00:21:13 [Annemie]
I feel like photography is one of those where if somebody’s only gonna hire you once a year, you don’t have to be in their inbox every other day.
00:21:20 [Annemie]
And then social media, of course, is talk to Mark Zuckerberg.
00:21:23 [Annemie]
I don’t know.
00:21:24 [Annemie]
It’s for the people, but it’s also for the algorithm.

00:21:26 [Annemie]
And I think that being able to show up there multiple times a week.
00:21:30 [Annemie]
We don’t provide what I was have times for.
00:21:32 [Annemie]
We don’t provide 20 different social media posts.
00:21:36 [Annemie]
But what we’re doing is filling in the gaps when you’re like, okay.
00:21:39 [Annemie]
So I’ve already shared photos from this session Mhmm.

00:21:42 [Annemie]
This week.
00:21:43 [Annemie]
What else do I talk about?
00:21:44 [Annemie]
Yeah.

00:21:44 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:21:45 [Alison]
That makes sense.
00:21:46 [Alison]
How would you recommend somebody to get started?
00:21:48 [Alison]
Say, they may or may not have an email list.
00:21:50 [Alison]
They hate social media.

00:21:51 [Alison]
Like, they don’t wanna feel slimy or never, like, just get over that hump.
00:21:56 [Alison]
What should I do?

00:21:57 [Dana]
Yeah.
00:21:57 [Dana]
I think that’s a great question.
00:21:58 [Dana]
We hear a lot from people like, I don’t have a very big email list or I’ve never started an email list.
00:22:03 [Dana]
And that’s all part of occasionally different times of the year.
00:22:06 [Dana]
We’ll talk about, okay, here’s how you create a lead magnet so that you can grow people into your email list.

00:22:12 [Dana]
I would say if you have any clients at all, like you have those emails, you have an email list.
00:22:16 [Dana]
So first of all, that doesn’t matter.
00:22:18 [Dana]
And it’s the same thing with social media followers.
00:22:20 [Dana]
It’s not about the quantity.
00:22:23 [Dana]
It is about quality.

00:22:25 [Dana]
So I’ve seen people with a very small follower list, very small email list, but that are really good about being consistent.
00:22:32 [Dana]
And that’s really all that matters is because however many clients a year, let’s call it 60, that’s the only number of yeses that you need.
00:22:38 [Dana]
If you get 60 out of a 100 people on your email list, like, that’s no better than getting 60 out of 600 people on an email list.
00:22:45 [Dana]
Do you know what I mean?
00:22:46 [Dana]
Yeah.

00:22:46 [Dana]
First, I would say get out of your head.
00:22:48 [Dana]
You don’t need to play the comparison game.
00:22:50 [Dana]
Start exactly

00:22:51 [Alison]
where you are today

00:22:52 [Dana]
and grow from there.
00:22:53 [Dana]
Again, the best day to plant a tree was twenty years ago, and the next best day is today.
00:22:57 [Dana]
Yeah.
00:22:58 [Dana]
So just start today.
00:22:59 [Dana]
Literally just start.

00:23:01 [Dana]
And I do think that when you have the templates in front of you, you will see how much it helps you get over that hump.
00:23:07 [Dana]
And really the only commitment that you have to make to yourself is I am going to do this.
00:23:12 [Dana]
I am gonna commit to posting on social media three times a week and sending out two emails every month.
00:23:17 [Dana]
That’s the commitment that you make to yourself.
00:23:19 [Dana]
So I think you just have to decide.

00:23:21 [Dana]
Okay.
00:23:22 [Dana]
I am committing to my marketing.
00:23:23 [Dana]
And not only do I I obviously think that we provide great value in the club, but I think that another reason why people love it is because it’s accountability.
00:23:32 [Dana]
Like, I’m in your inbox every month being like, how’s your marketing going?

00:23:35 [Annemie]
So So true.

00:23:36 [Alison]
Listen, I actually have the fifteenth of in my Google Calendar’s reoccurring task event to go check.
00:23:41 [Alison]
Consistency club drop is a task.
00:23:43 [Alison]
No.

00:23:43 [Speaker 7]
That’s great because you can sit down and batch things that day.
00:23:45 [Speaker 7]
Just go ahead and knock them all out and schedule them.
00:23:47 [Speaker 7]
And then then, hey, you could be done with your marketing for the whole month.
00:23:50 [Speaker 7]
And if you’re like, look, I don’t wanna do anything.

00:23:51 [Annemie]
I’m just gonna do this.
00:23:53 [Annemie]
You could be Yeah.

00:23:53 [Alison]
Forever.
00:23:54 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:23:54 [Alison]
All of my reoccurring marketing tasks are Google tasks that

00:23:57 [Annemie]
which is the only way I

00:23:58 [Dana]
can keep up.
00:23:59 [Dana]
But Melissa, I that’s how I would recommend you do your marketing.
00:24:01 [Dana]
Because when you’re in the mindset of doing it, it’s so much easier.
00:24:05 [Dana]
That’s how Anami and I create the content.
00:24:07 [Dana]
We sit down and we, like, batch create it.

00:24:09 [Dana]
Because we are in that, it’s a lot easier to just do it than being like, okay, let me just do one and tomorrow I’ll do another one.
00:24:14 [Dana]
So, yeah,

00:24:15 [Alison]
I think that’s a great tool.
00:24:15 [Alison]
And to connect all those dominoes.
00:24:18 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:24:18 [Alison]
Mhmm.
00:24:20 [Alison]
Yeah.

00:24:20 [Alison]
Alright.
00:24:20 [Alison]
So if if somebody were moving, whether it be locations or niches or just pivoting, changing their business in any way, what would be your tips for their marketing plan?
00:24:31 [Alison]
You say yourself and then I’ll jump in.

00:24:33 [Annemie]
I know you guys talk all the time about get out ahead of it and start early and all that sort of stuff.
00:24:39 [Annemie]
I would be running a lead magnet.
00:24:42 [Annemie]
So the first thing that I would do is like I’m moving to a new place or I’m switching from weddings to portraits.
00:24:49 [Annemie]
I would create a really juicy lead magnet, and I would splash that thing everywhere.
00:24:54 [Annemie]
And if I was moving locations, I would make that lead magnet location specific, which might involve some Internet research.

00:25:03 [Annemie]
It might involve some scouting trip if you have that ability, anything along those lines.
00:25:07 [Annemie]
But, basically, you want to be targeting people in whatever area new niche that you’re moving to, and you wanna start building your email list.
00:25:17 [Annemie]
And if you’re, like, email savvy two point o, then I would recommend that you’re tagging those people to separate them.
00:25:25 [Annemie]
So let’s say that you’re switching niches.
00:25:29 [Annemie]
If your entire email list thus far has been content about weddings, you’re going to need to create a separate email list, and you’re gonna have to start emailing them about a different topic.

00:25:41 [Annemie]
Mhmm.
00:25:41 [Annemie]
Those people who just had babies don’t care about what you have to say about weddings, so you need to be speaking to them.
00:25:48 [Annemie]
And any basic email service provider is going to give you the ability to just create a simple tagging system.
00:25:53 [Annemie]
So it’s like this email, all the people who have signed up through my family photography lead magnet.

00:26:00 [Dana]
Mhmm.

00:26:01 [Annemie]
So that would be step one, step two.
00:26:03 [Annemie]
And then if again, as soon as you know where you’re going or that you’re switching niches or whatever, then your social media starts to you show what you need to sell.
00:26:12 [Annemie]
So if you’re tapering down bookings in your current location and you’re trying to ramp up bookings in the next location, then you are tagging and hashtagging and all that sort of stuff for the next location.

00:26:26 [Alison]
I was surprised with this move from Virginia to Hawaii how long it took the Instagram algorithm to realize what I was doing and where I was.
00:26:35 [Alison]
It took a long time.
00:26:36 [Alison]
Dana, you can back

00:26:37 [Annemie]
me up on this or refute this.
00:26:39 [Annemie]
I think it’s also when it comes to teaching the algorithm, isn’t there also the part where you should probably unfollow the stuff that you follow locally and start following the stuff that’s in the next location?
00:26:51 [Annemie]
Because it’s not just what you’re putting out, but it’s also what you’re consuming.

00:26:55 [Dana]
Yeah, definitely.
00:26:56 [Dana]
I was gonna say, and like geo, I’m gonna spell like geo tagging those locations.
00:27:01 [Dana]
But also like our funds are so smart these days that like, if you were in Virginia and geo tagging in Hawaii, they’re just like, wow, there’s an extended vacation over there until your actual location moves there.
00:27:13 [Dana]
And it starts like knowing that you’re there for a long period of time.
00:27:17 [Dana]
There’s only so much you can do ahead of time, but I think those are all really good strategies.

00:27:21 [Dana]
And the only thing I would really add to this is sometimes people are like, okay, I’m starting over or I’m moving.
00:27:27 [Dana]
I’m just gonna start all over again.
00:27:29 [Dana]
Newest.
00:27:29 [Dana]
No, don’t do that.
00:27:31 [Dana]
Because first of all, like you never know who knows somebody that knows somebody.

00:27:35 [Dana]
Right?
00:27:35 [Dana]
So if you’re moving locations, you don’t know who’s on your list that might know somebody.
00:27:38 [Dana]
Like, again, I now as anybody I know is going to Hawaii, I know who I’m like, you want family phone?

00:27:44 [Alison]
Answer is yes.

00:27:45 [Dana]
I know some great locations.
00:27:46 [Dana]
In fact, I voted on them.
00:27:47 [Dana]
You just don’t know who knows people and don’t make that decision for people.
00:27:51 [Dana]
Like I am on multiple email lists of people.
00:27:55 [Dana]
I’m still on my sister’s wedding photographer’s email list.

00:27:59 [Dana]
I am not planning on getting married.
00:28:01 [Dana]
Ali, Idaho ever.
00:28:02 [Dana]
But I’m on this list.
00:28:03 [Dana]
And I don’t know, like he might send something out and I might have a friend and I may be like, oh, you should do the waters photographer.
00:28:09 [Dana]
You just don’t know who’s gonna know.

00:28:10 [Dana]
And the same thing is true if you’re switching niches.
00:28:12 [Dana]
Let people make that decision for yourself.
00:28:14 [Dana]
To Anami’s point, you can definitely start tagging people.
00:28:16 [Dana]
And eventually, whether you’re just if you’re like branching out and you’re gonna have two niches, great.
00:28:21 [Dana]
But beginning, it is okay.

00:28:23 [Dana]
And I’ll, again, a lot of the templates that we send you in consistency club are not niche specific.
00:28:28 [Dana]
So you can just, and it’s a story about yourself or what’s going on in your life, that everyone.
00:28:33 [Dana]
And I would just say, don’t get in your head about it needs to be really clean and tidy, and these people need to be over here, and these people need to be over there.
00:28:40 [Dana]
Let it be a little messy.
00:28:41 [Dana]
That’s the beauty of it.

00:28:42 [Dana]
And be organized in your email on the back end, but let that web of people work for you, if that makes sense.

00:28:48 [Alison]
That’s really good.
00:28:49 [Alison]
And that’s actually made me think of something else.
00:28:51 [Alison]
Anewi, your comment about the tagging, that’s something so, to me, normal.
00:28:56 [Alison]
Mhmm.
00:28:56 [Alison]
I hadn’t even thought about that being a tip.

00:28:58 [Alison]
Like, obviously, that’s my life.
00:28:59 [Alison]
Right?
00:29:00 [Alison]
But because I’ve got a Virginia Beach, I’ve got a Quantico, I’ve got a Okinawa, I’ve got Hawaii.
00:29:04 [Alison]
But Dana, you just made me remember every now and then, maybe like once a quarter, every six months, I do send out an email.
00:29:10 [Alison]
It’s not Hawaii specific.

00:29:12 [Alison]
It might be about what to wear, what’s in my gear bag, or, hey, I’ve been in Hawaii for a year.
00:29:16 [Alison]
Hey, it’s been a year since we moved to Hawaii, dah, dah, dah, dah.
00:29:18 [Alison]
If you’re coming here, my travel tip.
00:29:20 [Alison]
You’re right.
00:29:21 [Alison]
Like, I, a 100

00:29:22 [Dana]
Yeah.
00:29:22 [Dana]
Because you just don’t know who in Virginia Beach is gonna be like, oh, my cousin is coming to Hawaii.
00:29:28 [Dana]
I need to connect them with Allison.

00:29:29 [Annemie]
Yeah.
00:29:30 [Annemie]
One other thing that made me think of is when you’re transitioning, let’s say, from one niche to another niche or one location to another location, as you are tapering down your communication to location number one, invite those people to opt in to your next venture.
00:29:48 [Annemie]
Right?
00:29:48 [Annemie]
So whether you’re like, hey.
00:29:50 [Annemie]
I’m gonna probably not be emailing as frequently anymore because I’m not working here anymore, but I have so enjoyed getting to know you.

00:29:59 [Annemie]
And if you’re interested in following along or, hey, if you also happen to be reassigned to Hawaii, click here and get my god great locations in Hawaii.
00:30:09 [Annemie]
Here you are.
00:30:10 [Annemie]
You’re emailing your list with an opt in to your email list.
00:30:14 [Annemie]
But what that doing is it’s allowing you to track who is saying yes to your invitation and keeping track of that.

00:30:22 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:30:22 [Alison]
That’s amazing.
00:30:23 [Alison]
So good.
00:30:23 [Alison]
Oh.
00:30:24 [Alison]
If somebody wants to join consistency club, figure out more about it, which they do,

00:30:30 [Annemie]
they can go to go.
00:30:32 [Annemie]
This can’t be that hard.com/club.
00:30:35 [Annemie]
Or if that is too hard to remember, just go to this can’t be that hard.
00:30:38 [Annemie]
We’ve got all of our opportunities for learning and stuff listed in the menu, and consistency club is right up there.

00:30:45 [Alison]
We’ll put that link in the show notes for sure.
00:30:47 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:30:48 [Alison]
Awesome.
00:30:49 [Alison]
Thank you, guys.
00:30:50 [Alison]
We’re so grateful for your time and just talent and all the ideas that you’ve shared with us.

00:30:54 [Alison]
So thank you so much.
00:30:55 [Alison]
Thank you so much.

00:30:56 [Annemie]
This has been such a fun conversation to have.
00:30:58 [Annemie]
Yeah.

00:30:59 [Speaker 8]
We love having you guys on.

00:31:00 [Alison]
Awesome.
00:31:00 [Alison]
Alright.
00:31:00 [Alison]
Till next time.
00:31:01 [Alison]
Bye.

00:31:03 [Speaker 8]
Thank you so much for listening.
00:31:05 [Speaker 8]
If you’re enjoying the show, would you do two things for us?
00:31:08 [Speaker 8]
First, leave a review.
00:31:09 [Speaker 8]
Just stars would be awesome.
00:31:10 [Speaker 8]
And two, forward this episode to a biz bestie, no spouse, or anyone facing moving their business.

00:31:16 [Speaker 8]
We’d love it if you shared this episode with even just one person.
00:31:19 [Speaker 8]
If you have questions, you can reach out on Instagram at alison belle photog, or you can find me, Melissa, in my Facebook group, Picture Perfect Rankings.
00:31:28 [Speaker 8]
Check the show notes for links, and and we’re so excited to have you guys

00:31:36 [Annemie]
here.