EP 91: How to Build a Marketing Plan for Mini Sessions

00:00:00 [Alison]
And you need to think about that time for your clients to prep.

00:00:02 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:00:02 [Melissa]
That’s why all the Thantos session photographers start booking in July.
00:00:06 [Melissa]
They start opening up way early.

00:00:07 [Alison]
Right.
00:00:08 [Alison]
Exactly.
00:00:08 [Alison]
If it’s on

00:00:09 [Melissa]
the calendar before any of the holiday event scheduling parties and all of that stuff are happening.
00:00:14 [Melissa]
If you’re on the mom’s calendar four to six months out, it’s a lot harder to get bumped.
00:00:19 [Alison]
Welcome to Get Booked, a podcast.
00:00:21 [Alison]
I’m Allison, active duty Marine Corps spouse, family photographer, and business mentor.
00:00:25 [Melissa]
And I’m Melissa, a lifestyle newborn photographer turned SEO expert for photographers.

00:00:30 [Alison]
Between us, we have twenty seven years in the industry, nine business relocations, and a lot of lessons learned the hard way through experience.

00:00:37 [Melissa]
We’re here to help you get visible, get clients, and build a business that actually books.

00:00:42 [Alison]
Let’s go.

00:00:46 [Melissa]
Hey, guys.
00:00:46 [Melissa]
Welcome back to the podcast.
00:00:47 [Melissa]
This week, we are talking about how to build a marketing plan for your mini sessions.
00:00:52 [Melissa]
This is something that is more of a system that you can repeat over and over again and making sure you have all the steps so you know exactly what to do the next time you are planning your next round of mini sessions.

00:01:02 [Alison]
Yes.
00:01:03 [Alison]
And absolutely.
00:01:03 [Alison]
So more than just mini sessions, we should all be doing this for all of our content all year long because marketing is really just messaging and positioning you as the expert to be booked up.
00:01:13 [Alison]
Right?
00:01:13 [Alison]
So if you have never done this before or you feel like you need to do this for everything, I do have a map out your marketing workshop recording.

00:01:21 [Alison]
We did it back in February.
00:01:23 [Alison]
It is available, and of course, it applies to all kinds of events, all kinds of genres.
00:01:28 [Alison]
If you’re going back and forth between different types of genres for your photography, you’ve got a senior season and you’ve got a branding season and a family season.
00:01:35 [Alison]
You really need to be planning that out and setting yourself up as the expert.
00:01:38 [Alison]
So yeah.

00:01:39 [Alison]
So hit the link in the show notes for that.
00:01:42 [Alison]
Okay.
00:01:42 [Alison]
So marketing for mini sessions.
00:01:45 [Alison]
Mini sessions are different.
00:01:47 [Alison]
Right?

00:01:47 [Alison]
I guess let me start with a story.
00:01:49 [Alison]
I figured out how important this was back in Virginia when it was January, New Year, cold, you can’t be shooting outside, everything’s dead and ugly anyway, and I had nothing on the calendar.
00:01:59 [Alison]
It was absolute crickets.
00:02:00 [Alison]
And so I kinda panicked, and I was like, oh, I have this great location right here in Virginia Beach.
00:02:06 [Alison]
I can rent it out and I can do indoor branding sessions.

00:02:09 [Alison]
This place was it’s called the annex.
00:02:11 [Alison]
It’s no longer open, but it had three different areas.
00:02:13 [Alison]
I had a little couch area.
00:02:13 [Alison]
I had a desk area.
00:02:14 [Alison]
I had this, like, big old workshop area, and I was able to even set up a whole backdrop and do a very studio based white drop kind of standard.

00:02:22 [Alison]
So I can get three stations plus, like, a green room with refreshments and, like, all this really great stuff.
00:02:27 [Alison]
Very last minute.
00:02:27 [Alison]
And me, as a family photographer, decided to push forward and do this in February with, like, maybe six weeks lead time.
00:02:34 [Alison]
And while it was fun, and I got a whopping two bookings out of it, it was not profitable because I didn’t have a plan.
00:02:40 [Alison]
I panicked.

00:02:41 [Alison]
I threw something on the calendar way too short of notice, did not have the audience warmed up for it, did not set myself up as a expert or consistent brand photographer, and just pulled something out of thin air.
00:02:52 [Alison]
And that was fun, and I would totally repeat it if if I was still there, that place was still open and probably build something up out of it.
00:02:58 [Alison]
But it wasn’t profitable because I didn’t market it well.
00:03:04 [Alison]
So we don’t want that to happen to you guys.
00:03:06 [Alison]
We want you to have very profitable, very full system for your mini sessions and your regular sessions.

00:03:11 [Alison]
So, Melissa, have you had any stories like that where things didn’t plan out the way you intended to them to go?
00:03:17 [Alison]
Mini sessions and stuff, I I

00:03:19 [Melissa]
don’t I don’t know that I ever had anything like that.
00:03:20 [Melissa]
I always relied on my email list for mini sessions, and that’s where my bookings would come.
00:03:24 [Melissa]
And because I didn’t offer them very often, I didn’t really have an issue with it.
00:03:28 [Melissa]
But I also usually try to plan out ahead of time.
00:03:31 [Melissa]
And again, I’m hitting a very warm audience of people who have worked with me before and maybe didn’t wanna spend the money on a full session, so they were ready to book a mini session.

00:03:39 [Melissa]
But I definitely think in with having that warm email list and stuff, I still needed to have a plan.
00:03:44 [Melissa]
And there were ways I got people on my email list, so I was nurturing it all year.
00:03:48 [Melissa]
So, like, I definitely, I think, came from the planning aspect of way ahead of time.

00:03:53 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:03:53 [Alison]
So profane point.
00:03:54 [Alison]
Right?
00:03:54 [Alison]
Right there.
00:03:56 [Alison]
Hey, Allison here.

00:03:57 [Alison]
I have a blog post that is ranking in the top three nationally every spring for its search terms.
00:04:03 [Alison]
Another still blowing up from 2021, I think.
00:04:06 [Alison]
I actually can’t remember when I wrote it, but it’s been a long time.
00:04:08 [Alison]
And it’s the reason I had a wait list in Hawaii before I ever arrived.
00:04:12 [Alison]
In April, we’re building that for you live.

00:04:14 [Alison]
Workshop number two is blogging strategically.
00:04:17 [Alison]
Throwing a thousand words and some pics on a post won’t get you traffic or inquiries.
00:04:22 [Alison]
You bring your business, I’ll bring the strategy and together we’re gonna nail down custom keyword research, optimized content, and twelve month blogging plan that books for you where you are.
00:04:34 [Alison]
Blog to book, link in the show notes.
00:04:38 [Alison]
So the different types of mini sessions, right?

00:04:40 [Alison]
So it really applies to any kind of event.
00:04:42 [Alison]
So we’re calling minis could be things mini, motherhood event, heirloom portraits that you’re anytime you’re picking a single date, putting a bunch of people in a short amount of time, it’s a different approach.
00:04:52 [Alison]
Right?
00:04:53 [Alison]
There are all kinds of things you need we all need to be thinking about.
00:04:55 [Alison]
Client needs time to prep their family for what’s gonna happen.

00:04:58 [Alison]
Right?
00:04:59 [Alison]
Even if it’s just mom and a couple kids and dad doesn’t even have to be there, she needs time to coordinate outfits.
00:05:05 [Alison]
She needs time to look off the counter.
00:05:07 [Alison]
Are the kids gonna be available with their sporting events?
00:05:10 [Alison]
And you need to think about that time for your clients to prep.

00:05:12 [Alison]
Yeah.

00:05:12 [Melissa]
That’s why all the dance sessions we talk first start like If they start opening up way early

00:05:17 [Alison]
Right.
00:05:17 [Alison]
Exactly.

00:05:18 [Melissa]
It’s on the calendar before any of the holiday event scheduling parties and all of that stuff are happening.
00:05:24 [Melissa]
If you’re on the mom’s calendar four to six months out, it’s a lot harder to get bumped.

00:05:27 [Alison]
It really is.
00:05:28 [Alison]
And if you’re trying to do this like I did within six weeks, there’s commitments already made.
00:05:32 [Alison]
We’re not really willing to to move and rearrange our own calendar just to do this one thing.
00:05:37 [Alison]
Right?
00:05:38 [Alison]
Because you’re not really committed.

00:05:39 [Alison]
So that’s that’s why this is different, and some of the same psychology can apply to your normal year round stuff.
00:05:45 [Alison]
But you wanna think about the budget, the timeline mom needs to get this ready, and their own calendar.
00:05:50 [Alison]
You wanna get on their calendar really early.
00:05:52 [Alison]
So what’s the plan for this?
00:05:54 [Alison]
The plan really starts, drum roll, it really starts three months out.

00:05:58 [Alison]
No.
00:05:58 [Alison]
That’s twelve weeks.
00:05:59 [Alison]
So I was with my branding sessions, I was at half of that.
00:06:03 [Alison]
Half of that without the warm audience, so it was dead on arrival for sure.
00:06:07 [Alison]
So, twelve weeks out, you definitely wanna be picking your date, your location, your where where are you gonna do this?

00:06:12 [Alison]
Are you gonna do this in multiple places, one place, indoor, outdoor?
00:06:15 [Alison]
The price, what’s it gonna include?
00:06:18 [Alison]
Details, you know, need to be decided well before you even start talking about it.
00:06:22 [Alison]
And you need to put it on your calendar.
00:06:23 [Alison]
If you don’t have a calendar for the year, for the six months, whether it be paper or digital, then you’re shooting yourself in the foot.

00:06:30 [Alison]
Right?
00:06:31 [Alison]
What we wanna do is get all this stuff out, get it on the calendar, and then reverse engineer your timeline so that you know what to do to position yourself as the expert and to make these mini sessions desirable.
00:06:42 [Alison]
And also speaking of that email list, you wanna make sure you’re giving your email list that VIP treatment, telling them what’s available.
00:06:49 [Alison]
I mean, before you even have all the details, hey, I’m thinking about doing this.
00:06:52 [Alison]
Maybe even take a poll and see what location they would be most interested in.

00:06:56 [Alison]
Like, serve your clients, serve the people that are already on your wait list, that are already in your orbit.

00:07:01 [Melissa]
Early too for blogging.

00:07:02 [Alison]
Once you’ve got

00:07:03 [Melissa]
You wanna make sure that logging things that are going to gonna work for that session, whatever that event is and stuff.
00:07:09 [Melissa]
You wanna have posts that are coming out ahead of time so that you can reference those in your emails as you warm up that list and build them up to, like, okay.
00:07:16 [Melissa]
Hey.
00:07:16 [Melissa]
Now this is open.
00:07:17 [Melissa]
And then there’s also just the whole general thing of FOMO of just cashing people excited, dropping hints here and there.

00:07:23 [Melissa]
This is gonna be happening soon, that kind of thing.
00:07:26 [Melissa]
And if you’re if you wait until two weeks before your date of the session to start talking about it, there’s no time to create any of that word-of-mouth, any of that FOMO, get people excited.
00:07:35 [Melissa]
Now it’s just a last minute.
00:07:35 [Melissa]
Oh, do we wanna do this?
00:07:36 [Melissa]
Versus if you’ve been teasing it for a while, then people are like, yes.

00:07:40 [Melissa]
I went on that list.
00:07:40 [Melissa]
I wanna do this.
00:07:41 [Melissa]
And they prioritize it, I think, a little bit more versus a last minute.
00:07:44 [Melissa]
Hey.
00:07:44 [Melissa]
We’ve got this on Saturday.

00:07:45 [Alison]
Absolutely.
00:07:46 [Alison]
Absolutely.
00:07:47 [Alison]
They prioritize it a bit more.
00:07:48 [Alison]
And that blog, I’m glad you mentioned that because that blog becomes the basis for all your content.
00:07:52 [Alison]
Right?

00:07:52 [Alison]
You said before, we have a whole episode on it.
00:07:54 [Alison]
We’ll need to dig that episode number up, but turning that blog and repurposing it into all your content from email to social media posts.
00:08:02 [Alison]
Use your VIP list, give them the the first dibs on what’s coming and also first dibs on announcing it and access to booking before everybody else has it.
00:08:10 [Alison]
So speaking of that teaser and build section, so like eight to twelve weeks out, so two to three months out, you’re not quite selling yet, but you definitely want to presale.
00:08:19 [Alison]
You want to share what’s available, what’s coming, what’s the end goal with these photos, right?

00:08:23 [Alison]
Is it them in frames to sell artwork?
00:08:25 [Alison]
Are they just wanting digital files?
00:08:28 [Alison]
You really want to just share the behind the scenes.
00:08:30 [Alison]
If you’re doing a motherhood event and you’re designing a floral arrangement, share that.
00:08:34 [Alison]
Take your take your social media to the florist with you and all the options.

00:08:39 [Alison]
Show them the potential arrangements that you’re looking for, the the color combinations you’re looking for.
00:08:43 [Alison]
Constantly share in teas, like, this is what’s coming.
00:08:45 [Alison]
This is what’s coming.
00:08:46 [Alison]
Maybe even do something else.

00:08:47 [Melissa]
Forget too, in this beginning stage, when you’re three months out, you wanna have some kind of way to get them onto your email list, even just a simple sign up form.
00:08:55 [Melissa]
If you use Flodesk, they have some great forms for that.
00:08:57 [Melissa]
I use them all the time, and I will just segment it off to an audience of, like, fall min I mean, I think if I go through mine right now, I’ll find fall minis or red truck minis, those lists and stuff.
00:09:05 [Melissa]
Cherry blossom.
00:09:06 [Melissa]
But you can easily create an email sign up list, get on the VIP list, we’re announcing this soon, and you wanna start sharing that.

00:09:12 [Melissa]
And you wanna be sharing that before you actually are like, okay.
00:09:15 [Melissa]
Hey.
00:09:15 [Melissa]
It’s live.
00:09:16 [Melissa]
You wanna get people onto that list as soon as possible.
00:09:19 [Melissa]
And, I mean, people do this not just for mini sessions, guys.

00:09:21 [Melissa]
This is just general marketing.
00:09:23 [Melissa]
I’m doing this right now for all of our services where I went through my calendar and I mapped out when we wanna sell certain things, when we wanna push them, and then I backdated that.
00:09:32 [Melissa]
Okay.
00:09:32 [Melissa]
When do I need to start getting people onto my email list?
00:09:35 [Melissa]
This is not just for mini sessions and photography.

00:09:37 [Melissa]
These are full on marketing plans that people use for everything.
00:09:41 [Melissa]
But we don’t use them.

00:09:42 [Alison]
Every industry, every service, yeah, every product.
00:09:45 [Alison]
Exactly.
00:09:46 [Alison]
We’re making it specific to a mini session.
00:09:48 [Alison]
Right?
00:09:48 [Alison]
Because they’re they’re gonna come.

00:09:50 [Alison]
Three months from the time this is recording, you need to be talking about fall.
00:09:53 [Alison]
Right?
00:09:54 [Alison]
Look at that.
00:09:55 [Alison]
Gut check.
00:09:55 [Alison]
It’s not even quite summer yet, and it’s it’s time to put your fall dates on the calendar.

00:10:00 [Alison]
Right?
00:10:00 [Alison]
Going back to your blog example and and that FOMO and building that list, I actually had a blog post for my red truck mini sessions that I did on two or three years in Virginia Beach.
00:10:11 [Alison]
And then when it was closed, I had an email form up, and I think I had it up here in Hawaii, and somebody got on that wait they found me.
00:10:19 [Alison]
They dug deep.
00:10:20 [Alison]
They dug deep, found the blog post, and got on my wait list, and I I felt so bad.

00:10:24 [Alison]
I was like, they have no idea.
00:10:25 [Alison]
I’m never doing that again because I don’t even live in Virginia anymore.
00:10:28 [Alison]
That blog post wasn’t getting traction anymore, so I went ahead and archived it.
00:10:31 [Alison]
But exactly.
00:10:32 [Alison]
Like, build a blog post, put an email form, and collect those email addresses even outside the season for when you’re

00:10:39 [Melissa]
when you’re Yeah.
00:10:39 [Melissa]
I know.
00:10:40 [Melissa]
I fill up lots of minis that I would just the first year I decided to do it, I did this plan type thing, and then I left that form up for the rest of the year.
00:10:47 [Melissa]
So anybody during the rest of the year who was searching cherry blossom stuff ended up would sign up for that list.
00:10:52 [Melissa]
And so then I was capturing traffic all year long that was ready for me to market to the next year when it was ready.

00:10:58 [Alison]
Exactly.
00:10:58 [Alison]
Look at that warm audience.

00:11:01 [Melissa]
Hey, quick break to tell you about something that could change your business.
00:11:04 [Melissa]
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00:11:11 [Melissa]
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00:11:18 [Melissa]
If you want results like that, I’m hosting a free master class called the five SEO mistakes killing your photography business.
00:11:25 [Melissa]
I’ll show exactly what’s keeping you invisible on Google and how to to fix it.

00:11:29 [Melissa]
The link to register is in the show notes or head to pictureperfectrankings.com/mistakes.

00:11:36 [Alison]
Okay.
00:11:36 [Alison]
So launch time.
00:11:37 [Alison]
We’re looking at eight to six weeks out for this, and I would actually even say sooner.
00:11:41 [Alison]
I would say around that two month mark, two to three months, and launch this publicly.
00:11:45 [Alison]
So you would have already launched it to your VIP list.

00:11:48 [Alison]
You wanna put that notification bar on your every page of your website, on your blog post.
00:11:52 [Alison]
You want to have that blog post live.
00:11:54 [Alison]
You want booking available.
00:11:56 [Alison]
You wanna be posting on social media several times a week.
00:11:58 [Alison]
The things you’ve already been doing, rehash that blog post.

00:12:01 [Alison]
What should they wear for this?
00:12:02 [Alison]
What should dad wear for that?
00:12:03 [Alison]
Where’s this gonna be?
00:12:04 [Alison]
What are the things they should consider?
00:12:06 [Alison]
What are some FAQs about mini sessions?

00:12:09 [Alison]
What’s gonna be included?
00:12:10 [Alison]
Why you love these?
00:12:11 [Alison]
And, of course, previous sessions.
00:12:12 [Alison]
And if you don’t have photos from BS Motherhood mini event or Valentine’s Day, really consider, well, before launching this, doing a sample shoot if you can so that you have I

00:12:22 [Melissa]
did that for So that’s really actually just came across the photos the other day.
00:12:26 [Melissa]
In in one of my folders.
00:12:27 [Melissa]
I did that for red truck minis.
00:12:28 [Melissa]
I was getting a red truck from my neighbor.
00:12:30 [Melissa]
And so I just went over to her house before I got started with launching, and I was like, hey.

00:12:35 [Melissa]
Can I take some pictures of my kids in the back of the truck?
00:12:37 [Melissa]
She just pulled it literally out into the cul de sac.
00:12:39 [Melissa]
In the spot, I told her, for some good light, I brought my decor, some some of it, not even all of it.
00:12:44 [Melissa]
And I threw my kids up there, and we took of them, and then I used those.
00:12:48 [Melissa]
And that was super simple, and I booked it out.

00:12:51 [Melissa]
Yeah.

00:12:51 [Alison]
Perfect.
00:12:52 [Alison]
I think the first time I did I call them red truck minis, but my truck was green.
00:12:55 [Alison]
Before I did my oh, I think I called them Christmas truck minis.
00:12:58 [Alison]
I took pictures.
00:12:59 [Alison]
We went and met with people that owned the the truck, and I did something similar.

00:13:02 [Alison]
It was phone shots, my then six year old sitting on the truck, and then pictures of the truck from different angles in the driveway.
00:13:07 [Alison]
They didn’t even move it, and I just used that.
00:13:09 [Alison]
I didn’t even deck it out to try

00:13:11 [Melissa]
And I have heard too for, like, people who have, like, Santa minis and stuff like that, where they will book with Santa ahead of time because they do find that clients are picky about, like, what does the Santa look like?
00:13:21 [Melissa]
What is it?
00:13:22 [Melissa]
I don’t think Allison and I we’ve never done Santa ones and but we have a friend that she’s got Santa with, like, a special custom suit.
00:13:28 [Melissa]
But y’all some of you photographers really get into that.

00:13:31 [Alison]
$10,000?

00:13:32 [Melissa]
Yeah.

00:13:32 [Alison]
It’s crazy.
00:13:33 [Alison]
It’s that is that is a that is a genre niche that I

00:13:36 [Melissa]
don’t know.
00:13:37 [Melissa]
That’s the kind of thing.
00:13:38 [Melissa]
And the big thing, I guess, we’ll make this caveat too.
00:13:40 [Melissa]
Do not use other people’s stuff and say for inspiration in any of your stuff.
00:13:44 [Melissa]
Do not grab somebody else’s photo and say, oh, this is just for inspo.

00:13:48 [Melissa]
No.
00:13:48 [Melissa]
That is somebody else’s cannot be profiting off of it.

00:13:52 [Alison]
God word.
00:13:52 [Alison]
Thank you.
00:13:53 [Alison]
What she said.
00:13:54 [Alison]
And then, you know, make sure you’re emailing your list.
00:13:56 [Alison]
Keep your list up to date.

00:13:58 [Alison]
Stay in front of them via email as the booking goes public, as the spot’s still up.
00:14:03 [Alison]
Usually, on Instagram or any social media, if you feel like you’re talking too much, you’re probably not.

00:14:07 [Melissa]
And you wanna hit all of the thing.
00:14:09 [Melissa]
Just because that’s the thing I tell people.
00:14:11 [Melissa]
I’m like, I may All the things.
00:14:12 [Melissa]
I’m never on Instagram.
00:14:13 [Melissa]
Allison knows this.

00:14:14 [Melissa]
If I post a story, she’s like, woah.
00:14:16 [Melissa]
What are you doing?
00:14:17 [Melissa]
So if you’re posting on Instagram, but you’re not sharing on your email list, I’m not gonna see it.
00:14:22 [Melissa]
And it might be vice versa that if you’re on if Allison’s on your email list, maybe she doesn’t see that, but she sees your Instagram story, but she didn’t see your post or she didn’t see your there’s so many things, guys, that we feel like, well, I post teen places today.
00:14:33 [Melissa]
And then you’re, yeah, but you have at least 10 customers that are like, well, I only saw it in one.

00:14:37 [Melissa]
So even though it feels awkward for us, I promise you, no one is seeing it as many times as you were posting it.
00:14:43 [Melissa]
There’s no one who’s right there unless it’s your mom, maybe.

00:14:45 [Alison]
100%.
00:14:46 [Alison]
100%.
00:14:46 [Alison]
And if you wanna fast track all that posting and exposure Yeah.
00:14:50 [Alison]
Ads.
00:14:51 [Alison]
Well Just choose ads.

00:14:52 [Alison]
I used to wave I

00:14:53 [Melissa]
was gonna say for ads, I really recommend retargeting ads.
00:14:56 [Melissa]
That’s the ones where they’ve already gone out to you set it up, so they’ve already gone out to your email list or they’ve interacted with your website, all of that kind of stuff, and just sending an ad to that audience.
00:15:05 [Melissa]
You can also run an ad to a cold audience.
00:15:08 [Melissa]
I would say if you’re doing that, do that very early on.
00:15:10 [Melissa]
It’s harder.

00:15:11 [Alison]
Like, what

00:15:11 [Melissa]
else and say, you need to be doing that ten weeks, twelve weeks out kind of thing if you can.
00:15:15 [Melissa]
Start running that ad to a cold audience even to just get them on your VIP list as, like, a traffic ad or something.
00:15:20 [Melissa]
But then once your cart is open, running a retargeting ad can be really helpful.
00:15:25 [Melissa]
I had a girl in the blogging club that she we were just chatting and she was saying that she was having a hard time getting her Christmas studio sessions booked up.
00:15:31 [Melissa]
And I had to tell her, I promise you’re not posting enough.

00:15:33 [Melissa]
You’re not talking about it enough.
00:15:35 [Melissa]
And I told her too.
00:15:36 [Melissa]
I was like, run a retargeting ad.
00:15:37 [Melissa]
I just gave her a quick explanation on how to do it and she set it up and then she messaged me, like, two weeks later.
00:15:42 [Melissa]
She was like, I booked them out.

00:15:43 [Melissa]
And I was, see.
00:15:43 [Melissa]
Told you you weren’t talking about it enough.

00:15:45 [Alison]
Yep.
00:15:45 [Alison]
Even before retargeting ads, the meta pixel, and all that, I was doing Google Ads for cherry blossoms and mini sessions in general.
00:15:55 [Alison]
Just gosh.
00:15:56 [Alison]
I can’t even remember.
00:15:57 [Alison]
Probably in Okinawa and Alabama, I was doing Google Ads.

00:16:00 [Alison]
And it actually helped my SEO.
00:16:02 [Alison]
I swear.
00:16:02 [Alison]
I don’t think that Google would have admitted it, but I swear it helped my SEO and my organic reach.
00:16:06 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:16:06 [Alison]
And to your point, that’s when people are looking for it.

00:16:08 [Alison]
They’re looking for mini sessions.
00:16:09 [Alison]
They’re looking for family photographers.
00:16:11 [Alison]
Can go.

00:16:15 [Melissa]
Guys.
00:16:15 [Melissa]
Also keep in mind, this is a full on, hey.
00:16:18 [Melissa]
This is what you should do for marketing.
00:16:20 [Melissa]
You may have to start slow with your next one.
00:16:22 [Melissa]
Your next mini session event or your next whatever you’re doing may just be, okay, I’m gonna get a sign up list set up.

00:16:28 [Melissa]
And then on the next one, it’s okay, I’m gonna be making sure I blog once a week.
00:16:32 [Melissa]
It may take some time.
00:16:33 [Melissa]
Ads may be something that takes you a while to get to.
00:16:35 [Melissa]
But the good thing is is once you slowly build up this system at all and once you get Facebook ads set up, then you just start duplicating, guys.

00:16:42 [Alison]
You can

00:16:42 [Melissa]
duplicate that that VIP sign up.
00:16:44 [Melissa]
You can duplicate that page.
00:16:46 [Melissa]
I wouldn’t duplicate blog posts, but, you know, you can duplicate your ads and just update them.
00:16:50 [Melissa]
And then that way, all the settings are there.
00:16:52 [Melissa]
So some of this has a little bit of a lift on the front end of getting it all set up.

00:16:56 [Melissa]
But then once you’ve got it set up, then it’s an easy repeatable process.

00:16:59 [Alison]
Absolutely.
00:17:00 [Alison]
So once you get into that six week mark, you’re really kinda sustaining your marketing efforts and messaging.
00:17:05 [Alison]
This is where consistency is a big deal, but also setting yourself up as the and you do that, one, by consistent sharing of information, but also casting that vision of what’s the point of these minis, how are they gonna be used, what’s the end goal of all these things, what should people wear, how should we think about this.
00:17:21 [Alison]
When people come out to Hawaii and wanna do photos, they don’t think about the wind.
00:17:24 [Alison]
I am not rescheduling for 17 mile an hour sustained winds.

00:17:27 [Alison]
That’s normal here.
00:17:28 [Alison]
You know what I mean?
00:17:29 [Alison]
I mean, maybe if we get some gale force, we’ll consider rescheduling, or we’ll move to the other side of the island.
00:17:34 [Alison]
But you’ve got to know that ruffles on your shirt and your hair is going to be a problem in that wind.
00:17:39 [Alison]
And so that’s one of the things I the kinds of things you need to be posting about.

00:17:42 [Alison]
Right?
00:17:42 [Alison]
What are the idiosyncrasies with your session, your place, your color, your theme, your what have you?
00:17:48 [Alison]
The more you can share and educate, the more you’re gonna be trustworthy, the more people are gonna see you as that expert, and the more bookings ultimately you’re gonna get.
00:17:55 [Alison]
Right?
00:17:55 [Alison]
That’s the goal with marketing is setting up your messaging.

00:17:58 [Alison]
So, you know, as things are booking, share how many spots are left, what’s going on, create that FOMO like Melissa was saying.
00:18:04 [Alison]
One of the tricks I do especially early on is even if I have six spots open on a single day, I would do this on session.
00:18:11 [Alison]
They do this really well.
00:18:12 [Alison]
I’d reserve a few spots so that they never looked like they were totally open.
00:18:17 [Alison]
So I may not have booked any sessions, but it looked at least like two of them were And

00:18:21 [Melissa]
then you can always

00:18:22 [Alison]
open those later.
00:18:23 [Alison]
Deserving them.

00:18:23 [Melissa]
At least a spot.

00:18:24 [Alison]
And then you open them up.
00:18:27 [Alison]
When it came to my Christmas truck minis when they were really when they were really popular before we moved from Virginia Beach, I would only open up three hours at a time.

00:18:35 [Melissa]
Oh, yeah.

00:18:35 [Alison]
I didn’t want to have my first hour and my last hour completely booked and have this massive gap in the middle.
00:18:41 [Alison]
And so I would only open up the first three hours, two and a half, a half, get that solidly booked, maybe a break or two in there, and then open up more.
00:18:48 [Alison]
And I would even say, hey.
00:18:50 [Alison]
More coming.
00:18:50 [Alison]
That’s more stuff to communicate.

00:18:52 [Alison]
Just think about that.
00:18:52 [Alison]
That helps create that OMO and scarcity if it looks like you’re booking up, even if you’re not.
00:18:58 [Alison]
And again, weekly email in that launch.
00:19:00 [Alison]
Like, when you’re launching you’re launching something when you have mini sessions.
00:19:03 [Alison]
Right?

00:19:03 [Alison]
When it’s coming, you need to be doing a weekly email a month and about, two months out.
00:19:06 [Alison]
This is what’s going on.
00:19:07 [Alison]
And then if you need to, hopefully, ideal situation, within the final two weeks before your mini session, you’re booked up.
00:19:14 [Alison]
Right?
00:19:14 [Alison]
That’s the ultimate goal.

00:19:15 [Alison]
Maybe if it’s your first year on doing something, that’s not gonna be the case.
00:19:18 [Alison]
So create that urgency, how many spots are left, do the last call for email and posting and social media and messaging, maybe getting even getting on some of the Facebook groups.
00:19:29 [Alison]
I know Facebook is dying, a lot of people, but in the military spouse world, as No.
00:19:32 [Alison]
I’m on fire.
00:19:33 [Alison]
Okay.

00:19:33 [Alison]
As it ever was.

00:19:34 [Melissa]
I am not on Instagram.
00:19:35 [Melissa]
I’m definitely on Facebook.

00:19:36 [Alison]
It is not dying.
00:19:37 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:19:38 [Alison]
So those last two weeks create some urgency if you need to.
00:19:41 [Alison]
Hopefully, you’re booked up, but you may not be.
00:19:42 [Alison]
So that’s your whole thing.

00:19:44 [Alison]
That’s a whole marketing risk.
00:19:44 [Alison]
So to review, you wanna start out.
00:19:47 [Alison]
You wanna write that blog post.
00:19:48 [Alison]
You wanna get that stuff done and out to your VIP list first, and you wanna create that FOMO and urgency and share everything.
00:19:55 [Alison]
Repeat, repeat, repeat, maybe do some ads.

00:19:57 [Alison]
So you wanna do the lock in the details three to four months out.
00:20:00 [Alison]
You wanna tease and build two to three months out.
00:20:03 [Alison]
Have a long, strong launch, sharing all your stuff in all the places, and then keep sustaining that momentum as you launch.
00:20:10 [Alison]
And then in the end, if you need to with that last call, the final two week push to fill up your remaining spots, that’s how it’ll work.
00:20:17 [Alison]
So, again, if this built like a verbal fire hose, there is a whole hour long workshop in my shop, map out your marketing.

00:20:26 [Alison]
It is available and how you can apply this to events regardless of what they are, different types of seasons and genres of photography.
00:20:34 [Alison]
There is a content planning cheat sheet.
00:20:36 [Alison]
There is a marketing runway that’s gonna walk through all these things and more to help you reverse engineer that timeline to book out as much as possible.
00:20:43 [Alison]
So check out the show notes for that.
00:20:45 [Alison]
Bye bye.

00:20:49 [Melissa]
Thank you so much for listening.
00:20:50 [Melissa]
If you’re enjoying the show, would you do two things for us?
00:20:52 [Melissa]
First, leave a review.
00:20:54 [Melissa]
Just stars would be awesome.
00:20:55 [Melissa]
And two, forward this episode to a biz bestie, mil spouse, or anyone facing moving their business.

00:21:00 [Melissa]
We’d love it if you shared this episode with even just one person.
00:21:04 [Melissa]
If you have questions, you can reach out to Allison on Instagram at Allison Belle Photog, or you can find me, Melissa, in my Facebook group, Picture Perfect Rankings.
00:21:13 [Melissa]
Check the show notes for links, and we’re so excited to have you guys here.