Engage 100’s of new couples.. and start bookin ’em!

“How’d you find enough clients to support your studio full-time when you started out?” That’s a question we get asked a lot. The answer really hasn’t changed. It’s the same now as it was then: Word Of Mouth!

Our very first clients were personal friends. Soon all our friends were married off — but our strategy didn’t change. That’s because a word-of-mouth referral: A) Is FREE!, and B) Has a higher conversion rate than other marketing forms that you can discover here. In other words, customers who hear of you through a friend are more likely to book with you! That’s the name of the game, isn’t it? A personal referral to your business instills confidence in clients before they even meet you.

That’s why this style of Social Marketing Campaign is so great. It operates through word of mouth! Here’s one of several encouraging notes we’ve received since the start of this step-by-step coaching last week:

“I have to thank you. I..tried my own valentine’s contest, and holy cow it’s been 3 days since I posted the link on fb, and I already have almost 270 comments/votes on the blog! I usually get maybe 2 or 3.. You rock!”
–Heather Prescott Liebensohn

You do the math. How did Heather attract hundreds of new people to her brand? (Remember, hundreds more who didn’t bother to interact with her blog were still exposed to her brand, too.)

If you’re ready to start from square one, let’s backtrack. Here’s STEP #2 + VIDEO. And STEP #1 can be found in the free current issue of Shutter Magazine. (See my article, “Viral Social Marketing.”)

We love helping our fellow photographers, and the above is the same feedback we hope to hear from you. Don’t resign. Resolve to make your own success! (Tweet this out to your network!)

In journalism school, I learned the immense impact of timely marketing related to holidays. Don’t let Valentine’s Day pass you by without reaching more clients for your business now.

So if you’re ready to bring your Valentine’s Day campaign in for the home stretch, here is STEP #3…

STEP #3

A. Tag vendors, especially venues. You’ve already posted one image of every couple (or family/newborn/senior/etc.) to your Facebook page’s “Valentine’s Day Contest” album. Now be sure to click the “Add Location” button within each image. Take it one step further: Email each venue, inviting them to post the contest to their own Facebook pages — allowing them to “root for” their clients to win, and allowing their prospective clients to see how much fun a wedding at their venue is. (Of course, it doesn’t hurt that couples looking at this venue’s Page will find you, too.)

Venues are among the most important wedding professionals to interact with, as they’re usually the only vendor booked before the photographer. In your emails to them, remember: sharing in this contest is not mainly about “promoting” yourself. Forget your ego, and gently show them what’s in it for them — spoiling one of their former clients who will surely thank them for it!

B. Plan to announce your winners two or three days after Valentine’s Day. This year, Valentine’s falls on a Saturday. Social marketing is useless on the weekends. No one is online. Monday’s not great either; people are getting back into the groove at work. Tuesday through noon on Friday are great times to make BIG announcements. Perhaps you can add one final post, “Results announced tomorrow!” and tag your couples the day before the reveal. Don’t be ashamed to milk this campaign a little — it works great!

C. Keep blog comments going. If your blog is like ours, comments only show up once I approve them. Keep checking back, and keep approving them as they come in. People get frustrated if they don’t soon see the “votes” they left for friends. We use WordPress, which has an app that makes this easy to do from my phone. See if your Web host has such an app, too! (We like to screen comments for the occasional inappropriate message that comes through.)

D. Boost Post? You’ll notice our gallery post reached 4,210 people organically. That’s a lot! We didn’t boost the post. We didn’t pay a dime. However, if you do want to experiment with “boosting” a post on Facebook, this is the time to do it. Boosting a post is most effective when that post has already become popular before the boost. And, yes, we find boosting a post is much more effective than creating a separate Facebook ad as well.

Good luck. We’ll be in touch again with a few tips on how to wrap up your campaign with a BANG, making the announcement sing with excitement!