Gone are the days where your photos is enough to market your photography business—even if you are an amazing photographer. In an oversaturated market, you have to do more and stand out. In today’s episode, Sabrina Gebhardt joins us to share how photographers can create valuable, non-salesy content through their email marketing to better connect with their potential clients and book more sessions! Plus listen in as she gives advice on incorporating this approach holistically across all of your marketing channels.
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Guest Bio:
Sabrina is a lifestyle photographer of more than 11 years in Fort Worth, Texas and a business coach to photographers and other creative entrepreneurs. She is married to her college sweetheart and they have 3 kids and 2 dogs. She loves caffeine, emojis, color and reading anything she can get her hands on. She is a strong enneagram 3 who really does have to force herself to sit still but over the years, she’s learned that her business (and her sanity) benefit from slowing down.
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Here are the highlights…
02:11 – Challenges in Photographer Marketing
03:56 – The Importance of Connection Marketing
12:54 – Email Marketing Strategies for Photographers
19:06 – Diverse Content for Email Marketing
20:46 – Blogging Strategies for Photographers
23:21 – Effective Marketing Beyond Availability
25:46 – Balancing Personal and Professional Content
28:42 – Consistency and Creativity in Marketing
Mentioned in this Episode:
Listen to Sabrina in these Episodes:
Episode 17: Working Weekend Wins
Episode 48: Investing in Outsourcing
Episode 100: You can change your mind and your offers
Episode 156: Celebrating 2 Years of Business-First Creatives
Connect with Sabrina
Website: sabrinagebhardt.com
Marketing that Attracts: sabrinagebhardt.com/marketing
Instagram: instagram.com/sabrinagebhardtphotography
Review the Transcript:
Colie: You are listening to the business first creatives podcast. I’m your host, Colie James. In each episode, you will hear real life stories behind the scene takes and practical insights for how to streamline and grow a creative business that brings you joy and a paycheck. Let’s get started.
Hello, hello, and welcome back to the business first creatives podcast. I’m your host, Colie James. So we are finishing up this marketing with intention series with a bonus episode just for photographers. Now, listen, if you don’t own a camera and you don’t take pictures for a living and you listen to Sabrina and I talking, you are probably going to walk away with something, but this is your warning that we are specifically going to be talking about marketing for photographers.
And again, if you just want to listen to a couple of this besties talk. Stay tuned if you’re not a photographer, but otherwise this might be an episode that you just feel like you could skip. Sabrina, welcome back to the podcast.
Sabrina: Hi, my dear. I’m so glad to be here. And I’m really excited to talk about marketing for photographers because it’s been like a hot button topic for, for a little bit.
So I love it.
Colie: Well, I mean, you know, it’s a hot button topic for everyone, which is why I created this series in the first place. And we have just talked about All kinds of stuff in the series. So, you know, if you just happened to tune in on this episode and you did not listen to the other eight, yes, count them eight episodes in this series, everyone listening, please go back and listen to them preferably in the order that they were presented, because I spent a lot of time thinking about the order in which I should present these topics to you.
But earlier in this series, we talked about getting really strategic with your marketing. We had little snippets about blogging, Pinterest, repurposing, finding your magical unicorn marketing assistant, affiliate marketing. So there was a lot of goodness earlier in this series, and this is going to kind of tie it all together with a bow for photographers.
So Sabrina, speaking of hot button topics. Let’s just start with that topic that we said that we were going to talk about. So what is the problem with most photographers and how they market their businesses?
Sabrina: Well, my friend gone are the days where sharing your photos. is enough. You cannot just throw your photos on your website or throw your photos on social media and think that your clients and ideal clients and potential clients will flock to you because it’s just not enough anymore.
It is not enough to just share your beautiful work, and I’m sure your work is beautiful, but marketing takes so much more than that now.
Colie: I mean, I can’t just have a really good portfolio and just throw them up on Instagram. I mean, I know that I’ve talked a lot about copy on this podcast, but you’re not even really talking about throwing your images up with some good copy.
So beyond showing off your photographs, what is considered good marketing for photographers?
Sabrina: So the elephant in the room is that there are too many photographers that it’s an over saturated industry, which. It is. It is. It is. I mean, I’m not gonna lie to you. 10 years ago. Maybe it wasn’t 20 years ago. It definitely wasn’t today.
It is. It definitely is oversaturated. I don’t care where you live, what part of the country or world you’re in. It’s oversaturated. You’ve got competition everywhere and I am willing to bet you’re not the best photographer in your area. Uh, your work probably isn’t anything crazy special. I’m sure it’s beautiful.
I’m sure your clients love it. I’m sure you’re proud of it and you worked hard to achieve it. And I’m sure you have a beautiful, cohesive portfolio. Okay. Those are all important things, but you cannot rely on being the best or your images anymore. And I think the best way to market yourself and to pull in ideal clients.
Is to stand out. And I think the only way that you can stand out is to be yourself.
Colie: Yes. Okay. So all I have to do is write a lot of stuff about myself, put it on my website, put it on Instagram, maybe write a few emails, show people that I am capable of taking photographs, and then I’m going to have a thriving business.
Sabrina. Can you hear that sarcasm? Yeah. I mean,
Sabrina: you’ll be doing better than the people who are just sharing their photos for sure. But taking it a step further is not just being willing to share about yourself, but being willing to connect with others. So I like to talk about my favorite kind of marketing, relationship marketing, connection marketing.
I like to talk about it in the example of like, being at a party, being at a cocktail party, or maybe you’re at a playdate somewhere where you don’t know everybody and you’re meeting people for the first time. What are the things you talk about? How do you connect with other moms or other people at these things?
You literally don’t walk up to somebody and say, let me show you a photo. I’m a photographer. Would you like to know my availability? That’s not how you connect with people. So why are you doing that on the internet? You need to be setting a foundation, a place for people to connect. And when you think about specifically, let’s talk about social media.
When you think about social media, it is called social media. It is literally a community platform. That like the whole thing is about fostering community. What is community? What is connection? What is social? It’s not a one way street. It’s two ways. It’s starting conversations. It’s replying to things.
It’s asking questions. It’s helping others. Right? It is social. And so treating your online presence, whether it be email or social media or your website, just like you would showing up and meeting people in person. It’s not, it’s not one way, you know?
Colie: So someone that you and I both love, Ashlyn Carter, I was watching a random ass YouTube video from her recently.
She was talking about the KPIs that she tracks in her business. And the funny part was I was like, I was looking at a template that she had just written, and every time she gives you a template in her copy bank club, there is a link that says, would you like to see this email in action? So I clicked that email and I read, you know, the example one, and that’s where I got to the YouTube video.
And I was like, I vaguely remember watching this like, you know, a couple months ago, maybe last year or whatever, but there was something that stuck out to me and it was like, this is the one KPI. Okay. That I track that you’re probably not doing. And so of course, curiosity got me and I clicked it and Ashlyn defined something that she called CEO KPI.
And I was like, okay, so what is this? Basically, not only does she want you to track Your email open rates, your website traffic, you know, all the things that we typically think of how many leads you’re getting every month. But she wants you to track how often you are telling people what you do. And it’s so, you know, it’s so interesting that this is what you’re saying because this is not something that I think any of us would think to write down on a piece of paper.
But when you’re out in the community, when you are at a party, like you said, when you’re out, When you’re at your kid’s school, no, you don’t just walk up and say, hi, I’m a photographer. Can I show you my portfolio? But do you have a way of talking about what you do? Because I’ve said it before, like for the longest, when people asked me what I did, Oh, I’m a photographer, but my education is in, and then I would list all the things that I have to agree.
And it took me a few years to stop that. But then I feel like when I came into my own and I was like, Oh, I, you know, I’m a photographer. And I would very clearly say. but I don’t take portraits out by flat irons. This is what I do. Like, do you have that pitch for yourself? And I’m not talking to you, Sabrina.
I know you have that pitch. I’m talking to the listening audience. Like, do you know what that is for you? Because that’s your differentiator. That is what allows you to talk about what you do. In a very meaningful way that is not just, Hey, I’m a photographer. Here’s my photos. Do you want to hire me?
Sabrina: Yeah.
Yeah. I love that. And I definitely think that’s part of it. And I definitely see so many, especially in the family photography space where these women are traditionally balancing being full time moms, maybe even having other careers, um, where they’re doing this on the side. The, I’m a photographer is kind of like a, Oh, and I’m a photographer.
You don’t say it with your chest, right? It’s like a really quiet, like, do I even say it? Like, or it’s like a, oh, and I’m a photographer with a question mark at the end, it’s not something that you really take pride in or, um, you’re confident in saying, and that is absolutely huge. Not only. You know, in person, like we said, with other moms or meeting people, but also when you’re meeting other business owners in your community, which side note is a great way to market your business.
You’re a small business owner and you need to support other small businesses and you need to, you know, you’re not going to go into a boutique and meet this owner and, and ask them like, what do you do? And they’re not going to be like, Oh, I do this, this, this, this, this, and run this boutique. You know what I mean?
They’re proud of it. Right? So go in and say the same thing. But when you think about, The online version of that, of telling people what you do and showing up as the CEO, like showing people how you’re spending your days and all of the parts that go into your business. That’s another great little marketing hack because it’s another way to talk about what you’re doing and show your authority and your expertise in the industry without just showing images.
Like stop just showing the final product. We are really nosy. We love to see what people are doing day to day. That’s why you see on social media, probably a lot of the accounts you’re following at least once a week are like, here’s what I’m doing today, or Here’s what I’m doing to this week, because people wanna know that stuff.
Right. And that’s another way for you to show like the embodiment of you being a photographer without you having to say, like, here’s my work. Here’s my work. Here’s my work.
Colie: Yes. And I will also say I was on a phone call recently and we were talking about products. I was helping someone, you know, decide products.
We were doing their Dubsado set up. But I started telling her about, no, I just point behind me. And I’m like, Oh no, the matted frame that you’re interested in. Like, that’s an example. And guys, if you’re not watching this on YouTube, I’m pointing to photos that sit behind me on every single one of these episodes, but I use it as a way to highlight that I’m a photographer.
But also that I walk the walk, like we all need family photos and I don’t want to just take those for other people. Like I also hire fellow family photographers to photograph my family. Now it’s been way too long, which I mean, I think that’s the last session that we had, and that was 2021. Sabrina, we are way overdue, like way overdue, but.
This is a way for me to like talk about the fact that I’m a photographer and that I print my own photos in the same breath that I say. And my clients also really love this frame too. So sometimes marketing is not even about talking about you actually taking the photographs. It’s about all the other things that come after a photo session happens that you might be doing inside of your own life.
Guess what guys? That’s still marketing, especially if you’re talking about something that you offer in your online gallery software.
Sabrina: Yeah, totally. Sharing stories of how you use photos in your home, what photos mean to you, photos from your own childhood or from your kids when they were babies. I mean, all of that stuff, it’s like how many different ways.
Can we talk about this without just saying like, here’s my work, here’s my work, or here’s my availability. Cause that’s not marketing, you know, it’s showing up. Like you said, it’s walking the walk, showing what you’re doing and being willing to embody the expert that you are being willing to share personal stories that are going to both bring in your ideal clients and repel the people that you don’t want to work with.
Okay. Thinking outside of the box. And for a lot of people hearing this is like, but that’s not what I’ve done in the past. Right. They’re like, I have been able to get away with sharing my photos. And sharing my availability and calling it a day. Well, at this day in 2024, if you are not getting inquiries, if your inquiries have dried up, if you’re not getting the engagement used to get on social media, if it feels like things are slow for you, this is probably why, because you haven’t been willing to try something new just because that worked for you with marketing in the past does not mean that it is safe.
still going to work for you. Like it’s time to shake things up a little bit and try something new. And for a lot of photographers, that’s scary because they have relied behind hiding behind their photos for a really long time.
Colie: So let’s take a kind of a step back and like, look at everything at a whole, because of course this was the marketing with intention series.
And we discussed a lot of marketing channels. A lot of platforms that you could use. And so if we are going to specifically look at those through the lens of like relationship marketing and connection marketing, I still think that has a place in emails. Like email marketing is still a thing. So how is it that you take the marketing content that you are going to create for your emails, for your newsletters, and do it from a lens of relationship marketing, how is that different?
Then what everybody is currently doing.
Sabrina: Yeah. This is something that I’m huge on because in, in my course, uh, I have a little running joke in every single module where we go through different platforms. Like you’re saying, my, my motto is all roads lead to email. I don’t care what platform we’re marketing in.
We want to push them to email because that’s the Holy grail. Okay. But you can absolutely do relationship marketing and email. And I have a actually a really recent story from just a few weeks ago, personally, in my own photography business, because for the listening audience, I am an educator, but I also am still a practicing photographer.
I still have people find me on Google. I still shoot sessions. So what that looks like an email is. If, if the social media version is just sharing your images and thinking that’s enough, the email version is just sharing your availability. Okay. Let’s go beyond that. Okay. Let’s go beyond that. Because again, in a social situation in a cocktail party or a play date, you are not going to walk up to somebody that you maybe have met one time and say, Hey, here’s my availability.
Do you want to book me? No. So instead of doing that, I want you to focus on what your ideal clients are wanting from you or how you can serve them. outside of the photography space. Okay. So for example, I am a family, a newborn photographer in Fort Worth, Texas. Okay. Most of my families are the kindergarten and below age group.
Okay. So it’s mom’s still having babies. It’s mom’s still in the thick of things with toddlers and littles and all of that. Okay. I’m not in that season of life anymore, but I still fully appreciate it because I have three kids of my own that moved through that. But what I love to do is at least once a month, I send an email to my photography list, okay, to my potential clients or people I’ve worked with before.
And it is basically a roundup of things I’m loving currently. And it’s as a mom, it is not as a photographer. Okay. So it’s like maybe the favorite toy we ordered on Amazon this month. And maybe it’s a favorite beauty thing I’m loving. Maybe it’s something from Tik TOK that’s cracking me up a book with a review, something like that.
So it’s literally maybe three to five links, okay. Of things I’m loving and a little blurb of why I’m loving them. And then at the bottom of the email, it literally is just like, Oh, and by the way, if you need a session, here’s my current availability. Okay. It’s like an afterthought, right? The whole email is a letter and then it’s all these links and why I love them.
So my recent story is that just three weeks ago I sent one of those emails. Okay. My audience knows to expect it from me. I’m serving them mom to mom, woman to woman, local Fort Worth person to local Fort Worth person. And I got three responses to that email of people that booked sessions. And I was not even promoting sessions.
You see how that works.
Colie: And everyone listening, if this sounds familiar, that is because in this series, when I talked to Dama Joo, she was talking about this same kind of concept, but for non photographers. It was funny. Sabrina Dama said, you know, I can’t send an email where I’m not selling. Now, it doesn’t mean that the email itself has to be a sales email, but somewhere in that email, I am always giving people the opportunity to click and buy for me and photographers.
That is you to your newsletter does not have to be focused on whatever offer you currently have at that time. It could just be you connecting with your audience as Sabrina said, as a mom. But that doesn’t mean that somewhere in that email, there is not somewhere that they can click and buy something from you and Sabrina’s talking about how she got three bookings for sessions, but the same thing applies to reminding people that they can buy prints, reminding people that you want to make them an album, like whatever it is.
The bottom of your email is a great place to do that because you’ve been giving them all this value as they read down your email. And then at the bottom, they’re like, Oh yeah, I haven’t had a session. Oh yeah, I haven’t made prints from my last session, whatever it is. So
Sabrina: yeah,
Colie: bravo, Sabrina.
Sabrina: Yeah. So two reasons why.
This works really well. Number one. I mean, I guess three reasons. Number one, you’re connecting with them and you’re not just, you don’t feel like the, like the used car salesman who’s only selling all the time, right? Like you’re, you’re providing them other information and it’s refreshing because I don’t know about you, but I have certain retailers that I follow that I have that I’m on their email list.
And all I do is delete. I don’t even open the emails. Right. Cause they send so many and it just, I’m like, Oh, whatever, whatever. Delete, delete, delete. Right. But what happens when you provide that kind of content to your audience is They want it. And they’re opening your emails. They’re opening your emails because they know when Sabrina sends an email, there’s something fun inside.
Right? And then you are also staying top of mind in their inbox because you’re sending regular emails and your audience is opening those emails. They’re not just immediately deleting them. And that’s how the surprise bookings come in because you never fall off. Right? They see your name and they’re like, Oh, that’s right.
We haven’t booked a session in a while, even though I’m not writing about a session, right. Or writing about booking. And it’s just kind of magic, like training your audience to want to hear from you, to want to open your emails and read it. It really does work and it’s not hard. And, you know, I, I do the route of, here’s the things I’m loving now.
There’s a million iterations of that. If that doesn’t sound good to you, like, if that doesn’t feel like your vibe, cool. Like, what does feel like your vibe? I have some students that I teach. who are foodies. Yes. So recipes. Yeah. So they’ll send rest. They’ll send one recipe and one new restaurant recommendation of somewhere they tried.
Right. And every single email I have people who are book lovers who will do like book reviews of this kind of book, this kind of book, maybe one’s an adult, maybe one’s like personal development and maybe one’s like a child children’s book. And they’ll have recommendations in there. I have parents who are photographers who are also homeschool moms.
And they pull in a lot of homeschool moms. And so they’ll tell like, what’s happening in our, at our homeschool table this week or favorite homeschool things. You can do this so many different ways. Okay. Um, I just personally, I have a shopping problem. And so it’s easy for me to share with links of things that I’m loving that just works really well for me.
Colie: But the bottom line is that if this is your mo, if this is what you, the people on your email list come to expect from you, they are not going to see an email from you in their inbox and think, Oh, I’m not ready for a photography session right now. I don’t even need to open it. They are going to think, okay, what recipe has Sabrina ship?
What has Sabrina bought lately that I should probably add to my Amazon cart. Like that is the mentality that they’re going to have every time your name appears inside of their inbox.
Sabrina: Yeah. And if you think about it, going back to this relationship marketing, this creating connections with people. You guys, this is the same kind of information that you share via text with your bestie.
When you get some awesome order, you’re like, girl, I just tried this eye cream and it’s amazing. You need to order it, right? It is connection. It is like based in serving and wanting to support somebody. And so that’s why it works so well because we’re all craving connection, right? Your clients are, we are, so why not create a safe space for that?
Colie: Yeah. Okay. So do you do the same thing with blogging or do you, cause you said all roads lead to email. By the way, we’re going to put that on a t shirt or something, but. Do you take this or do you teach the photographers to take the same concept and apply it to their blogging? Like, is it only email? Like, email?
Because email is a little bit more personal, I feel. Like, blogging? Anybody can get your blogs. But does that, should that deter you from actually taking the same concept and putting it on your website and not just gated behind your email?
Sabrina: Yeah, I like to do something similar in blogs. I want you to still think about how you can serve your ideal clients beyond photography.
Yes, I want you to write about your products and your process and show your work, but you are so much more than that. And so are your potential clients, you know, again, going back to the homeschool moms or the foodies or the book lovers. All of that stuff can also live on your blog in maybe you’re sharing some things you love, but then your email gets something even more special from that, you know, or maybe your email gets the information first and then it goes on a public blog, but you can absolutely put, put that stuff on there.
Especially because it’s going to be helping drive your SEO. You absolutely want it to be key worded for the person in your area. Who’s also going to want your services, right? It’s again, thinking about the holistic. Part of your ideal client. Like what else does she need? What else is she interested in that I can help with that?
We can connect on that. She could potentially find in a blog post, land on my website and be like, Holy crap. She’s also an amazing photographer, right? That’s what you want to happen in your blog.
Colie: And I feel like. I mean, writing blogs is perfect for this though, because if you think about, you know, my favorite three parks for families inside of Boulder.
I mean, there could be families everywhere that are like, you know, what’s your favorite park? What park should I visit in Boulder? Blah, blah, blah. So you write a blog post about this. Yeah. And then maybe you write like a second half just to your email list where you tell them a story about the favorite, you know, play things at the park or how much your daughter or your kids love it or whatever it is.
You make it a little bit more personable. In the email than you did on the blog post. But that blog post is still working for you for that SEO. That blog post is still working to bring new leads into your blog, which hopefully they will take that next step and actually eventually go to your contact form and fill it out.
Exactly. Okay. So don’t just share your photos. Don’t use your availability as your marketing tool. So don’t just say I’m available or I have three dates left or whatever it is that we do to create that false sense of urgency to get people to book our fall sessions. What are some other key things that you see photographers doing to market their business?
that isn’t really bringing them the best fit leads that they’re seeking.
Sabrina: Well, uh, this doesn’t necessarily speak to like the best fit leads, but something I see them doing wrong, especially this time of year, is they are continuing to market for what they’re doing currently in their business instead of what’s happening.
Four months down the road, right? This is, is especially common with, with family photographers in the fall. They are photographing a zillion families. Therefore they have a zillion sneak peeks and that’s what they’re doing all day, every day. And that’s all they’re sharing about online or in their email or on their website because they’re in it.
That’s not serving you at all. That is not serving you at all. And come January, February, March, when you’re like. Why am I not getting any inquiries? It’s because you didn’t market for that time of year, right? You always need to market ahead of time. And so I tell people, yes, absolutely. Share your sneak peeks in your stories maybe, but like, you need to be talking about the stuff that you want to be talking about.
booking months from now because you’re already booked. You’re already at capacity. Stop, stop marketing false family sessions. You can’t do anymore, right? You need to be marketing for the next thing.
Colie: Well, but I know that some people will say something like, Oh no, but Sabrina, like I’m not fully booked.
That’s why I’m trying to get people to book my fall sessions. My response would be, well, then you need some balance. Of course you share your sneak peeks. You still share that kind of stuff, but it should at least be 50, 50, where if you are someone who only does branding or only does in home newborns during winter, because hello, I live in Colorado.
We don’t go, well, I don’t go outside period, but those other photographers don’t go outside in winter, but so you have to make sure that you’re showing people the non fall portrait outdoor sessions now so that they can begin to book those for. the next quarter, which would be winter, January, February, March,
Sabrina: right?
And the other part of that is just like I said a minute ago, when it comes to email, if you are constantly just pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch, pitching all the time, people are going to start not opening your emails, deleting them, flagging them for spam. Think about your, Social media the same way. If all you’re doing is sharing photos and availability and photos and availability over and over again, people swipe, they skip, they don’t pay attention because it’s the same old thing over and over again.
This is where, like you said, creating balance about sharing what’s currently happening versus what you want to book for and also sliding in the personal stuff as well so that people aren’t just Swiping through your content and ignoring it all together because that’s not doing anything for you. And if that’s what you’re currently doing on your social accounts, that’s probably what’s happening.
You’re probably getting no interaction. You’re probably getting no engagement. You’re getting no comments. You feel like you’re putting in an effort over there and nothing’s happening. It’s because people are tired of just seeing images from you. They want to see things from you. They want to hear about your opinions.
They want to see what you’re loving. They want to see what you, how you spend your days. They want to see what you’re doing with your kids, right? So making sure to slide that in there too, to keep your potential clients and your audience. Excited about what you’re doing.
Colie: I mean, I love sharing about Disney.
We all know this. Yeah. But I think my favorite thing that I’ve been seeing from other photographers right now currently in terms of reels that is not directly like this, is a family that I just shot last week, is I, I saw one photographer who went to Target. And basically did a, did a real while she walked through and showed all of the different cute outfits that she saw that would be perfect for a family session.
Now at the end, of course, she was like, Hey, and if you still need a session, Lincoln bio, I mean, but out of a, you know, 62nd reel, that was like, And the rest of it was showing really cute outfits, and I am not ashamed to say that one of the dresses that she showed for moms, I’m not having photos outside, but I was like, I’m going to go get that dress next to me.
So, I mean, it took on a whole nother meaning when I was watching it because I wasn’t necessarily looking for outfits for sessions, but I was like, okay, no, that dress is real cute. Like, I need that.
Sabrina: Yeah. And a way to take that one step even better would be instead of target, go into your local boutiques and tag those other businesses.
So then you’re supporting other businesses online, which most likely they will at best case scenario, they will reshare it. Okay. Which puts your business in front of new eyes that are local. Worst case, they see it and say, thank you, you know, and you’ve at least started a conversation with another business owner who you could potentially collaborate with later, but doing stuff like that is so creative and you’re right.
Not only is it a way to serve your clients who are potentially shopping for photos currently, but it’s also a way to just serve your clients and be like, look at this cute stuff. I saw go get yourself over to target or to this boutique. Cause you need this stuff.
Colie: Okay, Sabrina, I mean, I feel like we have talked a lot about all of the different kinds of things that we can do with marketing, but like, how do we decide how much is enough?
So I think I’ve asked this of almost every expert. And of course the answer is usually, well, it depends. And I get that. But like in general, I feel like people. Like when we mention newsletters to photographers, they’re always like, I don’t know what I would say every week. I don’t know where this myth came from that you are expected to write an email every single week.
So Sabrina, I’m asking you, how often should photographers be connecting with their clients and their email list? And then we’ll talk about the other kinds of marketing channels, because of course it’s probably going to differ depending on your channels.
Sabrina: Yeah, I think for photographers, I think twice and twice a month is ideal.
I think twice a month is ideal. And when you say, I don’t know what to write about twice a month, make it a formula, make it a formula. Stop trying to overthink it every single time. Stop looking at a blinking cursor every time you sit down and you’re like, Oh, I’m supposed to write an email today. What do I do?
If you make it a formula, it is So much easier. And when I say a formula, tell yourself, okay, the first email of the month is going to look like this section one, section two, section three, so that you are like plugging and playing. Okay. And then the second email a month is going to be more, maybe it’s going to be a bunch of links or going to be a bunch of recommendations.
Okay. Make one of them a true like salesy email and make the other one really connection focused. And if you can create templates within that, a formula within that, it’s going to make it so much easier to do that.
Colie: Yeah, I mean, and if you’re like a flow desk user or even convert kit, you can save that template and then you just pick it every single time.
You’re going to write an email. Guys, no one is going in there and designing these emails from scratch every single time they write one. That is just not a thing. All you need to figure out is the content that’s going to go in there. Give https: otter. ai 30, 45 minutes to sit down and write this email and you will be done.
And the more you write the email, the more you flex your muscles and you practice and it will get easier and easier. And eventually maybe you’ll sit down and just be like, okay. I’ve got all of these ideas for these newsletters. What am I going to tell you to do? I’m going to tell you to get that content organization hub and just put them all in there so that when you are ready to write an email, you’re not even trying to ideate it at the same time.
You’re just going to wherever you’re writing all of your ideas. You’re picking one that speaks to you and you’re writing the email and hopefully less than 45 minutes.
Sabrina: Yeah. And when you have that formula set up, let’s say again, you’re doing a sales email, one per month, that’s only 12 per year. And then one per month, 12 per year of the more connection based ones.
Okay. Once you’ve got that formula, if it truly is something that you connect with your ideal client on, Filling in the blanks should be easy peasy. Let’s go back to the foodie example. Okay, if this person is going to say like one recipe and one restaurant recommendation every single month for the whole year, you could probably sit down and bang out those ideas right now.
Like the whole year’s worth, right? You’ve got 12 recipes, you’ve got 12 restaurants. And then you just are filling in the blanks when you write your email. The same goes for the sales emails. If you just put your hat on and say, okay, looking at the calendar, knowing that I’m going to be selling motherhood sessions at this time of year, summer minis at this time of year, fall, like, you know, what’s going to be going on.
You also know what’s going to be going on with your ideal clients, right? Like school ending or spring break or new year or back to school. Like you have a general idea of what you could talk about for 12 months. It’s, it’s not that complicated, you know?
Colie: And you can always pivot. I always feel like if I’m like, Oh, let me map it all out.
Then when I get really inspired, I’m like, well, Oh, I already have these things planned. Guys, you are the CEO in your business. If you come up with an idea that you are super excited, excited about, you know, You can just take off the email that you thought you were going to write this week and put in the one that you’re super excited about.
And now you’ve got this idea that you can use later when you are not so inspired. Or if you already wrote the email, I mean, you’ve already got an email written that you can plug in again, when you’re not really feeling inspired to do the marketing activities for your business, but you are always marketing for the client that you will book in 90 days.
So a quarter. Okay. So you can’t not market now. Otherwise, next quarter, you won’t have any leads. So just keep that in mind.
Sabrina: Yeah, and that’s such a good point. I think it’s always better to be in that position that you just described, to have something written and planned and want to pivot, as opposed to sitting down and looking at the blinking cursor and thinking, What do I have to talk about today?
You know?
Colie: Yeah. Yes. All right, Sabrina, do you have any kind of closing wisdom for the listening audience? Or if they’re like, okay, that sounds really good. Like what else can Sabrina teach me? Like tell, tell us about your course and tell us where they can find you other than just being in my boxer all day, every day.
Sabrina: So I guess a couple of things I’ll leave you with. Number one, no marketing is going to work if you’re not consistent with it. You have to, you got to pick something and be consistent. And I’m not talking about the every once in a while when we need to take a break from Instagram and just like walk away for a little bit, like you do you, honey, I want you to take care of yourself.
But generally speaking, uh, when you look at your business as a whole, You have to be willing to be consistent with the blogs that you post. You have to be consistent with the emails that you write. You have to be consistent with how you show up on social media. Nothing is going to work without consistency.
Like consistency is a must. Okay. And so if you struggle with consistency, how can we fix that problem? How can we build consistency? Are there habits we need to build? Do you need to do some planning? Do you need to take a course? Something like that, right? Consistency is so important. And then the second thing I want to leave you with is.
Stop taking it so seriously, like stop taking it so seriously. Um, I have said this over and over again on my own podcast and with my coaching students as photographers, as small business owners, as creative entrepreneurs, we are not in the business of creating oxygen. It is not life or death chill out. If you write an email and it has a broken link or it flops.
No big deal. Send another one. Yeah. If you create a real and nobody sees it and nobody comments. Cool. No big deal. Like stop taking everything so seriously. Stop trying to have to have everything perfect. And if it doesn’t work, it’s not worth it. No. You need to have more of a playful, like chilled out energy with just your business as a whole, but specifically with marketing, that’s going to allow you to play and try stuff and fall down and get up again.
It’s not that serious.
Colie: Yeah. Yeah. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. That’s a good one too.
Sabrina: But yeah, I have a course. It’s called Marketing that Attracts and you can get it at SabrinaGebhardt. com backslash marketing. You can learn about it. I think it’s pretty great and everybody that’s in there loves it, but it is so much more It’s specifically for photographers and it is the whole course is based in this connection relationship marketing, how to apply it to every single marketing channel and your business.
And then the very last module of the course is kind of after you’ve learned the how to’s for everything. It’s like a little quiz that you take that tells you how to create a marketing plan for your specific business that will help meet your goals and your needs. And it’s pretty cool. So yeah, go check it out.
Colie: Yes. I mean, I think that that’s key. If you’ve decided to do something in your marketing plan. And you are like, let’s say that it’s Instagram. I mean, we all know I have a love hate relationship with Instagram, but let’s say that you do it every week and every week you’re dreading it. Guess what guys?
Instagram is not the only marketing channel out there. Pick a different one. Like you are allowed to market your business in different places other than the standard. Let me throw everything up on Instagram. And so keep it playful. Don’t take it so serious. And those are words to live by. Thank you, Sabrina, for joining me on this episode.
I am super excited that we do have one episode that is specifically for the photographers out there because you know, I love you.
Sabrina: Thanks friend. This was really fun chat. I appreciate you having me
Colie: again. All right. That’s it for this episode. See you next time. Hey friend, are you drowning in a sea of post its trying to keep track of all your content ideas?
Or maybe you’re struggling to remember what you posted on which platform and when. I totally get it. That’s why I created the content organization hub for Airtable. For just 9, you can finally put an end to content chaos. Imagine having all your marketing content in one central location. Easily linked, perfectly organized and ready to go whenever you are ready to take control of your content.
Visit Coliejames. com slash content to buy now and get started in minutes. Once again, coliejames. com slash content and use the discount code podcast to get 10 percent off. Thanks for listening to the business first creatives podcast. For more information on this podcast, including show notes and links to the video podcast, please visit coliejames.
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