Proven Marketing Strategies for New Photographers with Jeff Poole

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jeff Poole (00:00):
I think one of the biggest mistakes that I made

(00:02):
back then was really focusing onwhat everybody else was charging
and setting my pricesappropriately.
And I think that we see that alot in the photography industry
when someone's starting out.
The first thing you do isinquire or, search other
people's websites to find whatthey're charging.
And then a lot of photographershave the same concept and idea
that I had of, well, so and sois charging this.

(00:24):
They've been in business a longtime and I'm brand new, so I
can't charge that.
I have to charge a little bitless than that.
And you're basing your pricesoff what everybody else is
charging and without knowing ifthey're successful, without
knowing if they're profitable,without knowing if they're even
working.
And so I think, that was one ofthe biggest mistakes that I made
early on, is pricing my workbased off everybody else's and

(00:45):
not really understanding how toprice my work based on my cost.

Raymond Hatfield (00:51):
Hey, welcome to the Beginner Photography
Podcast.
I'm your host, Raymond Hatfield,and today we're chatting with
wedding headshot and boudoirphotographer Jeff Poole about
how to market and get clients.
But first, the BeginnerPhotography Podcast is brought
to you by Cloud Spot.
Simplify your business withstudio management.
You can organize clients, sendprofessional contracts, automate

(01:12):
invoice payments and more.
So keeping track of everythingin your photography business
just got a whole lot easier.
You can grab your free foreveraccount today
over@deliverphotos.com and onlyupgrade when you are ready.
So, Scott Widen Kivowitzintroduced me to today's guest,
Jeff, down at Imaging USA.
Right away, it was super clearthat this guy knew how to

(01:33):
attract clients as aphotographer.
I mean, the guy operates aphotography business with his
wife where he shoots threetotally different genres,
whereas most photographersstruggle to market just one.
So if you have a photographybusiness or you're thinking
about turning your camera into away to make a few extra dollars,
then you're really going to lovethis interview.
So today you're gonna learn thebiggest pricing mistake that

(01:56):
held Jeff back from earning aprofit when starting his
business, and how you'reprobably making that same
mistake too.
Why simply posting 27 times aday on social isn't gonna get
inquiries coming in, and how toactually use social media to
grow your income and not justfollowers.
As well as the eight emailsequence that you need to set up
to turn people from simplyinterested to dying to work with

(02:19):
you.
So there is a lot here.
But real quick, I just wanna saythat I applaud you for taking
the time to listen to theBeginner Photography podcast
and, actually do something foryourself and your creativity and
not just waste your time doomscrolling or watching TV or,
just being bored.
You're making the right choicetowards being the person that
you wanna become.
So round of applause.

(02:41):
Okay.
Well, with that, let's go aheadand get on into today's
interview with Jeff Poole.
Jeff, I want to know when didyou know that photography was
gonna play an important role inyour life?

Jeff Poole (02:50):
I think it's like a lot of photographers when I had
my first child, I kind of alwaysplayed around with cameras in
college and I was that, that guythat always had a camera at all
the frat parties, which thankgod, social media wasn't a thing
back then because I.
I don't even know.
I still have two roles of filmin my fridge from college, and
I'm terrified to, develop them.
So, while it was big goingthrough college, it was more of

(03:11):
a hobby.
And then when my first, childwas born, I took some photos of
her and everybody in my family.
It's like, wow, these areamazing.
Of course they did.
They were horrible.
I looked back at them, nooffense, Mary Catherine, but,
yeah, they were not great.
But, the encouragement from myfamily pretty much put me down
the track of like, oh, maybe Ican do this as a side hustle.

What did you go to college for?

Jeff Poole (03:30):
I, so, funny enough, my degree is in, pre-med
biology, pre-med with a minor inchemistry, and I, um.

opposite direction and

Jeff Poole (03:39):
Yeah, I had dreams of being a trauma surgeon, but I
did not have the GPA to back itup,

Uh.

Jeff Poole (03:44):
so, so I ended up being a paramedic for 17 years,
and thank goodness I got sotired of seeing people sick and
dying every day.
I thought, man, I'm glad Ididn't dedicate, another 10
years of my life to be asurgeon, So, uh, yeah.

It takes a special kind of person.
Like my wife is an rn and I

Jeff Poole (04:01):
Uhhuh.

myself, just from the stories that she tells
me, thank

Jeff Poole (04:03):
Yeah.

people in the world like you.
'cause I could never do

Jeff Poole (04:06):
I had,

can't.

Jeff Poole (04:08):
yeah, I had a really bad call where a little girl got
killed on her birthday at herbirthday party, and the very
next day I had a wedding.
and my daughter was about thesame age, and the flower girl at
the wedding was about the sameage.
And you know, it's like I'msitting here, here going home to
my daughter and then going, fromthat call and then going to a
wedding and I was like, that'sit.

(04:29):
I'm done.
Yeah, I'm done.
And all my supervisors werelike, do you need to go to like
stress debriefing?
I'm like, no, no, I'm, no, it'snot that.
I'm, I'm just done.
I'm done with all of it.
And so I'm ready to be aphotographer.
So, yeah.

Okay.
Well this is gonna be a hardtransition or a hard segue
rather, but, let's start talkingabout, kind of those earliest
days in business for you.
Can you tell me what did youdecide to start focusing on and,
I guess why.

Jeff Poole (04:55):
Yeah.
when I first started it was allweddings.
Mostly weddings, because it wasone of the easiest things to get
into back then.
especially in.
In my area and the prices that Iwas charging, right?
Because I didn't understand howto run a business.
So weddings was one of theeasiest and fastest things to
get into.
You go to a wedding show, youset up some images and you have
a low enough price andeverybody's gonna book you and

(05:17):
you will be super busy.
but the thing with that, I foundout that is not profitable.
So we started trying to do othertypes of photography and, again,
weren't priced right?
So we were busy, but we weren'tprofitable.
So, I think weddings wasprobably my gateway drug into
photography, and then it justkind of spiraled from there.

Yeah.
I hear that a lot from others aswell, especially in the beginner
photography podcast community.
so I guess having the experiencethat you have now, well, I guess
to give us some context, kind oftold us where you started.

Jeff Poole (05:48):
Uhhuh.

us where your business is at today?
'cause I think that that's gonnapredicate, a lot of the
information that you share,

Jeff Poole (05:54):
Yeah.
Yeah.
so today, and I'll kind of backup or we can either start now
and go back.
When I started, I just like, Ilike telling everybody this, my
origin story kind of, because Ithink it, it sets the precedent
of where we are today when wewere, First starting out and we
opened our first studio.
We weren't priced profitably.

(06:14):
I hear a lot of photographerstalk about running a six figure
studio and I just did a, a microwebinar yesterday on the six
figure salary, not the sixfigure studio, because I hear a
lot of photographers andeducators talking about creating
a six figure studio and.
That's all well and fine, butyour profit margins have to be
there.

Mm-hmm.

Jeff Poole (06:31):
I'm a perfect example of that because when we
first were starting out, I wasshooting a lot of weddings.
Again, low price, not reallyprofitable, shooting a lot of
portraits, low price, not reallyprofitable.
And our studio was a six figurestudio.
But I ended up losing my houseand having to move into the
basement of that studio forthree years because I didn't
understand how to run abusiness.
And the profit margins weren'tthere for me to be able to

(06:52):
support my family.
it was really tough time for me.
So I think.
that transition, will kind ofhelp understand like, okay, once
you're in that situation, a lotof photographers are, and
they're hitting burnout becausethey're like, I'm shooting, I'm
busy.
I'm just don't have a lot ofmoney.
And so, I think a lot of thatkind of helps with understanding
where we are today because it'sall because of proper pricing,

(07:14):
proper marketing, proper,understanding how to run a
business.
And so today, we really focus onweddings, headshots and boudoir.
I.
I don't do as many weddingstoday.
I shoot between seven and 10weddings a year, but my average
wedding is somewhere between 10and$11,000.
So I don't need to shoot a lotof weddings at this point.
in order to make a, a decentliving off of weddings.

(07:35):
I photograph headshots.
I do quite a few headshot.
This will be my first full yearactually promoting headshots.
And already I've made more moneythis year with headshot than I
made all of last year.
So, because I actually putmarketing behind it.
I put money behind it.
I built a website for it insteadof just a page on my website.
I built a dedicated headshot,website.
And then my wife is a boudoirphotographer and she crushes it.

(07:57):
she photographs about 50sessions a year, and she has
about a$5,200 average sale forher boudoir sessions.
she shoots twice a week.
She shoots, one session a day.
Shoot, edit itself same day.
And she's absolutely crushing itwith, with boudoir.
So that's kind of where we aretoday.
we run a multi six figure studiothat brings us in a, beyond six

(08:18):
figure salary.
And in our area that we live at,that's a really good living
because it's a sleepy littlebeach town.
So we can pretty much do what wewanna do, work our own schedule
and, live the life we wanna livewith that,

Wow.
How inspiring is that,

Jeff Poole (08:31):
yeah.

to go from working this full-time job as a
paramedics, like seeing thesethings that, humans should not
be seeing right.

Jeff Poole (08:37):
Yeah.

now turning it around and living the life that
you are today.
I guess I want to know, my wholeidea for this is.
are wondering right now, like,okay, so how do I get to that
point?
So let's

Jeff Poole (08:48):
Yeah,

to reverse engineer that because you didn't
go to school to learn marketing,

Jeff Poole (08:53):
exactly.

all that stuff.
You had to kind of figure thatout on your own.
So let's go back to thoseearliest days, and I guess let's
take that back.
Let's those who are in theirearliest days right now.
and tell me what are some of themistakes that you made when
starting out so that those whoare in that same position now,
don't make

Jeff Poole (09:12):
sure.
I think one of the biggestmistakes that I made back then
was really focusing on whateverybody else was charging and
setting my prices appropriately.
And I think that we see that alot in the photography industry
when someone's starting out.
And I'm guilty, I did the samething.
the first thing you do isinquire or, search other
people's websites to find whatthey're charging.

(09:32):
And then a lot of photographershave the same concept and idea
that I had of, well, so and sois charging this.
They've been in business a longtime and I'm brand new, so I
can't charge that.
I have to charge a little bitless than that, and then, by the
time I'm in, in business for ayear, maybe you come into the
scene and you look at my websiteand be like, well, Jeff's been
around for a while and he'scharging this, so I need to

(09:53):
charge that.
And you're basing your pricesoff what everybody else is
charging and without knowing ifthey're successful, without
knowing if they're profitable,without knowing if they're even
working.
And so I think, that was one ofthe biggest mistakes that I made
early on, is pricing my workbased off everybody else's and
not really understanding how toprice my work based on my cost.

(10:14):
so that I have the profitmargins and be able to support
my family.

So, today, what sorts of costs would you
look at to determine what yourpricing should be?

Jeff Poole (10:24):
Yeah.
And that's a loaded questionbecause there's a lot, right?
You know, there's, there's a lotof educators that say, look at
how much all of your bills cost,and then break it down and
figure out how many sessions youwanna shoot.
And that's definitely one way togo.
but we take a more simplerapproach to it.
we look at how we price ourproducts.
Based on retail 1 0 1, right?
we just look completely outsideof the photography world and

(10:46):
look at how big box stores, bigmanufacturers, price their work
or their products.
And for us, everything needs tobe between a 10 to 12% cost of
goods, 15, maybe 20, at theabsolute highest cost of goods.
So when I'm looking at a productand it costs a hundred dollars.
In my mind, I've got a thousanddollars price tag on it.

(11:08):
That's what I'm gonna retell itfor, you know, because our
price, our products that we'rebuying from our labs, they're at
wholesale cost.
So, something that costs ahundred dollars for us, I'm
retelling it for a thousanddollars.
That gives me a 10% cost ofgoods.
And so with looking at cost ofgoods, at cost space, pricing,
now you're looking at it, itdoesn't have anything to do with

(11:29):
your skill or your talent oryour.
place in the market in yourindustry or your neighborhood or
your town.
The only thing that's cominginto effect is how much does it
cost you to produce that productversus how much you can sell it
for.
And if you are less than 20%,you have enough profit margin
there to be able to support asalary for yourself and all the

(11:50):
bills of your studio.
and our target for our studio isbetween 10 and 12%.
But on some really high ticketitems, like I have some, I, some
of my fine art wedding albums,they might cost me six or$700.
I'm willing to go up to 20% costof goods on those, just to keep
the price in line with what myclients will pay.
Because the real world dollarprofit there is, is significant

(12:12):
when you price that up.
so I would recommend to peoplethat when you're building your a
la carte price list, the firstthing you need to do is look at
the product and say, can I sellthis for 10 to 15% cost of
goods?
that's what you should beselling it for.
And then know that if you dowanna offer any discounts, you
need to mark it up a little bitmore than that.
So when you mark it down, you'restill at that 10 to 15% cost of
goods.

(12:32):
And that should give you aplenty profit margin to be able
to support your family, supportyour studio, pay your bills, and
bring a paycheck home.
Which is the most importantthing.

Yeah.
Yeah.
that's a very important thing.
Yeah.
To be able to, to feed the kidsand whatnot.
So,

Jeff Poole (12:46):
Yeah.

can hear listeners right now saying,
okay, I charge, let's just say$75 for a session.
How in the world am I gonnacharge even a hundred dollars
just for an eight by 10?

Jeff Poole (12:56):
Yeah.
Yeah.

how we get to the, like, do we just today 10%
to 12% cost to goods for all ofour,

Jeff Poole (13:03):
W

Or is that something that we work up to?

Jeff Poole (13:06):
Yeah.
it depends on where you are,right?
If you are still working a dayjob that you have income coming
in to support your family, whatI would say do is rip that
bandaid off and chargeappropriately from day one.
And just understand that you'regonna hear a lot of nos before
you hear yeses.
and that's just part of it.
because what happens is if youstart out like we did.

(13:30):
You start attracting all thecheaper clients that want
cheaper prices, people run inthe same demographics.
Right?
So I had a client base ofprobably two or three years
worth of clients I was workingwith.
And when we decided, that's it,we're raising our prices and we
just ripped a bandaid off and wewent straight up.
We didn't try to tear it up oranything, we ripped the bandaid

(13:51):
off.
And what would happen is if Iphotographed your wedding for
$1,500.
Now you loved me, you five starreview.
You told your friends andfamily, you referred me, and
then all of a sudden you referme your best friend, and they
come in and now my prices are$5,000.
Now what happens is that personhas gotten their hopes up that

(14:12):
they're gonna get to work withme based off of your reviews and
your images.
And when I tell'em my prices are$5,000, they're gonna say, well,
wait a minute.
Raymond told me you photographedtheir wedding for 1500 last
year.
And I'm like, well, yeah, but myprices have now changed and this
is the price.
Well, I.
That person gets upset becausethey were getting their hopes up
that they were gonna work withme.
They go back and tell you, Heydude, your guy's crazy.

(14:34):
He's charging$5,000.
There's no way I'm paying$5,000.
Well now you stop referring meand that referral engine breaks
and you gotta build a newclient's hell from scratch.
And that's hard.
And it's scary because now allthe people that referring you
beyond now, at the current time.
All of their friends areprobably in the same
demographic, financially,demographic, field that they

(14:55):
are, and they're not gonna beable to afford that jump.
So it's better to start withyour prices where you wanna be,
and build the audience that you,that will afford and respect you
instead of trying to change twoyears in, because that's hard to
try to make that change, thatreferral engine just breaks.

Yeah.
Okay.
So, then real quick for those,how did you get over that?

Jeff Poole (15:15):
Um.

you deal with that, that break in the referral
engine?
I.

Jeff Poole (15:18):
It was scary, you know, like, and my wife and I
were just like, we'd go back andforth.
I'd be like, all right, we'regonna be at McDonald's next
month.
You know, uh, we're flippingburgers, and she was like, no,
we won't.
It'll work out because theclients that are booking us are
gonna pay more than the clientsthat say no.
and she was right.
we ended up photographing lessthat year.
We made more money and weactually had a profit, so it's

(15:40):
scary.
and I'm working with a clientthat I'm coaching with right
now.
It's going through the exactsame thing and I'm trying to
tell her like, look, you'rephotographing six sessions a
week and half of those arecanceling, and the other half of
those are pretty low sales, but.
If you just raise your pricesand you start, educating these
people on what to expect beforethey come in.

(16:01):
You might not book six sessionsa week.
You might only book one a week,but that one a week's gonna
spend more than the three thatactually got into your studio
that photographed and you'regonna make more money, you're
gonna work less, and it's gonnabe scary.
it's gonna be scary to hear noall the time, but just
understand when that one personsays yes, they're gonna spend
more.
Then probably all of those nosbefore them, and it's gonna make
you feel better because you'reactually gonna make a big sale.

(16:23):
And now when you make that bigsale with this person that said,
yes, baby them, take care ofthem.
Give them a little somethingextra wow them and make them
fall in love with you.
So they refer their friendsbecause their friends are in the
same financial demographic thatthey are.
And now that's how you startbuilding up that audience.
And so it's kind of scary to do,but that's basically the way we
did it.

(16:43):
We just pulled the bandaid offand just took a leap of faith
and we're like.
We're gonna hear No, buteventually we're gonna hear a
yes.
And that's gonna start the, thatnew referral engine coming in?

That's great.
I know that a lot of listenersare gonna appreciate that.
'cause again, that's wherethey're at.

Jeff Poole (16:59):
Yeah.
Yeah.

we've figured out, kind of how to price a lot
of our products, our tangibleproducts.
Now let's talk about, actuallygetting butts in seats, as they
say, right?
Like, let's talk about gettinginquiries,

Jeff Poole (17:11):
Yeah,

that's step one.

Jeff Poole (17:12):
it is.
It is.

start?

Jeff Poole (17:15):
Yeah.
just before we start talkingabout that, I, I do wanna circle
back about when you have your ala carte prices.
one thing that I recommend toevery photographer do is PPA has
a, free tool.
It's called Square one.
And once you have your pricesfor your individual products,
you should be setting what youwant your average sale per genre
to be.

(17:35):
The PPA Square one tool willallow you to say, I wanna make
this much money for my salary atthe end of the year.
And then you can plug in thetypes of, sessions that you can,
that you shoot.
So in our case, weddings,headshots, and boudoir.
And then you can put in how manysessions you want at a Target
average sale.
It'll show you how many you haveto shoot in order to be able to

(17:55):
make that, let's say 75 or ahundred thousand dollars that
you wanna bring home.
It'll show you how many sessionsyou need to shoot at what
average to get a gross studiosales in order to be able to pay
yourself 75,000.
So it's an awesome tool if youjust Google PPA square one and,
just follow, it's reallyintuitive.
Follow that.
Because the next step from thereis once you have that average

(18:17):
sale, is to build a price listand a sale system to get you to
that average sale.
So let's say for example, youwant to do$3,500 weddings,
right?
And that's the average sale thatyou need to hit in order to be
able to, to be able to make thesalary you wanna make.
Well now you gotta build a pricelist to be able to get you to
that$3,500 average sale.

(18:37):
And then once you have thatprice list, then you start
marketing to get people in,because if you get a whole bunch
of people in and you don't havea sales system to get you to an
average sale that you wanna beat.
Then it's like throwingspaghetti at the wall because
all these people are gonna comein, but they're not following a
sales system.
So you'll have very inconsistentsales.
It's very hard to forecast yourincome when you have

(18:58):
inconsistent sales, and oneperson might be a no sale or a
couple of hundred dollars andthe next person might spend two
or 3000.
It's really hard to, to forecastincome, off of that.
So those would be the steps thatI would take is, is figure out
how many sessions you need toshoot it while average.
Then build a price list to getyou to that average.
And then start the marketing, ifthat makes sense.

it does.
I want to go back though andtalk about this sales system.

Jeff Poole (19:23):
Yeah,

I think we kind of glossed over that a
little

Jeff Poole (19:25):
yeah.

think that new photographers are thinking,
well, what e what exactly doesthat mean?

Jeff Poole (19:30):
Yeah.

that a little bit?

Jeff Poole (19:31):
Sure.
So a sales system, for example,let's say we have, we want to
have a$3,500 average wedding foraverage sale for weddings.
There's a couple of ways to doit.
You can say, I'm gonna bepackages, and my bottom package
is gonna be, 20, let's say$2,000, and then my middle
package is gonna be$3,500, andthen my top package is gonna be

(19:52):
$4,500.
People have a tendency togravitate toward the middle of
anything.
And so when your middle packageis at your average sale of where
you wanna be, some people willbook your low.
Some people will book your high,some people will book your
middle.
But at the end of the year, whenyou run your numbers and you
say, well, I shot, a hundredweddings, or let's say 10
weddings at$120,000 or$90,000,divide those 10 divided by gross

(20:19):
sales that will give you youraverage.
That's where you're gonna land.
So when you start building yoursystems, start figuring out,
like that middle package shouldbe about where you want your
average sale to be, and mostpeople will gravitate toward it.
if you are, like a create yourown collection, then you need to
have a, a series of productsthat will, people will just

(20:40):
naturally go down in order to beable to get to that average
sale.
And that.
That takes a little bit morepractice when you have a create
your own collection or a a lacarte menu to figure out what
products to offer at what pricesin order to yield, an average
sale.
So packages make it easierbecause you can put your target
sales number in the middle andthen some people will book your
big package, some will book yourlittle, but it all averages out

(21:02):
to be about that middle packageof where it's gonna be.
So, that's the way I wouldrecommend doing it.
And.
it's different than a la carte,right?
A la carte.
People come in and they can justbuy whatever they want off of
your menu and you really don'thave a way to control the low
end of that sale, right?
Where with packages you cancontrol the low end.
but unfortunately you alsocontrol the high end, but you

(21:23):
can guarantee that you're gonnamake a certain number of money
per wedding if you havepackages.
So I hope that made sense oflike, it's basically just a way
for when people come in that youcan kind of guarantee that
you're gonna have a range, fromthe low end to the high end of
what people are gonna spend thataverages out to be what you want
that average sale to be.

No, that does make sense.
appreciate that.
I took a, a very similar butslightly different approach when
shooting weddings, is that whenI figured out what my average
sale needed to be,

Jeff Poole (21:52):
Mm-hmm.

my lowest package

Jeff Poole (21:54):
Yeah.
Yeah.

My middle package was a little bit higher.
It wasn't much higher'cause

Jeff Poole (21:57):
Mm-hmm.

to make that jump.
But then my largest package was,I don't wanna say it was outta
reach, but that was likeswinging for the fences.
That was a grand slam.

Jeff Poole (22:06):
Yeah.

and pretty much I think over the 10 years I
only had like four people bookthat largest

Jeff Poole (22:11):
Mm-hmm.

that was kind of the idea, that at least I
knew that if I made almost anybookings that I would be, that
I'd be set.
So, I

Jeff Poole (22:18):
and that's a great idea too.
just set your bottom at youraverage, but a lot of times if
you, photographers are scared todo that because

Yeah.

Jeff Poole (22:25):
that is too high of a ceiling and you're afraid to
say that you're gonna hear a lotof nos.
but yeah.
Yeah, that's a perfect way to doit too, depending on what you
want your average to be.
one additional way to do it iswhat I do now.
Is, I just have one basecommission.
I don't have packages at all.
I just have one base commissionand that is my, what I consider

(22:46):
my get out of bed on Saturdayrate, it's$6,200 and if you want
me for six hours and digitalonly, I.
Then that's what you're gonnapay.
And then if you want albums, Igive you incentives.
Like if you book your weddingwith me, and you, you add an
album when you book, then youget an extra incentive, like you
get an additional 10 pages, inthat album.

(23:06):
or if you, book an engagementsession, then you get a free
curve medal, but you still gottabuy everything else, right?
so that allows me to say, okay,I know I'm gonna make at least
six grand.
That's, I'm fine with that.
And I know that.
there's gonna be a good amountof people that are gonna buy
album.
They're gonna buy wall art,they're gonna buy post wedding
day collection.
So that pushes me above that10,000 that I wanna be at for a

(23:27):
wedding

Hmm.

Jeff Poole (23:28):
and it works really well to start.
And then just say if you wantanything else, you can buy and
incentivize those purchasesalong the way.

Yeah, I have a different name.
Instead of calling it the GetOutta bed on Saturday Price,
it's the, what would it cost forme to miss my favorite concert
price?

Jeff Poole (23:44):
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.

similar, like, you know, what would it take?
So, okay, so we talked aboutpricing.
We talked about, buildingpackages as well.
Now.
Let's get onto the marketingaspect.

Jeff Poole (23:54):
Yeah.

the number one question that I hear from new
photographers is how do I findclients?
And

Jeff Poole (24:00):
Yeah.

of the hardest things.
But this is something that youhave a lot of experience in.

Jeff Poole (24:04):
Yeah.

I guess you also have a lot of experience
educating photographers.
So when you look at newphotographers who are starting
in the business journey of theirphotography business, what
mistakes are they making and howdo you get them to turn that
around?

Jeff Poole (24:18):
So I think a lot of mistakes that people make early
on with marketing is that theyrely solely on social media.
You know, they think that, if Ipost 27 times a day on social
media that my phone's gonnastart ringing.
I.
The truth is, is that they'renot, they don't own their
audience.
When you're just posting onsocial media, you're just hoping
that that Zuckerberg and whoeveris gonna promote you.

(24:42):
To the best of your, theirability.
And they're really not.
they're not gonna promote you.
organic reach is down acrossalmost every platform.
they want that almighty dollar.
They wanna get paid foradvertising.
And so if the only way thatyou're advertising is posting on
social media, that becomes areally tough road.
I see a lot of boudoirphotographers that their account
gets shut down because theyviolate.

(25:04):
Zuckerberg's rule of nipples,right?
or butt crack.
And so, I see a lot of them,their pages are getting shut
down and they're like, well, howdo I market?
And I'm like, well, you shouldkind of own your audience
already.
And so one thing that I wouldrecommend is figure out a way to
build your email list, becausewhen you build your email list,
that's virtually free marketingthat you can do year round.

(25:26):
a big thing that we do in ourstudio to grow our list is lead
magnets.
if you go to any of ourwebsites, you see that, you know
that we have guides on therefor, Top seven things to look
for before booking a boudoirphotographer or eight tips to
planning a stress-free weddingday or head shots versus
personal branding, which isright for me.
and we've got some that we rundirect paid ads too, right?

(25:47):
We run ads directly to landingpages on Facebook, but you don't
need to, you can just put themon your website and then organic
People will find those anddownload them, and that's a good
way to start getting a lot ofpeople on your email list
because once you have a bigemail list, now when you get
ready to market something, youjust blast it out to your email
list and you can convert a bunchof people just by that.

(26:07):
Because if you're only relyingon social media.
And Social media shuts down youraccount or they get banned, like
TikTok is supposed to get bannedor might get banned.
Who knows?
that Marketing Avenue is nowgone for you.
So use those social mediaplatforms to get people on your
mailing list.
And once you have'em there, thenmarketing becomes a whole lot
easier.

so this is something that I struggled with
'cause I never implemented theemail marketing

Jeff Poole (26:30):
Uhhuh.

photography business.
I do it for the podcast as well,and I, I can about how effective
it is,

Jeff Poole (26:35):
Uh huh.

one of the things that held me up when it
came to marketing, myphotography business is what do
I talk about, like to

Jeff Poole (26:42):
Yeah.

what do I talk about to these people?

Jeff Poole (26:45):
Yeah.
So, there's two types of,autoresponders that I suggest
that any photographer have intheir system.
So once someone inquires withyou or they download your lead
magnet.
You should have what, what wecall a transactional email
sequence, and that transactionalemail sequence should be plain
text.
No frills, no logos, buttons,graphics, images, just plain

(27:10):
text.
like if you inquired with me andthen I sit down at my computer
and go, Hey Raymond, thank youso much for reaching out to me
about wedding photography.
I'd love to chat with you more,hear some basic information.
If everything sounds good, let'shop on a call.
Click here and let's scheduleit.
Plain text.
The link for hopping on a callis a blue hyperlink, right?
Just ugly.
Nothing pretty about it.

(27:31):
But what that transactionalsequence does is it puts the
human factor in it.
It feels like even if it'sautomated, it feels like I
responded to you.
Then a few days later, I'llrespond back and be like, Hey,
Raymond, a couple days ago youinquired, I've, left you a
message or I sent you a text,whatever your verbiage wants to
be, hoping that we can hop on acall and discuss your vision for

(27:52):
your wedding day.
is there a chance that we canmeet maybe sometime a day or
tomorrow?
Click here and view my calendarand let's hop on a call.
again, plain text, right?
This is your transactional.
This is you as the photographer,as a human responding back to
them.
But then you have your nurturesequence, and this is where a
lot of people kind of get stuckwith the email marketing and
like, what to say.

Yeah.

Jeff Poole (28:13):
And in our studio, everything's pre-written.
we write this stuff ahead oftime and it becomes our
newsletter.
And there are eight core emails.
That should be in your nurturesequence.
Now, these core emails can beduplicated as many times as you
want, but the core frameworkshould be eight simple emails.

(28:34):
and I'll go through those.
Email number one is, like right,and it follows the like, no
trust.
So email number one is like.
They should like you as aphotographer.
So you want to talk about, youas a, as a photographer talk
about, how you work on a weddingday.
talk about things that interestyou.
They have to like you beforethey're gonna book you.
They have to feel like they canbe in a room with you.

(28:56):
For eight hours on a wedding dayor maybe, a portrait session,
they might want to be able tomake sure that they can kind of
relate to you on a human level,personal level before they're
gonna book you.
So, email one, talk aboutyourself, talk about a little
bit about how you got intophotography, what drives you,
what you love about it.
Email number two should be no.
And this follows more of yourbusiness.

(29:16):
They need to know and understandyour business.
So if you give a certain number,a certain percentage back to
charity or if you have any othercommunity partners that you work
with or, anything about yourbusiness, right?
Lifetime guarantee on products,we have those.
So anything that's about yourbusiness that gives them value
should go in that.
No email.

(29:37):
And then trust.
Obviously everybody knows trust.
It's social proof.
You want to have testimonials,put testimonials from clients in
there.
If you have video testimonials,you can link to link to those.
But those first three emails arelike no trust, and it kind of
gets them to know who you are,what you do, and a little bit
more about your business.
And like no, trust is always, wehear people talk about like no

(29:58):
trust all the time, but it'shuge in converting people.
And then one of the next ones,and there, these are in no
specific order, but one iscalled Challenge and Convert.
So we all know.
Objections that we hear everyday, right?
Especially in the portraitworld.
I just need to lose some weightor I need to wait until I get a
tan.
Or, in the wedding world, well Ijust want digitals like there's

(30:20):
all these objections so we knowwhat those are.
So in your challenging Convertemails.
Tackle one of those objectionsand tell'em why that their
belief, in that is wrong and whythat shouldn't stop them from
booking now, or it shouldn'tstop them from investing in
photography now.
So figure out what thatchallenge and convert is.
Put that in an email and send itout.

(30:42):
The next is is called benefit ofthe Benefit and, That should be
how photography can change theireveryday life.
Right.
So my wife's a boudoirphotographer, and when people
are thinking about coming in fora boudoir, they think of
boudoir.
A lot of people think it's allabout sex appeal.
It's all about getting a giftfor a partner.
and a lot of times it is.

(31:03):
But the real thing is, is when awoman comes in for a boudoir
session with Lori, 10 timesoutta 10, they're gonna leave
feeling better about themselves.
I.
So they may feel morecomfortable wearing a two-piece
to the beach.
They may feel more comfortableabout their intimate
relationship with their partner,right?
because they see themselves,they see their body differently

(31:23):
than what they had envisioned itin their mind when they see it
in photographs.
So it fundamentally changes thequality of their life after the
session.
So figure out a way that you canweave in like, yeah, you're
gonna get amazing photos, you'regonna be able to get a gift for
your partner, or you're gonnahave beautiful wedding day
images, or you're gonna havebeautiful images of your

(31:44):
children hanging on the wall.
But the benefit of that is thatnow when your child sees that
image hanging on the wall,they're gonna feel part of the
family unit when they see theirimages hanging on the wall, and
it's gonna give them confidencethat they can carry in through
the rest of their life, right?
So figure out that benefit ofthe benefit.
of what comes after the session,how it changes their life after

(32:04):
the session.
Put that into an email and youcan have multiple of these,
right?
And then, featured sessions aregood.
you can put a featured sessionlink back to a blog post with a
featured session.
Featured products are alwaysgood to have in an email.
talk about your products, linkback to a gallery of products.
And then finally, the eighth oneis called your Evergreen,
highlight.
And so if you are someone that.

(32:26):
Partners with a charity and yougive 10% back to, a charity
every year, highlight that in anemail.
If you have a 40 over 40campaign, highlight that in an
email because most of the timethose run, year round.
And so those core emails, thoseCore eight, kind of frameworks
set the stage to you to be ableto write dozens and dozens of

(32:46):
emails that can go into along-term nurture sequence that
once you get someone's email,just automate it.
Send it out and start every twoto three days and then move it
to every week, and then move itto every two weeks, and then
move it finally to once a month.
And if you write 30 or 40 or 50of these emails and chat, GPT is
amazing at this by the way.

(33:07):
now you can automate this andyou can have a year long nurture
sequence that when someone optsin to download your lead magnet
or they inquire about weddingsor portraits, you move them into
the appropriate long-termnurture sequence that is genre
specific.
And a lot of your conversionshappen over time because when
someone inquires with us andthey don't book, we immediately

(33:29):
think that, oh, well they wentwith someone else.
They didn't like my work.
My prices are too high.
When in reality it could be thatthey were just in that mindset
to shop for photographers today,but they're going on vacation
tomorrow and they're gonna begone for two weeks.
So we need to figure out a wayto stay top of mind long term.
Right, so that they fall in lovewith us long term, and they will

(33:49):
eventually end up booking us.

That was, so helpful.
That alone, right there couldhave been a whole masterclass on
how to get started in emailmarketing for

Jeff Poole (33:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That was the abbreviated, that'sthe CliffNotes version of it.

Yeah.

Jeff Poole (34:03):
Uh,

Yeah.
And still I feel like, even I,as somebody who's been doing
this for a long time, got a lotof great information there
specifically on, the nurturesequence and what emails to send
out.
And I definitely know that I'mgonna be changing up some of my
emails as

Jeff Poole (34:14):
yeah.

to match some of that.
So I really appreciate that.
but let's take a step back,because I understand the
importance of the email list,getting people on the email
list, getting people on theemail list.
As a photographer, should my onegoal in all of my socials simply
be to have a link to the emaillist, or should it be contact me

(34:36):
today?
Like how do we balance that

Jeff Poole (34:38):
Yeah.

action?

Jeff Poole (34:39):
I think a, a healthy balance is what's needed.
obviously, a lead magnet or anewsletter sign up is gonna be
amazing, right?
It's gonna be, that's kind ofthe pot at the end of the
rainbow.
But you gotta figure out a wayto get people to it without just
saying, sign up for mynewsletter.
'cause no one really wants tosign up for a newsletter, right?
Let's be real.
it's good to have that.
And occasionally we will getpeople to sign up for a

(34:59):
newsletter, but when you createa guide.
That is kind of the, the giveget.
Right?
there was one marketer that wefollow, and I can't remember if
it was Alex or Mozy or if itwas, man, the StoryBrand guy.
I can't remember his name offthe top of my head, but yes,
Donald Miller.
there was one marketer that wefollow.
That basically said that anemail address is worth about$20

(35:21):
today, right?
So if I want your email address,I need to give you something of
value, that's about$20.
And so, a guide is phenomenal.
If you're a weddingphotographer, you can go to chat
GPT and type in, I'm a weddingphotographer, here's my website,
review my business and ask mequestions until you understand
my business.
And then generate three leadmagnet ideas to help me generate

(35:43):
leads.
Chat, GPT will sit there and askyou questions.
You can have a conversation withit, and once it feels like it
has enough information, it willgenerate lead magnet ideas.
And then you can say, great.
Now populate those into 300 wordarticles for me, and it will
write those for you.
and then you just go into Canvaand design it into something
pretty.
Now, put that on your websitewhere people can go and download

(36:05):
it.
If they're organic on yourwebsite, they're just Googling
and they find you, that's therein their face that they can
download that guide and it dropsthem into your transactional and
nurture sequence.
but also, you can run ads todirectly to landing pages for
those.
That works really well Also, ifyou're targeting people that are
engaged on Facebook and you say.
Hey, congratulations on yourengagement.

(36:26):
Download my guide.
Top eight Tips to Planning aStress-Free Wedding Day.
That has nothing to do withphotography.
Right?
But it really does because whenthey download it, all the images
are mine, links are mine.
it's like, it puts me as theprofessional in my industry.
And so when they download it nowthey, they, whether they have a
photographer or not, they're onmy my list.
So you can go to chat GPT andhave it write these articles for

(36:47):
you.
But that's only one part of it.
But again, featured sessions,anytime you photograph a
session, you should.
Scatter that all over socialmedia.
Linking back to a blog post andagain blogging.
A lot of photographers thinkblogging is dead.
Blogging is still great forgetting people on your list
because now when we take and weblog a session and we point back

(37:07):
to it from all the differentsocial media posts, guess what's
at the bottom of that blog?
Our lead magnets.
So,

Mm.

Jeff Poole (37:13):
right in the middle of some of those blogs is the
thing we say, download thisguide.
Interested in boudoir,interested in weddings?
Download this guide.
And it's all geared to drivingpeople back to the website or to
that blog post only for the solereason of like, they, we want
them to see our imagery, but wealso wanna tempt them with that
lead magnet so that we get themon their, on the list.
So those are fantastic ways to uyou know, places to put your

(37:35):
lead magnet.
so when you're thinking of abroader, goal for social media.
social media is great, but yourgoal for social media is to get
them on your list.
So if you are posting images,don't just post an image on
social media, post an image witha little blurb and link'em back
to a blog post or a gallerypage.
To say, see more of this sessionand link'em back there, and on

(37:57):
that page have a guide that theycan download so they can get on
your list, and that we callthose transitional call to
actions because when people areshopping around, they may not be
ready to contact you right now.
They may just be shopping forstyle, price, all these things.
They may not be ready to take afull formal call to action and
contact you.
They will take a transitionalcall to action and download a

(38:18):
guide, and now when we've got'emon the guide, we've got'em in
our nurture sequence.
We make them fall in love withus over time, and that increases
conversions.

So, you said something there, that really
stood out to me that, the goalof social media is to get people
on your list, which is crazybecause so many people think
that the goal of social media isjust to grow as many followers
as humanly possible.

Jeff Poole (38:38):
Yeah.

that's a great mindset shift there.
And I remember just a few monthsago.
There was like an Instagramoutage or something like that,
and I don't remember whatcompany it was, so the story
doesn't have any legs to standon, but there was some company
that had lost like$180,000 injust like the two hours,

Jeff Poole (38:54):
Oh yeah,

that it was down because their entire
business was ran on Instagramand they relied on it.
They had no other ways ofcommunicating with, customers.

Jeff Poole (39:02):
absolutely.

As a

Jeff Poole (39:03):
Yeah.

like you're not gonna be making 180,000 in,
in two hours worth of bookings.

Jeff Poole (39:07):
Yeah.

that's a solid, clear warning sign that,
hey, these places you don't ownthis audience.
Have a place where you cancontinue to reach out to people
and, stay in contact with them.
So that was, I.
That was great.
so again, I really appreciatethat.
I know one of the hardestthings, for photographers is,
staying consistent in marketing,

Jeff Poole (39:28):
Mm-hmm.

That was definitely my biggest issue.
I would come up with thiscampaign idea and I would knock
it outta the park.
It would go great, and I woulddo that once a year.
But then like the other, youknow, 11 months was crickets.
what tips do you have, forstaying for easy ways to stay
consistent in marketing forphotographers?

Jeff Poole (39:49):
come up with a marketing plan, right?
and I know that that's easy orsaid than done, but whether your
marketing plan is, is you'regonna run a promotion quarterly
or you're gonna run onebimonthly, or you're gonna run
one every month.
Come up with a plan to say, I'mgonna run this campaign this
month and then, on this monthI'm gonna run this campaign.

(40:09):
And build them out.
I'm not sure if a lot of youguys are familiar with high
level.
High level is amazing.
We use it for all of our frontend marketing and lead
generation.
And what it allows you to do isbuild sales funnels for these
individual, marketing campaigns.
And the beauty of it is, iseverything's in one place.
So it's not like I'm buildinglanding pages on WordPress or

(40:31):
Squarespace, and I'm buildingout my email nurture on, flow
Desk or MailChimp or anything.
And then I'm using Calendly formy scheduling and I'm using
something else for invoices.
Like, it literally iseverything.
So from my websites to my salesfunnels, to my lead generation,
to my email nurtures, it's alldone in high level.
and it's a fantastic platform.

(40:52):
And the beauty of it is, is onceyou build a marketing campaign,
it's there and all you have todo is go to that folder, click
on it, grab the link, turn iton, start promoting it, and now
you're running that marketingcampaign.
So a lot of photographersstruggle with building a
marketing campaign'cause they'retrying to reinvent the wheel
every single time.
Build a template for a marketingcampaign for a funnel, like a

(41:13):
landing page, a landing page,and a promotion.
Now duplicate that and changethe, the offer and the genre,
right?
So for weddings and headshots,we can have a discounted session
fee or a gift with purchasecampaign where if you buy, if
you book now you get this extragift, or if you book now you
save 20% or whatever it may be.

(41:33):
Now all I do is duplicate thatentire funnel, change the
images, change the text on it,and I'm ready to launch another
campaign.
So it makes, actually buildingthese campaigns much easier.
And you can just turn'em on andoff.
So if I wanna run a campaignfor, a headshot flash sale next
month, all I gotta do is turn iton, grab the link, go create the
graphics in Canva, which Ialready have created.

(41:54):
just spread'em out throughsocial media.
My email newsletter, if I wannarun ads to it, I can.
And then when that campaign'sover, turn it off, go to the
next one.
And it becomes this library ofmarketing campaigns that you
have.
And, in our business we have 20some marketing campaigns for
boudoir alone.
I have like 19 for headshots, Ihave eight for weddings, so, It

(42:15):
becomes really easy to marketwhen you start collecting all of
these different campaign typesand you build'em, because once
you build it, it's done.
The only thing you have to do isturn the light switch on and
start promoting it.
Now, building them does takesome time, but once you get the
flow of it, it becomes veryeasy.

That's funny.
You described me exactly withall of those different tools

Jeff Poole (42:33):
Uhhuh.

reinvent the wheel every time, and

Jeff Poole (42:35):
Yeah.

definitely got burnt out from

Jeff Poole (42:37):
Yeah.

So I'm

Jeff Poole (42:38):
And then trying to figure out, moreover, trying to
figure out when someone opts inon my WordPress website, how do
I get them into my Squarespacelist?

Yeah.

Jeff Poole (42:47):
And if someone schedules with Acuity or
Calendly, how do I move'em fromthis list to another list and
then mark them as converted inmy system?
Like, you gotta use Zapier andyou got 9,000 Zaps going on.
I have zero zaps and my entirefront end marketing runs with
zero zaps.
And it's beautiful, you know,so.

man, I think I have 9,000 currently going on
right now, so that's

Jeff Poole (43:09):
Yeah.
Yeah,

Well, Jeff, I feel like I could, chat with you
for hours and hours.
I would love to have you back onthe podcast, but I know that we
are out of time now.
So, Jeff, why don't you letlisteners know, where they can
find out more about you online,as far

Jeff Poole (43:23):
sure.

goes, and even your work.

Jeff Poole (43:26):
Okay.
So for our work, you can visitus@indigosilverstudio.com.
Just like the two colors, indigosilver studio.com.
That's where you can find our,wedding headshot and boudoir
work.
one thing that I do ask, I'vetalked a lot about lead magnets
and nurtures and autorespondersand things.
Please, please, please do notopt into those.
because it really messes up ourconversion rates to have fake

(43:47):
opt-ins.
just to see how the autoresponders work.
If you really, really wannalearn how auto responders work
and you wanna see how themarketing works, we have a
website called My photoinsight.com.
That's our education brand.
You can go there.
every week we host a live free.
Micro webinar on marketing andsales and pricing and all you
have to do is just opt in forit.

(44:08):
It's free.
It's every Wednesday at 11:00 AMEastern time.
And we talk all about marketing.
We talk all about drips.
I show how all of our stuffworks on the backend during
those lives and it's absolutelyfree.
So you can go to my photoinsight.com and you'll be able
to see how to get on our listthere.
Again, just get on our mailinglist.
Download one of our lead magnetsthat's on there.

(44:29):
You'll be on our list.
You'll get the invite forMomentum, our weekly live, micro
webinars that we do.

What did I tell you?
If you want to start or grow aphotography business and you
didn't learn anything from Jeff,then you must have had the
volume all the way down becauseyou clearly were not listening.
Today's action item where if youimplement just one thing from
today's interview that will movethe needle forward in your
photography is to start an emaillist.

(44:56):
Jeff mentioned, a few tools.
I use kit.com to collect emailaddresses, create landing pages,
and deliver the lead magnetsthat Jeff mentioned that are so
critical to growing his list andhow you can get started.
Again, that's kit.com, KIT, andyou can get started for free.
I think you're gonna have up to10,000 email subscribers for

(45:18):
free, which is wild.
There's also a substack, whichyou can also use for free.
I haven't used it, but I believethat they place ads in your
emails, and that's why it's freeon their part.
I'm not entirely sure how itworks, but again, you know, I've
used kit.com for years and Ilove it.
So point is sign up and createjust the first three emails in

(45:40):
that eight email sequence thatJeff had mentioned and then head
over to chat, GBT to come upwith some ideas for lead magnets
based off of the information onyour website, that you could
deliver, then build them inCanva.
Upload them to Kit, and nowshare that link everywhere from
your Instagram bio, yourFacebook page, TikTok videos,

(46:00):
and then all over your website.
And then just start watchingpeople join your list and
automatically be nurtured, tocontact you to book.
That's it.
All right, so I hope that youenjoyed today's episode of The
Beginner of Photography Podcast.
Remember, the more that youshoot today, the better of a
photographer you will betomorrow.
Talk soon.

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