Premium Members, click here to access this interview in the premium area.

Kathy DalPra of Bride Appeal specialises in helping wedding professionals with their SEO, sales and website conversion. In this interview, Kathy teaches how to get your photography website working like it should be to convert visitors into engaged visitors first, then clients. The first step to focus on once a potential client arrives on your site is to entice them to leave an email address. From here, it should be easy to take an online visitor to an offline client.

Kathy has worked in the photography industry and knows what it's like to take a struggling website to the top of Google, attract targeted traffic, get press mentions and celebrity customers along the way. Today, Kathy focuses all her attention on Bride Appeal – a website / blog where she shares what she teaches.

It was here that a blog post caught my attention and I knew, Kathy would be a perfect guest for the podcast. The blog post is, How To Get Wedding Photography Clients Offline: 17 Fresh Ideas and we dive deep into some of these ideas in this episode.

Here’s some of what we cover in this interview:

  • How Kathy manages her time to maintain a work-life balance
  • Nursing your newborn baby and how to avoid neglecting your business
  • How Kathy juggles her business while being a full-time mum
  • The importance of utilising help when you have a newborn baby to sustain your business
  • Why you should not lose your business identity when you become a parent
  • Is it possible to walk away from your photography business for six months to care for your newborn baby?
  • Are websites only meant to convert visitors into clients?
  • Websites and email marketing is the strongest combination to convert visitors into clients
  • How to have visitors leave their emails on your website
  • Kathy’s favourite marketing tactic
  • How themed mini photo shoot sessions gain you repeat clients
  • Seasonal photo sessions allow you to gather and build your client’s mailing list
  • The importance of understanding who your clients are and the things that are important to them
  • Coming up with a downloadable resource/guide that will answer your client’s needs
  • Sample topics to write that will entice people to sign up your mailing list
  • An email list strategy to implement between the booking period to the shoot
  • You will lose clients quickly if you only intend to sell them your services
  • Why you need to consider your unique sales cycle
  • Keeping your clients engaged for as long as possible in your sales cycle
  • What kind of content to share that will give value to your potential photography clients
  • Should you write a blogpost about your personal tips and guides for photography sessions?
  • Why you need to focus on making clients interested in how you can help them, not gaining loyal readers to your blog
  • How adding anecdotes of your real-life situations gives more value to your clients
  • Each photographer has a different skill-sets – how to identify yours
  • Ideas to get wedding photography clients off-line and into real life
  • Sharing real life stories and values through your email will encourage clients to stay on your list
  • Offline marketing strategies you can use for your business
  • Why it works to displaying wedding photos in coffee shops toilets, hair salons and spas
  • Ideas you can implement when partnering with hair salons
  • Is it alright to offer free photography services?
  • Why you need to aim for exposure on big lifestyle publications
  • Connecting with reputable vendors to gain exposure for your business
  • Why you need to be careful with sending out mass emails
  • Creating a bulk email to get a good response from clients
  • Adding a deadline to promotions will compel people to take action
  • Why sending direct mail to potential photography clients is so effective
  • How to avoid burning out by chasing different photography marketing ideas
  • Promotional ideas to consider for your photography business

Kathy DalPra Photography Podcast

What’s on Offer for Premium Members

If you’re a premium member, you should have received an email with links to your version of this episode where you can hear more of the interview where we dive deeper into some of the earlier topics plus some new ones that I pushed for.

People have to have impressions of you, more than just your website – Kathy DalPra

If you’re on the fence about becoming a premium member, join with the $1 trial today and get access to the FULL interview with Kathy, get access to an amazing back catalogue of interviews and ALL future interviews delivered automatically to your phone or tablet.

Plus, access to a members only Secret Facebook Group where you can connect with other members and interview guests to help, support and motivate you to take what you hear in each episode and put it into action. You will not find more friendly, more motivated and caring photographers online.

Kathy DalPra Photography Podcast

What is your big takeaway?

Following this interview, I’d love to know if you're taking anything away from what Kathy shared. Is there something you heard that excited or motivated you to the point where you thought, yeah, I'm going to do that! If so, let me know by leaving your thoughts in the comments below, let me know what your takeaways were, what you plan to implement in your business as a result of what you heard in todays episode.

It's more effective when you are actually trying to directly sell a service through email marketing that you tie in stories and talk about the value you bring to the table and then introduce the service than it is to send them back to a blog post – Kathy DalPra

If you have any questions that I missed, a specific question you’d like to ask Kathy or if you just want to say thanks for coming on the show, feel free to add them in the comments area below.

Kathy DalPra Photography Podcast

iTunes Reviews and Shout-outs

Each week I check for any new iTunes reviews and it's always a buzz to receive these… for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, it's confirmation that I'm on the right track with the interviews and that they really are helping you improve your photography business. That's awesome!

Secondly, iTunes is the biggest search engine when it comes to podcasts and it's your reviews and ratings that help other photographers find PhotoBizX. More listeners means more interviews and ultimately a better show.

If you have left a review in the past, thank you!

If you haven't and you'd like to, head to https://photobizx.com/itunes and you can leave some honest feedback and a rating which will help both me and the show and I'll be sure to thank you on the show and add a link to your website or blog if you let me know the URL of your website and your name.

Alternatively, if you've left a review for PhotoBizX and are looking for more backlinks to help your SEO, leave a review for the new Photography Xperiment Podcast  and email me your key words or keyword phrase and where you'd like me to link to.

How to run a Facebook Ad Promotion for more photography leads, shoots and sales

Do you have enough bookings for your photography business?

If not, the Facebook Ad Promotion Course will be available later this week

In a nutshell, the course contains:

  • step by step tutorials on how to craft a Facebook ad that appears to your ideal target audience (with lots of examples)
  • videos showing you how to set up your ad inside Facebook's Ad Manager and how to use the best targeting for quick results
  • “role play” audio recordings showing you how to book the right clients for shoots (and pass on the ones that are only after a free shoot and print)
  • separate instructions for different photography genres

The course launches this week and will cost $47 USD for 5 days only from the release date (after that, it goes to $97).

The course will be available in its entirety once purchased – it’s not an email drip campaign. You get lifetime access.

In the meantime, I've put together a series of video tutorials covering important aspects from the course. Even if you don't purchase the course, you'll get many takeaways from these free videos alone:  http://fbadpromo.com

 

Here's what other photographers had to say about the course: 

“Just buy it, you will start making money as fast as you start phoning and shooting sessions. The cost for new clients is so low it's silly. I had figured it used to cost about 60+ dollars per new clients. Now it's about 5.” – Jerry Van

“I'm also happy to say I've already gotten 2 couples who filled out the questionnaire within 2 hours of posting the ad. Really cool to see how well it works, even with someone like me who has been full time for less than a year.” – Carl Heyerdahl

“I have followed Andrews instructions to the letter and in 24 hours I have 24 completed questionnaires, 2 wedding enquiries and the ad has been seen by 4000 people. This stuff is gold. All for £20, and I have 6 days left to run.” – Simon Hawkins 

“My mind has been blown! The reach was over twenty thousand, nearly a hundred people applying for the shoot, three wedding enquires, and nearly a hundred page likes! […] Honestly man, can't thank you guys enough for putting this together!” – Daz Mack

“What a fantastic course… Super easy to breeze through and its all killer, no filler.” – James Westray

Kathy DalPra Photography Podcast

Links to people, places and things mentioned in this episode:

Kathy Dalpra's Website

Selling to Brides: Convert Visitors Into Clients

How To Get Wedding Photography Clients Offline: 17 Fresh Ideas

Kathy Dalpra's on Facebook

Kathy Dalpra's on Twitter

Air Desk

Dan Kennedy

Kathy DalPra Photography Podcast

Thank you!

Thanks again for listening and thanks to Kathy for coming on and sharing so much about her business, ideas, strategies  and exactly what it takes to build a successful photography business in such a competitive market.

The better you know your client, the easier it is to come up with something that people actually want to sign up for – Kathy DalPra

If you have any suggestions, comments or questions about this episode, please be sure to leave them below in the comment section of this post, and if you liked the episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post!

That’s it for me this week, hope everything is going well for you in life and business!

Thanks and speak soon

Andrew