040: Heidi Thompson – Wedding Photography Success Recipe: Get Focused and Stop Trying to Appeal to Everyone

040: Heidi Thompson – Wedding Photography Success Recipe: Get Focused and Stop Trying to Appeal to Everyone

Andrew Hellmich: Alrighty, I'm really excited to welcome Heidi Thompson from the UK to the podcast today. Heidi is a marketing expert, and as I mentioned earlier, she focuses solely on the wedding industry. She helps vendors right across the board to focus on attracting the right client and stop trying to appeal to everyone out there. She's going to tell us why that's so important, and how to set up our marketing efforts and website to appeal to our perfect clients. Hey, Heidi, welcome to the podcast.

Heidi Thompson: Hi, thanks for having me, Andrew.

Andrew Hellmich: Look, it's an absolute pleasure. I'm so glad that I found you online, and I'm wondering if you can introduce yourself to the listener. Let us know a little bit about what you do and how you help the people that you help?

Heidi Thompson: Sure, well, I work with all sorts of different types of wedding professionals. I do work with quite a few photographers, and what I do is I help them with their marketing, and through that, you know, there's a lot of other things that entails, a little bit on sales, business development, but mainly bringing in more of the right customers and then converting them into paying clients. And I do that. I do work with people one on one. And then I also have a course that I take people through as well.

Andrew Hellmich: Cool, and you've got a marketing background yourself?

Heidi Thompson: I do. Yeah, I had actually spent several years in digital marketing, and it's kind of funny how this whole business came about. I was working in digital marketing that was like my day job, and I had also done some event work for non-profits in the United States, and I had also interned with a wedding planner, love the wedding industry. Worked with her for quite a while, and I noticed that there wasn't much diversity here in what is offered in the UK. So I started running what was called the Alternative Wedding Fair, and that was for people who wanted something different, you know, out of the traditional, you know, white fluffy froufrou, kind of feminine style wedding. And what I noticed in that is how much I was taking my marketing background for granted. I just kind of assumed that this stuff was common knowledge, and I found myself spending a lot of time working with the exhibitors, the different wedding vendors that would exhibit at my events, on their trade show marketing and their follow up and email marketing. And then it just dawned on me, I should bring these two worlds together. So that is how this business came to be.

Andrew Hellmich: Nice one. Now it's a bit strange because you've got a slight American accent, but you're based in the UK. So what's going on there?

Heidi Thompson: I was born and raised in the metro Detroit area, and I married a Brit and moved over here about four years ago. So haven't picked up the accent, but picked up the vocabulary for sure.

Andrew Hellmich: Nice one. Let's talk about this inbound marketing. And I know that you're pretty big on attracting the right client. So first of all, how, as a photographer, how do I know who the right client is for me? I think every client's the right client.

Heidi Thompson: Definitely, yeah, I can completely understand that. A lot of it is who you want to work with. You are going to get those, you know, total pain the butt clients. And you know, you'll probably find that they have a lot in common. Oftentimes, they're the type of people who don't want to pay you very well, but want everything in the world. And oftentimes you can figure out who you want to work with by figuring out who you don't want to work with. And the thing is, I think we all kind of forget that, you know, these are our businesses. We can choose who gets to give us money. You know, who gets to do business with us? You don't have to work with everyone. If you like shooting a particular style, then only work with those couples, you know, you don't have to work with anyone outside of that if that's not what you want to do.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay. So, I mean, I think a lot of photographers tend to shoot a lot for their client, so what their client likes, or what they know is going to be safe and work for every client, that's the way they shoot. So you're saying that maybe we should focus a little bit on the way that we want to shoot?

Heidi Thompson: Yeah, I think, well, yeah, it shouldn't be. It may kind of sound weird, but it shouldn't be all about the client. I mean, you have to be fulfilled in your own business, or there's no reason to do it.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, then, so how do we, how do we attract, or, how do you suggest we attract the clients that we want to work with and discourage the ones that we don't want to work with away from us?

Heidi Thompson: Right. Well, that is a lot of how you present yourself. So one thing that I always have clients do, one of the first things we do is go through worksheet, you know, think about your favorite clients, and what do they have in common? Do they all have a certain personality trait? Is it something more obscure, like they all have a favorite sports team. You know, sometimes it can get kind of interesting, but that tells you a lot about them as people, and it tells you where you should be spending your time and what you can be talking about, and a lot of it is just speaking their language. So if you want to work with, for instance, couples who love vintage style weddings, then you need to be talking about that and your website needs to look at, you need to be that go to person for that particular type of wedding photography. What I always tell people is, you know, people get concerned that narrowing that down is going to eliminate a lot of people that they can work with. But what I always counter them with is who gets paid more and who is more desirable? Right? Your family doctor, your general practitioner or a cardiologist. Specialists always make more money. They're always on higher demand, and they are the go to person, and they're the authority.

Andrew Hellmich: If someone wants to change from being the general go, like the general photographer and they want a specialist, say, in the vintage style, would you expect them to see a drop in bookings when they make that conversion, or should it be pretty seamless?

Heidi Thompson: I wouldn't really. I mean, well, I guess it depends who they're already working with and where they're spending their time. It's going to probably require a shift in your marketing and the people you're communicating with, for instance, instead of advertising, if you are doing advertising in sort of a general bridal magazine, you may want to seek out one that kind of carries with the theme of a vintage wedding. And you know, try to submit your weddings to those sorts of blogs. And you know, network with the different wedding professionals that deal with that very specific niche.

Andrew Hellmich: I mean, I'm guessing that, well, I'm sure that most photographers get most of their business from their website. So what can we do with our websites to make sure that we're attracting the right client?

Heidi Thompson: Sure. Well, like I said, it's a lot of how you communicate what you do, and that comes really from speaking the language of your client, or not even necessarily your client, the client that you want to work with. So you can't be using words like affordable and inexpensive if you want to charge a premium price, you know, it has to be consistent. So on top of that, one of the biggest things I encourage people to do is blog. And not just blog your weddings that you do, but blog content that is helpful to this person that you just outlined that you want to work with. You know, what are they going to be searching for? How can you answer those questions.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so how do we find that information is that just research through Facebook?

Heidi Thompson: When it comes to, you know, figuring out those topics, the one of the best things you can do is start writing down the questions that you get from both your current clients, you know, people who contact you, questions you see in maybe specific forums on your Facebook page, and just start compiling all of these questions that you're getting, and each one of those questions can easily be a blog post.

Andrew Hellmich: So let's say, let's stay with the vintage theme. So I have a couple they come in to see me. They're looking at booking me for their wedding, and they want a vintage style, they're asking me things like, where's the best locations to go for that vintage style? And I could use that then as a basis for a blog post.

Heidi Thompson: Absolutely. You could write a post on your five favorite venues for vintage weddings. That would be perfect.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so then once I've got that post on my website. How? How do I get other people to see that, or other potential clients?

Heidi Thompson: Well, I always tell people it's nice to think that clicking publish is the end, but it's kind of just the beginning, unfortunately. You know, sharing on social media is a big one, and it's often overlooked, and my favorite tool for that makes my life a lot easier is Buffer. And the way Buffer works is it works as sort of like a repository for all of your social media updates. You just fill it up and it drips out your posts at the times that you have specified for each network, so you can do an entire week's worth of social media in a very short amount of time, you know, 30 minutes, an hour a week. So I suggest doing that. I suggest pinning your blog post. And a lot of people don't think about that, that you can only pin images, but when you click on that image on Pinterest, you're taken to the source. So if you can pin an image from the blog post, and you know, if you can put perhaps a banner on the top, just stating the name of the post, you know, top five vintage wedding venues in whatever your area may be, weddings are huge on Pinterest, and you will definitely get traffic from that. I actually worked with a client who over 60% of her website traffic was coming from Pinterest alone.

Andrew Hellmich: Awesome. Can I dive into both of those a little bit more deeply? So with Buffer, so that's an application that we you purchase and download onto your computer?

Heidi Thompson: It's free and it's totally web based.

Andrew Hellmich: So let's say I write my blog posts on my vintage locations, and so then what are you saying that I do with Buffer? Then I create little Facebook posts that go out once a day?

Heidi Thompson: Right. So you could, Buffer actually has this really nifty little clip. It's like a clipper that you can put in your browser. So whenever you're on the page that you want to share, you just click that button and it pre-populates. You know, what the tweet, the Facebook posts for you, or you can go to their website, sign in and create your post there.

Andrew Hellmich: Do you suggest that we share our blog post just once and once only or multiple times?

Heidi Thompson: I would say multiple times in that does depend, the frequency depends on the network. So, for example, Twitter moves insanely fast, I'm sure, as you know, whereas Facebook, you know, you can kind of see all of the posts that a page makes in a small area. So you could take each one of those five venues create a tweet specific to that. You could mention the venue's Twitter handle, which means that they're going to share it for you, of course, because you just talked about how great they are, and put those in a Buffer, you know, across five days.

Andrew Hellmich: So really, so you're not hammering your own audience over and over and over and over and over again, but you're spreading it out.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah, yeah, just making it available for people to share.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so I guess then, so if I write a blog post and I'm mentioning five different venues, then it's a, if those venues know about that, then they're probably going to share that same blog post.

Heidi Thompson: Of course, yeah, and it wouldn't be inappropriate to email them and just say, "Hey! Just wanted to let you know I mentioned you here." The one caveat there, and this is totally counterintuitive, is, don't ask them to share it. If you don't ask them to share it, they will share it.

Andrew Hellmich: Serious?

Heidi Thompson: But if you ask, yeah, if you ask them to, they're like, "Oh, you know, this person wants me to do their work for them", but if you're just "No, I think you're great. I put you in here", they will share. It's crazy, but it works.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, that's a cool tip. And then, and with the Pinterest thing. So, I mean, one of the things I struggle with, and I know that this the listener does as well, is there's just so much social media out there. And I think for photographers, we, I mean, we feel that Facebook is the number one social media platform, but I think Pinterest is really coming up fast behind that. So how would you suggest we spend our time between those, those platforms and the other ones?

Heidi Thompson: Well, you know, Buffer makes it really easy to distribute to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus at the click of a button. So, you know, you do that, you're done. All you have to do is monitor your interaction, of course, because don't try to monitor interaction. Just don't, it's a bad idea. But Pinterest, you know, as far as your time, I mean, you could sit down and do it once a week, upload a couple of pins, or pin a couple of things. Pinterest also has, like I mentioned, with Buffer tool in your browser. Pinterest has the same thing. So if you are on your blog post, or if you're on another page that you see that you want to pin, you can just click the Pin It button, and it will populate a pin.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay. And then, when we pin one of our own images from our blog, are you suggesting then that we have the title of the blog post in there? There's automatically linked back to the blog post. Should we put some sort of description in there as well?

Heidi Thompson: Yes, I would say the best images for Pinterest are ones that you can tell what it is about just by looking at it. So an image doesn't always cut it. Sometimes you have to put some text in there. There are a lot of really quick and easy tools. I know photographers are probably very well versed with Photoshop. I am not. My graphic design skills, tap out it, Microsoft Paint, but I use PicMonkey, and I also use a tool called Canva, and both of them allow you to just take an image, put a quick overlay or a banner on it, add some text, less than five minutes, and you're done.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so you want to have the text actually on top of the image, not down below in the description?

Heidi Thompson: Well, I would have both because I, yeah, because the image is going to be what grabs the attention. So you want it to be evident what it is about. And then the description is what they're going to read after they see the image.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay. And then how do we make sure? Or is there a way to get local clients to our business to see those pins?

Heidi Thompson: For example with, okay, let's go with the blog post about the venues. I would make sure that you include the location in the description, because that is how Pinterest sort of organizes their pins. That's, it's sort of like their search engine optimization, but just for Pinterest, they go off of the description that you provide. So if you say the best vintage wedding venues in London, you know, that will, when people are looking London venues, that's going to come up.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, got it. Okay, we are just on the topic of talking about social media for a minute longer, with Facebook, I mean, it feels like it can be a lot of work. So you're saying that with the Buffer app, we can actually spend, say, half an hour on a Monday morning and get posts ready to go out all through the week.

Heidi Thompson: Absolutely. And the thing that a lot of people forget is you don't have to share just your posts, you know, if you have non-competitive friends, right? So you're a wedding photographer, maybe, let's say, with the vintage maybe, you know, a great vintage florist, a great vintage cake maker, you can share things that they have posted. The only thing you need to keep in mind is, is my ideal client interested in this?

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so you got to make sure that it's still targeting your prospective client with the stuff that you're sharing.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah, you know, is it something that they're going to see and think, "Oh, hey, what's this?" You know, and be interested enough to click on it.

Andrew Hellmich: So it doesn't matter that we're sending, you know, our Facebook likers or fans to other people's websites.

Heidi Thompson: No, definitely not. I think it actually builds your credibility, that you're confident enough to, you know, refer other people. It's not all about you, it's not the you know, Heidie Thompson Show, and that you are genuinely in it to help your client, and then you become a resource for them.

Andrew Hellmich: All right, can we? Let's just jump back to the websites. Now, what are some of the things that you see people doing wrong? It doesn't have to be specifically photographers, but what do you see people doing wrong on websites that are trying to attract clients, buyers?

Heidi Thompson: Sure. Well, there are some things that go across the board with wedding professionals, but something I see photographers do specifically is they use industry terms. So someone who is getting married for the first time and it knows nothing about photography, doesn't know what creative documentary style is. So you have to really use their words, and they don't know, you know, what does it mean that you shoot with this camera? You know? What does this mean? You have to talk to your ideal clients and not to your industry peers? I think that is a big one, because, I mean, no one's gonna ask, that's embarrassing, you know, like, "I don't know what you're talking about. Can you please explain that to me?"

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, sure. Okay, so stay away from any terminology, or lay it out clearly if you're going to use it.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah, definitely. You know, make sure you are explaining it. And, you know, think about if you had a doctor and there was something wrong with you, and he came into the room and he described what was wrong with you in medical terminology, right? You wouldn't know what he was talking about, first of all, and second of all, you might not even ask him to clarify, because you're kind of embarrassed the fact that you don't know what he's talking about.

Andrew Hellmich: And what about showing your personality on your website? Good idea, bad idea. And how should we do it? If you think it's a good idea?

Heidi Thompson: I definitely think it's a good idea. I'm a big proponent of that. And you know, when it comes to competition, someone can shoot the same way you do. Someone can copy your pricing. Someone can copy absolutely everything, except for you. You know, the unique personality that you bring to your business. At the end of the day, that is what's going to set you apart.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so what are some good ways to show our personalities and appeal to the clients?

Heidi Thompson: Sure. Well, I think your About Page is a really good place to do this. You know you can tell your story and explain, you know, why you do what you do, and it doesn't have to be all business. You know, if you are the biggest Star Wars fan in the world, say it because someone who's looking is like, "Oh yeah, I'm that. I freaking love Star Wars. Hire this guy because I totally connect with them on more than just a business level."

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, but so I'm thinking, as you're saying that, I'm thinking if, if I was a Star Wars fan, and you know, I don't mind Star Wars, but I wouldn't call myself a fan, but if I did like Star Wars, I would be scared to write that, thinking that that might turn off some clients.

Heidi Thompson: I don't think you have to write it in a way. Like, "I only work with Star Wars fans", but, like, "I only shoot Star Wars themed weddings." Yeah. I mean, people want to do business with people, especially nowadays, you know, the age of doing business with a faceless corporation is really fading into the past.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, it's funny. I think I had a guest last week or the week before, say exactly that people want to do business with people.

Heidi Thompson: Oh, definitely. And you want to, you want to know the person. You want to trust them. You know, seeing those little quirks that makes you a human.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so it is okay to sort of let your guard down and show a little bit of personality.

Heidi Thompson: Oh, definitely.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay. And with the, with the about page, do you? Do you recommend having a photo of yourself on there?

Heidi Thompson: I definitely do. I think it's really important, especially if you're a photographer, you need to put a face to the name.

Andrew Hellmich: I agree, and I preach that as well, but I still check out a lot of photographers websites, and I don't see any photos of themselves, and that's the first thing I'll go looking for.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah, because you're, you aren't buying photography, you're buying the person. You can get photography from anywhere.

Andrew Hellmich: And what about on the sales page? Let's say we're talking to wedding photographers and we've got our wedding page. Is there certain things we should be avoiding saying on that sales page?

Heidi Thompson: What as in, like, when you're laying out your services packages, that sort of thing?

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, like, is it okay to have prices on there? Is it okay to say exactly what we provide, or is that showing too much? Should we keep some things, you know, hidden until we actually meet with a client?

Heidi Thompson: I actually have a very strong opinion on this. Let me explain why. I think you should have pricing on your site. And if you can't provide an exact amount, because you kind of build custom packages, you can say what you start at. And the reason being is that, sure, people are going to have to get in touch with you, but if they're not willing to pay that much anyway, you've just wasted a ton of your own time.

Andrew Hellmich: So you're sort of doing the weeding out early.

Heidi Thompson: Exactly. You know, if they're not willing to pay, that's fine. They're not your client. And I think getting into the head that, like, not everybody is your client, is really big, and it's a big psychological barrier, I think, for a lot of business people, not even just photographers, because, yeah, we can help everybody. You know, we can do business with everyone. But if you don't want to get into the situation where someone's going to, like, try to haggle you, you have to confidently say, "Yeah, this is what it is." That way you don't have, I mean, think about how much time you spend when someone emails you, and then you might set up a call, set up a meeting. That's several hours for someone who is never going to pay that much to begin with.

Andrew Hellmich: So it's better to let them know right from the front? You know, this is what I charge, and we're going to go from here.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah, I think so.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, cool. I wanted to ask you, if a photographer is looking at their website, their stats say on Google Analytics, and they're getting lots and lots of visitors to the to the site, but they're not getting a lot of calls or a lot of emails. Could that be a sign there's something wrong with a website?

Heidi Thompson: It could and it could be that, it could be a couple of things. So when someone's planning a wedding, there is a statistic that the very bottom end of the hours of research is probably going to be about 80 hours. So if they come across your site, they may not be ready to talk to you just yet. At the same time, you know it could be that you're not tracking it. So if you have a contact form, if you have an email opt-in form, you can actually set up tracking for that in Google Analytics to compare, you know, your conversions to the amount of people who are visiting your site. And you can actually break that down from where they're coming from. So you might find out that your Facebook traffic is more valuable than your Twitter traffic.

Andrew Hellmich: All right. Now, you mentioned there a couple of things that I want to ask you about. The first one was opt-in forms. Now, there's not many photographers using opt-in forms, and you're the second, second guest I've spoken to that's actually mentioned them is, is it something that we should be afraid of, or something that we should be using?

Heidi Thompson: Oh, I live and die by my list, my email list is everything. Seriously. I mean there, it's kind of a gross phrase, but there's a phrase that the money is in the list. And it's true, because if you're building a list, you're building a list of people who are interested in you and interested in buying from you. And if I'm researching a wedding, you know, I'm putting at least 80 hours into this, I may think back, what was that great photographer that I looked at? I don't even know. I don't remember, but if they opt-in to your email list and you're delivering those great blog posts that we talked about to their inbox, they're not going to forget about you.

Andrew Hellmich: The first thing, I guess, then, is capturing the email address in the first place or asking for it.

Heidi Thompson: Uh-huh

Andrew Hellmich: What are your recommendations on the best ways to ask for an email address?

Heidi Thompson: I think you need to provide something in exchange. And if you look on my site and a lot of blogs, you see this. It may be a free eBook. It may be a free download video, you know something, but something that you can put together. It's not going to take you very long. It could be your top 10 tips on getting, you know, the best photos. It could be posing tips, you know, anything, just something that your ideal client is going to look at and is going to deem like, "Yeah, I'll trade my email address for that. Of course, it's going to help me."

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so let's just say we're targeting this vintage style that we love, and we're targeting the client that wants the vintage wedding. If I have a blog post ready to go with my five top wedding venues in my area, would I be better off maybe holding that back and using that as my opt-in offer? Yeah, I was gonna say bait, but I thought that doesn't sound like..

Heidi Thompson: Your bribe.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah

Heidi Thompson: Yeah, you certainly could, yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: So would that be, would that be a better option, or would I be better off? Would I get more mileage from the blog post itself?

Heidi Thompson: It depends, really, it doesn't really matter when it comes down to it, but it should be something in that vein, something succinct, something helpful and something specific to the people that you wanted to deal with. So I'm working with someone actually, who he created his little black book of the best wedding vendors in his area.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay. And he's a photographer doing this?

Heidi Thompson: Yes

Andrew Hellmich: So I'm guessing he's not including other photographers?

Heidi Thompson: No, no. Would like, you know, his favorite baker, his favorite videographer, all things like that.

Andrew Hellmich: Right, okay. Okay, and that's a, he has those as an opt-in offer?

Heidi Thompson: Yep

Andrew Hellmich: Okay. And then what? So once he has the email addresses coming in through this opt-in form. What sort of content do you suggest that we send out then to the people that have opted-in?

Heidi Thompson: Well, just a little side note, whatever you do, don't use the word newsletter, because nobody wants a newsletter. They want helpful tips. You know, they want weekly tips to help you with your wedding. But newsletter sounds like "I'm going to tell you all about me, and you're gonna read it. It's gonna be great." No, it's horrible. You know, like a newsletter is what you get from your kids school, and it's kind of not..

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah

Heidi Thompson: See, you know what I mean?

Andrew Hellmich: I do.

Heidi Thompson: But, yeah, so the way I structure mine is every week, every Wednesday, I have a blog post go live, and my email goes out to my list. So I have, you know, the kind of intro section, "Hey, this is what's going on." A little bit more of a personal section. Then I have the image from the blog post, a snippet from the blog post, and you click there to get to the blog post, and sometimes I include, you know, some links from around the web I found that are useful, perhaps things that you've shared from other people on your Facebook page.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so if a wedding photographer is doing this is once a week too often to be emailing a prospective bride?

Heidi Thompson: It depends on your person, really, and it depends on what you're comfortable with. I would say, it also depends on your workload. Don't commit to something that you can't deliver on. You know, if you know that weekly is going to be too much for you, don't do that. But if you're providing helpful tips, people are going to be happy to receive it. And the only way to really know with your audience is to test, but as long as it's on a regular basis.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, let's say we're doing it regularly, and then we start getting people unsubscribing. And that hurts.

Heidi Thompson: It does. It definitely does. It's an ego thing.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah. So should we take that personally, or you just learn and move on?

Heidi Thompson: It's they are self-selecting their people themselves, that you know they're not right for you, and that's fine. We've established that not everybody's right for you. You still have this massive majority of people still on your list. Maybe, you know, three people unsubscribed. I mean, it happens. People clean up their inbox. Maybe they chose to work with someone else, and they know that they're not going to be able to book your services. You know, they're cleaning it up for you.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, that makes sense. And then should we be asking the clients for something in return? Should we? Should we be trying to get a phone number? Should we be asking them to call us, to email us in those emails? Are we looking for some sort of response? Are we just sending out information? Hoping that something happens?

Heidi Thompson: Well, you can certainly do both, and you can do a mix of both. If you have something just helpful to send, and you don't want to include sort of call to action, that's fine. You know you are providing helpful content. You've, by all means, earn the right to ask for their business. So yeah, I would definitely say go for it.

Andrew Hellmich: Is there any other things that you think that, you know, photographers are missing, that don't know much about marketing, or that, you know, haven't experimented much with some of the things that are out there?

Heidi Thompson: Hmm, that's a good question. I think the email list is a really big one. And, you know the thing is, is if you do it, you test it, you hate it, fine. If it doesn't work for you, you haven't really lost anything. But if you do it and it works, you just booked a ton more clients. I think photographers are in a unique position as well to potentially do repeat business with their customers, and that is something that not many other wedding professionals can do, and I mean that in the form of you could offer, you know, make a note, set a reminder for yourself, that nine months after the wedding, you send them an offer and pricing for an anniversary shoot. You know, even if one person takes you up on that, you're doing better than you were before.

Andrew Hellmich: What's the best way to do that? You just set up something in your in your calendar, just a reminder to send out an email or a phone call?

Heidi Thompson: Yeah, or you could use a CRM, which is a customer relationship management tool. I use Highrise, and I just have a free plan with Highrise, and you put the information about the contact and you can add reminders, tasks, anything you need to do.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so Highrise is that that's a web based app, is it again?

Heidi Thompson: Yeah, yeah, it is.

Andrew Hellmich: And it's totally free?

Heidi Thompson: They do have paid plans, but I just use the free one. That's more than enough than I need. But if you're a much larger organization, then, yeah, you would need the paid plan.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, and so what sort of information should a photographer be putting into that CRM?

Heidi Thompson: I would put definitely, the couple's names, contact information, their wedding date, that's a big one. You can, it's a great place to keep track of correspondence. So if they've told you something and you want to make note of it, you can keep it all in one central place, and you'll see, "Okay, on this date, I emailed them on this date, they said this." And you can also then set reminders and tasks for yourself, which is a big one.

Andrew Hellmich: I actually, I do something similar, but actually I still use paper and pen. So when I actually see a client, I usually make notes after that appointment, just so I remember exactly who they were, in case they do book, you know, a few days later, and I don't, you know, I might not see them again for another 12 months.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah, that's about works.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah. So you would use the CRM software for that, and then also place your reminders if you book the wedding, to get in contact, you know, nine or 12 months later.

Heidi Thompson: Right, yeah. And if you know, if you are connected with them on social media, if you know them well, and if you see they're expecting a child, well, get in there, offer a newborn shoot.

Andrew Hellmich: So just be a little bit more forward.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah, definitely. And just kind of thinking outside the box, because these people have already done business with you, they already like you, and they already trust you.

Andrew Hellmich: So it's going to be a lot easier to actually, you know, make that next step and get the next booking.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah, that, and even asking them for things, you know, whether that be a testimonial, a referral, anything like that is a lot easier with someone who likes you.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, sure. Okay, cool. Now, I know on your blog, Heidi, you talk a little bit about working with other vendors. What are some ways that we can do that to bring more business to ourselves?

Heidi Thompson: Well, the way that I have kind of built out my relationship strategy, and it is very strategic. I know the people that I do, I've made a point to get to know them. I set up a list on Twitter. I add these people. It's a like a private list no one else can see it. And I usually call it something like outreach, or follow these people, and I add all of the people that I want to get to know and if they post something that I think my people would like, I retweet it, or I go to the post and leave a comment, or I put it in my email newsletter, or maybe I have something related, and I send it to them and say, "Hey, I thought this would be helpful", but I think if you lead with trying to be helpful, you'll always put yourself much further ahead.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so what about for photographers listening in around the world that are in smaller communities, and you know, there's a lot of vendors or that, you know, that just aren't on Twitter? Is there other ways we can do it? Can we use Facebook and do something similar?

Heidi Thompson: Oh, definitely. Yeah, you could. You can set up lists on Facebook. It's a little bit trickier, but you can set up lists on really, any social network, I believe, except maybe Pinterest. I haven't come across a way to do it there, but yeah, anything that you can do that is helpful. And of course, when you share someone's tweet like that, it sounds so simple, but what you're doing is you're endorsing them, and you're putting them in front of a lot of people that they wouldn't have had access to.

Andrew Hellmich: Really, all you're trying to do is be helpful for the people that you want to recommend you.

Heidi Thompson: Right. And then, you know, I scratch your back, you scratch mine.

Andrew Hellmich: For sure, for sure.

Heidi Thompson: But it works.

Andrew Hellmich: So, and what sort of ways are you seeing? You know, your clients helping other vendors. Like, how would a photographer help, say, a venue who's already, you know, usually booked before the photographer?

Heidi Thompson: Sure. Well, it could be a matter of offering to physically help them. You know, whether it's, they need some photos done to kind of get your foot in the door with that venue. It could be, you know, sharing their information, you know, they're really it's, you can get really creative with it, but anything you can do and maybe even just asking them, emailing them, saying, "Hey, I love your venue, but is there anything I can do to help you out? Is there anything you need?"

Andrew Hellmich: That simple.

Heidi Thompson: It is. It's so simple that we overlook it.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah. I mean, I know that a lot of photographers will offer, you know, photos or frame prints or albums to venues, but yeah. I mean, I guess you really just want to strike up a conversation. That's what you're saying.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah. And you know, if you can do that, and you don't even have to do the work. If you send an email just saying that you're trying to be helpful, that goes pretty far. Even just, you know, in the good graces of your name, like, "Oh, wow, that person just reached out and offered to help." You don't have to do anything.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, nice, nice. Okay. Just to finish off, is there, is there any software out there that you think that photographers may not be using that can help with their marketing? I mean, I know we talked about Buffer and Facebook and Twitter and the social media platforms. Is there any things that can help us with our productivity that you know of?

Heidi Thompson: If you have entrepreneurial ADHD, like I do, I highly suggest Evernote, which is, it's amazing. It's so flexible, and you can clip web pages to it. You can add notes to it. It really functions as like my external brain when I see things that, "Okay, I want to do this, but I can't do this right now. Or I like this, but I want to come back to it." I keep everything in Evernote.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, now I've had a little bit of a play with Evernote, and I've sort of, I come back to it every now and again, and I just can't really get into it. What's the best way to use it properly?

Heidi Thompson: I actually, I kind of struggled with it too at first, because it's so flexible. It's slightly daunting when you first start, because it's such a blank slate. I looked around, actually, it's not very obvious, but Evernote, they do have forums on their websites, and if you look through, people will talk about, you know, the way they're using it to do certain things, like you can do entire project management in Evernote, you can do a lot with it, and you can create checklists in it. But at the same time, that flexibility, like I said, can be daunting, so I found it helpful to see how other people are using it.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so let's say a listeners driving down the freeway at the moment, listening to the two of us talk, and they thought, ah, Buffer. That's a great app. I've got to remember to use that. So this it, they don't want to pull over and take notes I don't want to write while they're driving. So you're saying you could use Evernote, then and there.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah, you can use it on your phone. And you can actually make audio notes.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so you can actually record that audio can say, "Remember to download Buffer."

Heidi Thompson: Yeah, oh, yeah. There's been many times okay where I does it.

Andrew Hellmich: And that goes then, instead of just to a recording on your phone, actually goes into Evernote that you can later access then on your laptop or your desktop computer, because it all syncs,?

Heidi Thompson: Yeah. And it's a great place to keep track of blog post ideas too.

Andrew Hellmich: So instead of opening up, say, a Word document or a text document, you actually open up Evernote to keep all your little your To Do lists.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah, I do, and I keep, it's really good for ideas, because, like you said, they come to you at weird times, and the ability to have it on the go is really useful.

Andrew Hellmich: And did you say you can also, so copy and paste websites in there as well.

Heidi Thompson: Yep, you can. They have a little clipper that sits in your browser, and you just click it. And you can choose, you know, how you want to save it. Do you want the whole page? Do you want just this article section? And then it saves the link to it too. So if you need to go back to it, it's there.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay. Now this sounds like it's going to get pretty full pretty quickly, especially the way you're using it. How do you go back and find the things that you want to find?

Heidi Thompson: The way it works is you have notebooks and notes. So you can create notebooks on, you know, larger categories, and organize your notes in between. So I have a blogging, you know, stack of notebooks, and one of them is blog post ideas, one of them is guest blog post ideas. Then sites that I want to guest blog for, you know, so that you can have them in these different categories. And so visually, you can see what it is.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay. So someone listening to this podcast episode, they could have different folders for you know, like helping vendors, and make a list of their vendors in there, and then they can tick those off as they go along.

Heidi Thompson: Uh-huh

Andrew Hellmich: Perfect. I love it, all right. Heidi, that's been absolutely awesome. How can people find you and check out more of what you're doing?

Heidi Thompson: Sure. Well, my website is evolveyourweddingbusiness.com, and all of my social media is over there. If you guys want to connect with me, that would be awesome. My Twitter handle is evolveyourbizUK, yeah, I do have a little course set up. Well, it isn't a little course, it's actually a huge course and that you can find that's a separate website that is, mindthegapcourse.com and that takes you through everything from finding your ideal client to doing the marketing to converting them. So that's the full system.

Andrew Hellmich: Fantastic. I'll add links to all those in the show notes as well.

Heidi Thompson: Great!

Andrew Hellmich: Thanks, Heidi, it's been an absolute pleasure and really good to talk to you.

Heidi Thompson: Thank you, Andrew.