Too many wedding photographers target any and every potential client which is damaging your business. Heidi says you need to think less about what your client wants and start shooting for yourself to really attract the right clients for you.
If social media marketing is a real drain on your marketing time, Heidi shares a bunch of strategies to get it done in one hour per week and how to find an endless source of helpful, targeted content from the web, other vendors.
Here's some of what we cover:
Evernote is one of the Apps that gets a big rap in this interview. Heidi uses it to keep everything organised and synced.
More Treats from Heidi
Make sure you check out Heidis's free course: Mind The Gap, to guide you how to identify your perfect client with the included videos and worksheets then how to actually attract them to your photography business.
Also from Heidi that she has put together to make your life easier – a super helpful PDF to get you started with the Buffer App. You heard in the interview how much time is saved posting to Facebook and Twitter with this application. The link will take you to her Facebook Page where the PDF is located and can be downloaded from there.
Getting started with any new software can be a drain on time and thinking power. Use the “cheat sheet” to get you up and running fast.
Premium Members
You save a whopping $100 of Heidi's in depth marketing course for businesses in the wedding niche that really want to get their marketing and targeting nailed: Evolve Your Wedding Business is an online video course and you can find more details about the course and savings in the Members area of the website.
Check out the free three part course to get a taste of what's inside Mind The Gap
What is your big takeaway?
Following this interview with Heidi, I'd love to know what your biggest takeaway is – what is the one thing that you'd like to implement or remember from what she had to share? Let me and other listeners know by leaving your thoughts in the comments below.
If you have any questions regarding my interview with Heidi that I missed or a specific question, feel free to add them below and she'll happily answer them for you. There are absolutely no silly questions and chances are, if you're wanting to know the answer to something, other listeners will too. Get the conversation started by using the comments area below.
iTunes ratings, reviews and Shout-Outs
Each week I go through the ‘”ritual” of checking for any iTunes review for the Photo Biz Xposed podcast and I'd by lying if I didn't say it's a real thrill to see a new post. It feels like a pat on the back, a sign of support, of community; and a little wink from you, clarifying that I'm on the right track with this thing.
This week I was blown away!
Thanks you so much Lonsy of http://www.lonsy.co.uk, Anita Watkins of http://anitawatkinsphotography.com, Ces White of http://www.dexine.me, Mark from the UK and Lena Postnova of http://lenapostnova.com.au – each of you alone have made my week and collectively, humbled me… thank you for your support.
It's the iTunes reviews that make a big difference to the podcast being ranked well and found in the iTunes store. If you have the time and are happy to leave an honest rating and review, head over to iTunes. Don't feel your comments have to be long, involved or gushy, an honest opinion is all I ask.
This week on social media and email, I've had the pleasure of chatting to a bunch of cool people and want to give shout outs to:
Alan Moyle of http://photobat.net
Lisa Huelin of http://lisahuelin.com.au
Dalibor Acimic of http://www.acimicphotography.com
Tim McIvor of http://timmcivorphotography.com.au
Eric Williams of http://www.wattpakstudio.com
The Guys from ShootZilla at http://www.shootzilla.com
Kristin Mitchell of http://struvephotography.co.uk
Martin Pawlett of http://www.martinpawlett.co.uk
Dan Biggins of http://www.danbiggins.com
If you'd like to get in touch, ask a question or make a suggestion for the show, you can email me andrew@photobizx.com, find me on Twitter https://twitter.com/andrewhellmich or on Facebook at https://photobizx.com/facebook – I'd love to hear from you!
Buffer app can help you get all your social media content scheduled and done in one hour per week.
Links to people, places and things mentioned in this episode:
Follow Heidi on Twitter – https://twitter.com/Evolveyourbizuk
The free course from Heidi – mindthegapcourse.com
Buffer App – compose, save and drip feed your social media posts
Social Media Simplified – Heidi's PDF to get you started with Buffer App
PicMonkey – simple image editing software
Canva – simple image editing software
Pixelied – Create Stunning Designs in Seconds
High Rise CRM Software – https://highrisehq.com
Click here for the High Rise Free Plan (difficult to find link on the site)
Evernote – the totally flexible software to save… Everything and be able to find it later
Evernote forums to learn how others are using this software
Aweber – software to build your email list
Mail Chimp – software to build your email list
Mozi Magazine – online and print magazine for wedding and portrait photographers
That's it for me this week, hope everything is going well for you in life and business. I'd love for you to leave a comment below about your biggest takeaway from this episode.
Speak soon
Andrew
Thanks again for the opportunity to do this interview with you Andrew! By all means if anyone has questions, fire away!
It was my pleasure Heidi! From what I’m seeing in my Facebook comments, photographers are enjoying what you had to share – I’m sure Buffer App and Evernote have been visited a few times since 🙂
I’m about half way through this one, and I wanted to quickly comment before I forget. Heidi was saying that she recommends putting your prices on your website because it will save you a lot of time. But that actually works both ways. Our wedding was last year, and we had so many different vendors to look at, things to plan, and things to do and all within a budget. When a photographer didn’t have their prices on their website, we just moved on to the next one. It is much easier to look up another photographer than take the time to call, or e-mail and wait for a response just to find out that they are out of your price range.
In my opinion, it is respectful of the potential client’s time, as well as your own.
I would actually be really interested in hearing from someone who thinks that it is a bad idea to put prices up on the website.
Good point Chris & Shae! I was actually just speaking to a photographer on the phone and he is testing removing his prices to see what happens. That makes a good point in itself: test everything! If for some reason it works for you to not list your prices and you have the data to back it up, then don’t list them but make sure you test it.
Great advice to “test everything” Heidi. It’s one thing to listen and take advice but without testing, you’ll never know if it’s right or wrong for your business.
Great episode, Andrew, and wonderful tips Heidi. Spot on. The interview was chock full of actionable real-life advice and tidbits of information that can be implemented right away.
Thanks Bryan! Let me know how it goes once you start implementing things 🙂
Great to hear you enjoyed the episode Bryan and thanks for adding your comments. Speak soon!
Heidi was simply great. I cannot agree more about speaking your client’s language. Good example about a Doctor speaking industry terms to the patient. Oddly enough that just happened to me last week so I can relate to her example. And just today I read something very similar in a book that I’m reading called “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. So I think the point can’t be over-emphasized.
And as a side note, Heidi’s voice is spectacular. Heidi, have you ever tried doing a voice-over or dictated a book?
Just curious as your voice is just so unique. I love it.
So anyway, you picked another great interviewee, Andrew.
I have a feeling this podcast if really going to take off beyond what you may have originally planned.
So get ready Andrew because it’s gonna get crazy!
Joey Joiner
Fort Worth, Texas
USA
Thanks again Joey for your comments!
Great take aways from Heidi and it’s interesting what you’ve added about her voice – Heidi and I have been chatting since the interview about starting up her very own podcast. I’ll be sure to let you know when it goes live.
Mate, thanks for your support and optimism, it means a lot.
Thank you so much for your kind words Joey! That’s funny that you say that about my voice. I’ve been told by a lot of people that I have a good “phone voice” and that I come across well on webinars. I do love to talk, I sometimes do it in my sleep 🙂
I am working on my own podcast with some super helpful guidance from Andrew and will be launching it early in early 2014!
Fantastic episode ..again! I only found your podcasts a couple of weeks ago but I have really enjoyed working my way through them, they are a mine of great information and ideas, so thank you Andrew!
Heidi shares lots of great information and lots of ideas for the future. I found the part about Buffer really interesting as I hadn’t heard of that before, will definitely be looking in to it now though 🙂
Thanks again Andrew!
Thanks Neil! I hope you’re ready to get seriously addicted to Buffer because it really is the best thing ever.
[…] This is a great podcast for photographers as well as other wedding professionals. Andrew Hellmich always gets the best out of his guests and he even interviewed me recently! […]
I love this episode, there are so many actionable ideas here. After listening to this, and the following two podcasts I am getting into building a list and putting autoresponders in action for enquiries and to go with the list.
We do not have our pricelist on the website at the moment, but will be putting it up in the next couple of weeks as an email sign-up to capture potential customers emails. They will receive an email with a link to the pricelist as well as a couple more emails in an autoresponder cycle.
I am also intrigued by this “Black Book” idea and have started working on one for my local area. I have never seen that done before and I think it would be great for networking and positioning our business as a leader in our market.
I am struggling with the thought of whether or not to include other photographers in the directory though. It might look funny to have only one listing in the photography section with all the other sections having several.. Or should I be confident enough in my own skin and business to welcome the competition into my directory..? What do you guys think?
Hey Anders – love to know how your auto responder series goes. I saw you subscribed to mine which is totally fine. I love the way it works in my business and it’s something that I would have like to have started earlier. Let me know if you run into any snags.
In regard to the black book idea, I had a similar issue when putting together an Ebook for weddings. I did end up including other local photographers and I guess I don’t really know what effect it has but I’m glad I did – it has strengthened my business relationship within my local network as a result.
In your case, why not try and include other photographers that have a slightly different approach to you – could be different ends of the pricing spectrum, different style or operate from a few suburbs away instead of next door (not sure of your location if the last one will work).
If you find there are negative affects, take them out… It’s you book 🙂
Hi Andrew, thanks for that. I had the first person download the pricelist and enter into the autoresponder today and will let you know how it goes. I subscribed to yours to see how you’d done it (thanks for letting me:), but did end up doing it differently. I found the default way that Mailchimp does it requires so many steps for the user. First type in your details, then you are sent to a “Check your email page” then a “verify email address” message is sent to your inbox and you click that to get to a thank you page to finally have an email sent with the price list.
I ended up skipping the last step and put the pricelist on the Thank you page and just renamed it. (By this time I have already captured their email address for my list.) I changed the wording in the email verification page to say. “Click the below link to verify your email and be forwarded to the price list”.
So all the user has to do is enter their name and email address and then open their email to click the link to go to the pricelist.
Then I follow up with an article about what makes us different in an email the next day, and an article on five things to think about when choosing a photographer a couple days later. When my Black Book is done I will add that to the auto responder.
Thank you for your advice about including other photographers. I think I will take your advice and include some specialized photographers and some from outside my area, maybe not my direct competition though, I’ll have to think about that.
I have already started reaching out to suppliers and have had some pretty amazing feedback already. Several of the suppliers have emailed back to say they have other ideas that they want me to come and talk to them about, and I’ve even been asked to quote for a catalogue shoot for one of the leading suit brands in the country which is pretty exciting. I will let you know how this progresses.
Hi Anders! Like Andrew said it’s your book, do what you want with it. You could list a few photographers that cater to a different sort of ideal client than you work with. So if you know of someone who does great vintage wedding photography and you don’t usually shoot those types of weddings you could include that photographer.
I do think that having the confidence to do that is a powerful thing. I had someone ask me once about what could be considered a competitor’s program and said I thought it was a great program and they were a friend of mine. I’m not a big believer in competition though. My “competitors” offer something different and to a different sort of client than I do but by being honest and transparent and not avoiding talking about them, I think it gives an air of confidence and credibility and the opposite of someone desperate to make a sale.
Creating this sort of resource can do wonders for relationship building with other vendors, like you said. Remember in the interview when I said include someone in something and share it with them but don’t ask them to do a thing? Just tell them and thank them for being awesome and they will take it upon themselves to share it. It’s odd but it works!
Bravo to you for starting an email list! That’s a big asset to have in your business 🙂
Thanks for that Heidi, this has already done wonders for networking and I’m going to another meeting tomorrow with the leading business in my area when it comes to wedding cakes and cupcakes. Thanks for your great tips, I’m looking forward to following to your podcast next year:)
[…] 15. Wedding Photography Success Recipe: Get Focused and Stop Trying to Appeal to Everyone […]
[…] This is a great podcast for photographers as well as other wedding professionals. Andrew Hellmich always gets the best out of his guests and he even interviewed me recently! […]
[…] may remember the interview I did with Heidi Thompson of Evolve Your Wedding Business back in episode 40 – well, Heidi has recently released her own podcast aimed at wedding professionals. It’s […]
I just listened to Heidi’s interview for the 2nd time because it was so packed full of so many great tips and actionables! I loved the quote “people want to do business with people” and the advice to really show your personality on your site and to definitely post a photo – this prompted me to add a photo of myself right into my header. I also didn’t have my pricing on my site but I think I am going to take the leap and add it because it is so true that not every client is my client and I don’t have to do business with everyone. If I know that I have to charge x amount to make shooting a wedding worth my time I shouldn’t compromise. Thanks for sharing all of your insight Heidi! I’m so very grateful!
Hey Nat 😉 great to have you listening and thanks for adding your comments.
Heidi definitely shared some great tips and I love the way you’ve added a photo of yourself to your header.
Not sure if you’re aware but Heidi has also started her own podcast – Evolve Your Wedding Business – and is worth checking out.
P.S It’s been cool chatting to you on Twitter too.
It sounds like you have taken some serious action Natalie so bravo for that! You can inject your personality into all sorts of places like your about page, how you write blog posts, your social media posts, etc. Thank you so much for your kind words – it makes me SO happy to hear that you haven’t just learned something but that you actually went and took action on it.
I have just finished listening to this podcast. There was so many great tips.
I have already downloaded evernote and already have 3 notepads set up. It is a great system as I now have all my ideas written down and now I can focus more with a clear head.
I have also already created a pintrest account because so many people keep talking about it, so why not try it, it is free and easy to use.
Not sure if you’re aware Hannalise but Heidi also has her own podcast now and is worth a listen if you liked what she had to share here.
I’m also looking to do more with my Pinterest account… Finding the time is tough though!
I will check out what she has to share.
Pintrest is great. Take 30 minutes to set it up, then spend 5 minutes each day and pin different things – I created my account 3 days ago and I have already had a few views on my website as a result thanks to pintrest. Being as busy as I am, 5 minutes is great for pintrest – it is worth that 5 minutes.
Hi,
I have just found this podcast recently and am going through your back catalogue. This podcast hurt my brain. I realised how many things I could be doing but it made me worry how much time it will take to do it. It seems daunting, but necessary. Thanks for the wealth on information.
Hey Nicholas – great to have you listening and even better to see you here commenting.
I know exactly what you mean about the brain overload. Before you listen to another episode in the back catalogue – check out the interview with James Schramko – at the start of the interview I ask him about that exact thing and he has the perfect way to deal with the overload.
Speak soon.
Great advice on building a list….must do this asap!
And love the idea of not appealing to everyone…..good advice 🙂
Hey Darryn, make sure you have a listen to the interview with Nikki from Epic Danger if you love the idea of not appealing to everyone. She smashes it in that regard!
https://photobizx.com/reveal-your-personality-for-portrait-photography-business-success/
I hop into wedding industry for the 4th year.
This is really a good advice podcast, especially for wedding photographer.
Glad you’re enjoying the interviews Shanghwan – great to have you listening!