240 - In today's episode, we're diving into the realm of marketing automation and its incredible benefits for photographers. Whether you're juggling multiple roles in your business or looking for effective ways to streamline your marketing efforts, this episode is packed with insights and practical advice.
Joining us is special guest Dayna Schaaf, a marketing guru from "This Can't Be That Hard," who brings a wealth of knowledge on using tools like ManyChat to enhance client interaction without losing that personal touch for our social media.
We’ll discuss the indispensable power of having an email list, provide simple steps to keep your marketing efforts consistent and effective, and share tailored advice for introverts who want to maximize their social media impact without stepping out of their comfort zone.
Whether you're a seasoned photographer or just starting out, these insights will help you attract and retain clients more efficiently while keeping your marketing game strong and stress-free. Get ready to transform the way you engage with your audience and set your photography business up for success!
What To Listen For:
Connect with Dayna Schaaf:
Resources From This Episode:
JOIN THE PARTY:
240 - In today's episode, we're diving into the realm of marketing automation and its incredible benefits for photographers. Whether you're juggling multiple roles in your business or looking for effective ways to streamline your marketing efforts, this episode is packed with insights and practical advice.
Joining us is special guest Dayna Schaaf, a marketing guru from "This Can't Be That Hard," who brings a wealth of knowledge on using tools like ManyChat to enhance client interaction without losing that personal touch for our social media.
We’ll discuss the indispensable power of having an email list, provide simple steps to keep your marketing efforts consistent and effective, and share tailored advice for introverts who want to maximize their social media impact without stepping out of their comfort zone.
Whether you're a seasoned photographer or just starting out, these insights will help you attract and retain clients more efficiently while keeping your marketing game strong and stress-free. Get ready to transform the way you engage with your audience and set your photography business up for success!
What To Listen For:
Connect with Dayna Schaaf:
Resources From This Episode:
JOIN THE PARTY:
I am Nicole Begley, a zoological animal trainer, turned pet and family photographer back in 2010. I embarked on my own adventure in photography, transforming a bootstrapping startup into a thriving six-figure business by 2012. Since then, my mission has been to empower photographers like you, sharing the knowledge and strategies that have helped me help thousands of photographers build their own profitable businesses.
I believe that achieving two to $3,000 sales is your fastest route to six figure businesses that any technically proficient photographer can consistently hit four figure sales. And no matter if you want photography to be your full-time passion, or a part-time pursuit, profitability is possible. If you're a portrait photographer aspiring to craft a business that aligns perfectly with the life you envision, then you're in exactly the right place with over 350,000 downloads.
With welcome to the Freedom Focus Photography podcast. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Freedom Focus Photography podcast. I'm your host, Nicole Begley, and today we have a special guest from this Can't Be That hard, we are joined by their marketing guru, Dana Shaw, who is joining us to talk all about some pretty cool new softwares marketing automated. Oh,
all the goodness. Yeah. Dana, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Oh my goodness. Yes. I'm so excited to have you. Just super quick, high level if people Yeah. Are not familiar with it can't be that hard. Yeah. What, what is it? Let us know about That.
Okay. Yeah. So this can't be that hard is a photography education platform for portrait for all, all photographers, but portrait photographers mainly. And so Anami Tonkin created the simple sales system many, many years ago. And kind of from there, we've branched out into just teaching photographers the business of running their business, but in a way that makes it really fun and approachable.
And so I came on a few years ago to, I really came from a background of helping solo printers learn how to market their business without feeling like they had to hire, you know, like a whole social media manager or you know, a whole marketing team. It's really hard, I think, when you're a solopreneur to wear all the hats. And I feel like marketing almost always gets put on the back burner.
So I was like coming from that background anyway. And then sort of stepped into just really helping photographers learn how to streamline their marketing and uplevel their marketing so that it's something they can do consistently. Because I feel like what I see, you're probably like, yes, this happens to me too. Is this like feast and famine of marketing? Do you know what I mean?
It's like, oh yeah, when you have time, People get busy. They're like, I don't need to Market. And Then all Of a Sudden, whatever Brought in those people and you know, needs more attention. And it's like Uhoh quarter, Oops. Yeah. Like everything's dried up. So yeah, I think that that, that like breaking that cycle and I think it can really get to people's heads.
'cause then they're like, well, what happened like six months ago, everybody wanted to book me. And I'm like, yeah, probably three months before that you stopped, you know, emailing your list posting so much. So I have really become passionate about helping people figure out how to streamline and automate their marketing. And I, when I say automate,
I can like hear people being like, no, like robots not like that. Just in a way that like, it becomes a part of your everyday routine so that you can do it when you're in the height of your busy season and when it's like the, like lull of your low season, it, you know, you can just stay consistent. I love it.
And how you were mentioning too, how we wear all the hats. Yeah. Truly marketing is the first one that people just put on the shelf. Yep. And of all the hats, I would say that is the most important. I mean, I obviously agree, but yes, you're so right. People are like, I'll just put this hat over here for just like a day.
And then like, fast forward six months later, they're like, dusting off that hat. Like, Ooh, haven't had that on for a while. Yeah. I Was like, I forget how this fits. Yeah, a hundred percent. Yes. Oh my gosh. Yes. So, all right. I, yeah, I love all of this.
And automation to me is like my love language. So this is gonna be very exciting. Amazing. Yeah. And I feel like, all right, maybe let's go off topic here real quick. Yeah. Top three, like, most important marketing like tools to have in place in your business. Oh, wow. Okay. Well, you have to have an email list.
Okay. That was my number one too. I've gotta be your number one because, and I'm gonna say this later, but you own your email list, right? You don't own your social media. So I do think your email list is like your number one. You know, in this day and age, social media is a way, a really free and sometimes effective way for you to get a broad reach out to people.
But YI want you to think about those two tools very differently. Like social media is going out and like finding the eyeballs and like pulling them into you. But then your email list is where you like, own, own those eyeballs. That sounds so creepy. That's one that you've invited them to the dinner party and you're actually talking with them. Maybe we'll use That Sounds nicer.
That sounds so much nicer. Yeah. And I don't, man, I'm really on the spot. Let me think of like, what a, and like, okay. I mean, I'm gonna talk about ManyChat today. I don't think that it's, it's an absolute necessity. But I do think by investing in little technologies that can make your uplevel, your marketing stuff like ManyChat,
stuff like Convert Box, that can make you really beautiful popup forms on your website. I think investing in technologies like that is like sort of that third level. So you have to have the email list, the social media is gonna bring people to the dinner party. And then, you know, the convert box and whatever is like all the decoration and the,
you know, table scapes and everything that like, makes it really nice and makes people feel really, really invited. So I would say like in those, in, in those layers. Yeah. I love it. I totally agree. I know there's gonna be a lot of people out here. We're gonna trigger like my whole audience for different various things.
Number one, the people are like, oh, I got an email list. And then number two, people are like, I hate social. 'cause a lot of my audience is still dog photographers, even though we're here for all the portrait photographers. But you know, there's a lot of dog photographers especially that are so, so like introverted and they just don't wanna talk to people.
And like the idea of keeping up with their social media is just like, oh my gosh. But you guys taking pictures of dogs. Yeah. Everybody who doesn't, okay. First of all, as a fellow dog moms like, okay, who doesn't love to love a picture of a dog? It's like the easiest, absolute easiest clickbait on social media.
Just like, do you know everything dog. Any animal related content. I feel like it is just universally loved. So just know that the bar is so low for you guys. Like, it's like, okay, I might not like a picture of my friend's baby, but you know, I'm liking a picture of their dog. Like, everyone will like pictures of each other's dogs because dogs invest.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And you look at like, all right, look at all your saved reels or which reels you've sent to other people. Yeah. They're likely the ones with animals. I mean, at least if you're like me, a Hundred percent. Yes. A hundred percent. I mean, these are our people here. I just have like multiple dms.
I mean, first of all, my dogs have their own Instagram account, so there's that. But then I have like, you know, just like multiple DM chats with people where all we do is communicate in animal memes and animal reels. So yeah. I love it So much space for that. Awesome. So before we dig into ManyChat, I would love to just give people a quick little kind of top tips,
easy ways for them to maybe reexamine their relationship with social media. Sure. And like, I like to ask the question whenever there's something that maybe I'm dreading or I'm like scared of, or I'm not sure how to do. 'cause I think the procrastination comes from two pieces. Yeah. One, maybe they're scared of something. Yeah. Or number two,
they don't know how to do it. So they just like the procrastination because they don't know what to do or how to do it. And so I like to ask myself for these types of situations, like, how can I make it fun? Like, Oh, I love that. Not can I make it fun? Like how Yeah. How I'm gonna make it fun.
Yeah. How am I gonna make it fun? Deify it. I love that. Yeah. And then reward yourself in whichever way you wanna reward yourself afterwards, A massage, a chocolate martini, whatever. But, but yeah, like how can we make it fun? So do you have any just tips for people that maybe are a little bit wary or nervous of social media?
Sure. Okay. So I think it's a lot like fitness. Like don't, don't come at like, you know, if you're like getting back to the gym for the first time, you're like, I'm gonna work out seven days a week. Like, same thing with social media, like, just bite off what you can chew. Okay. So like a great place to start is saying,
I'm gonna post three days a week. Okay. And you know, as of today, April 16th, 2024 that we're recording this, like Instagram has come out to say they're trying to be a little bit better about promoting both photos and reels. So, you know, don't get all up in your head about like, I have to do reels. If you don't,
you know, know how to make a reel right now. Don't let that be the reason that you're not gonna post anything on social media. Because again, like I said, especially if you're a dog photographer, the bar is so low for people to like your stuff. It's like, all I want you to do is just say, I am gonna post three days a week.
You know, just a picture. Right. And so, you know, if you struggle with writing captions, you can use something like chat GBT if you really, you know, like if you use like a, I use this amazing app called Todoist. You can set yourself like a Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and check it as, does anybody else just love to check things off lists?
I do. Yeah. Just like give yourself that little, like dopamine hit. You're like cross that thing off. So just, yeah, like I would see, start there three times a week, post something, you know, on social media. The caption can be, again, really short, really like simple. You know, you don't have to get like all crazy about hashtags.
Just use, just think about what, okay, when people get crazy about hashtags, I'm like, what is in this photo? Just use a hashtag to categorize it. So like, hashtag French bulldog. I have two rescue Frenchies, so you're gonna hear me reference them a lot. Hashtag French bulldog has hashtag, you know, rescue pup, hashtag,
you know, maybe they're coloring. Hashtag dog mom. If it's like a picture of a mom with her dog, just what you see in the photo. Give us like five to seven hashtags. And that's it guys. Like, it's, it really is that easy. And then my other tip is you have to play the game. Okay. Instagram wants you to be on Instagram,
so when you go on to post your stuff, don't just go on post and leave, because Instagram isn't gonna reward you for that behavior. Go on and actually like, I don't know, be social on social media. Scroll through your thing like, like a couple other people stuff. Send co you know, send like a drop a comment if you're feeling up for it.
Like, truly just be social. I, you would be surprised at the number of actually like authentic commun like communications you can have with people on social media when you approach it from a place of authenticity. And I think animals are such an easy place for everybody to connect over. Like, there's no, like the, again, the bar is just so low.
Everyone loves animals. So just, you know, like love on each other's pets and love each other's photos. And I think that's just a great place to start. Yep. And one more thing, Nicole, now that I'm thinking about it, remember that it's not just about how many likes you get in that moment. Like when I am going and looking for a photographer,
I'm not just looking at their most recent post. I'm going to their social media and I'm scrolling back, and I don't like those posts that I, you know, that are like months old, but those posts are going into my brain and helping me be like, wow, I want, I wanna be in a picture like that. Or, wow,
I love the way she photographs this thing. So even if they're not getting a lot of likes in the moment, they are still doing the work just later, it's like invisible work that they're doing for you, and you may never even know. So you just have to like kind of trust in that and know that like you're putting your work out there so that people can see it when they're ready to see it.
Yeah. It almost becomes like a second mini portfolio because A hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, think about your behavior on Instagram. When you find an account, you're like, oh, that's interesting. You often go to their main page and maybe scroll through and maybe see older stuff. And it's also a really easy way when you're out and about talking to people and you're like,
oh, what do you do? You can pull up your Instagram homepage and be like, this here. Yeah, send me a follow. I think they just released like a QR code or something so people can like follow you. Yeah. Yeah. Easy. So, oh my gosh. All right, so good. So we have the social media following,
and I agree with you a hundred percent. Email is number one, you own it. Like, Instagram could decide tomorrow they're gonna change their terms and no more dogs, which would not be who them, because I think that's most of their platform. But they could do it. They could do it. So, you know, we're, we're playing along with them,
but ideally we want to like, like we said, invite people to the dinner table Yeah. To continue the conversation and, and where we own it so well, and It's more like, okay, it's more like, think about this. If you post a photo, Instagram's gonna decide based on, I don't know, I feel like they just have like a wheel back there that they spin and they're like,
Hmm, we'll show this to 10 people, or we'll show this to a thousand people. So it's kind of so random how many people that post is gonna reach. Right? When you send an email, it goes out to every single person on your email list. Whether or not they open that email, just seeing your name in their inbox is, I always like to explain marketing as like,
you're driving down like a highway and you're seeing billboards. Have you ever noticed how you'll see the same billboard like five times in a row on your commute? That's intentional because you have to see the same thing over and over again for it to like register in your brain. So you sending an email and popping up in someone's inbox is like a little billboard of their mind.
They're like, oh, there's Nicole again. Oh, there's Nicole again. Right. And you're, it's just you staying top of mind. So you control 100% that they're seeing your name. Now we could get deeper into like, how do we get them to open our emails? How do we get our emails whitelisted? But that's another conversation for another day.
That's just the difference between owning an email list and owning a social media list. Yep. Yeah. Absolutely. And it doesn't matter how many people you have on your email list or in your social media, it's quality over quantity. So don't be freaking out if you only have like 20 people on your email list. We're gonna talk about how to grow it today,
but I wanna make sure that those 20 people are your ideal clients on your email list. That's way more important to me than you having an email list of 2000 people who are never gonna hire you. Oh my gosh. So incredibly true. And along those lines too, I hear so many people getting stuck on my open rate's only 45%. Like, that's actually really good.
It's Actually so good. First of all, that's really good. Yeah. Yeah. So no, knowing that, you know what, it's 20 or 30% is like the average industry, Like 20% is like good. Yeah. And, and don't compare yourself to other people. Just see like what your open rate is. Right. And then it's like,
okay, well if you sent an email and your open rate spikes, it's like, oh, okay. What did I do in that email that was different? Or if it drops, it's like, oh, okay. People didn't like that, that thing that I did, you know? Yeah. Perfect. That's A better metric. Yeah. I love it.
Okay, so we're kind of talking about, like, we have our email list, we have our little social, we have two different dinner parties here. Yeah. How do we start to marry them Yeah. And get these people from social that maybe are like, huh, I'm a little interested Yeah. To kind of come over more. What are some good ways to do that?
Yeah. Okay. So I, I kind of wanna talk about the mentality of, let's put ourselves in the shoes of our ideal client. They're scrolling Instagram, you know, maybe they're like hanging out with their kid while they're doing it, or walking their dog. I mean, I am never on my phone when I walk my dog ever, but if I was,
I might go on Instagram Or waking up in the morning and just scrolling for a few minutes before you can get out of bed. Yeah. I don't know who does that. Nobody. But there they are. Okay. And they come across your photo, you know, the, the Instagram gods have shined on you. They have shown their photo to your ideal client,
and they're like, wow, I love this photo. They like it. Maybe they read your caption. Okay. Now, if you don't have something in there for them to do, or a way for them to like, you know, a call to action, a way to like pull them into your world, they're probably just gonna scroll on by.
And if they're not following you already chances that like, they're gonna come back and be like, oh, what was her name again? Lemme go find the name of that dog food. Like, they're not gonna put all of that effort into finding you again. So we wanna meet people where they're at when they're ready to get information, both in terms of like,
follow my account, but specifically today, I wanna talk about giving people something that they can, that they really want, that you can give to them immediately. And I like to talk about this, like, okay, if you, because our generation is one that like increasingly wants to be able to, to gather data immediately, but without the pressure of talking to somebody,
right? I'm like, I don't wanna get on the phone. I'm not calling tech support. I'll chat them. Right? Yep. Whatever. What do you think you're talking to ai? So just like allowing people to get the information that they need in, in the exact moment that they need it. Like, if I'm looking for an answer, I,
I don't wanna wait hours for somebody to get back to my DM or even get back to my email. I wanna know the answer right now. But I also like nec don't necessarily wanna like, engage with a real human. And I bet all of your like introverted people out there, like, oh, everybody feels that way. Like, we're just like,
give me the information I want right now and don't make me work too hard for it. And I don't, but I don't wanna feel the pressure of like, you know, when you're shopping at a store and you're like, just browsing, and somebody's like, oh, can I help you? Whatcha looking for today? And you're like, nothing like,
go away. I'm just looking like it makes it weird. But you know, like if you, so then if you have all the information you need right in that moment, then you can make the decision. So let's go back to that person. They're like scrolling your social media posts and all of a sudden they come across this beautiful photo that you have and it's like,
check out these, I've got a list of like five of the cutest, you know, mom dog matching accessories for your next, you know, photo shoot or whatever. And I would first of all, immediately click on that, be like, I need to know what matching accessories I need with my dog. You know what I mean? Or, I mean,
there's a million thing, I'm just gonna use that as my example right now. Okay. So then they, you can say, just comment accessories below. And this tool called ManyChat is something that you can connect on your Instagram. You can say it in your post if like, isn't it so cute Dana and her dog, like, you know, wearing their matching T-shirt and bandana.
Like, I've got a list of like my favorite matching accessories for dog parents out there. If you wanna grab my list, just come an accessories below and I'll send it to you. So behind the, immediately as the user, I'm like, accessories. And then I get a DM that says, Hey Dana, I'm so glad you wanna see my accessories list.
Like, here it is, click this button to grab it. And in that moment when I am excited about the accessories, because I've just seen the photo, I'm getting the information I need, and I'm happy to give you my email in exchange for that, because I'm really excited right now about that. Now, if I sent you a DM and five hours later you were like,
oh, hey, I see one of my lists. Like, I might be like, nevermind. Like we're, I'm not that into it anymore. I'm actually not that into it anymore. Like, it's flown right out of my mind. Or I'm like, wait, what did I see a post? I don't even remember liking that. Like, honestly,
that is how short our attention span is. So the power of ManyChat is being able to get people the information that they need immediately when they're looking for it, and be without the pressure of them feeling like they're actually interacting with you, the photographer, and feeling like they're, you're immediately gonna hop in and be like, okay, are you ready to hire me?
Like, Right, right. It just like takes the pressure off. And again, like if you're the kind of person who is a little more introverted, this probably really appeals to you when you're on the other side of it. When you know that you can interact without pressure, that's probably like really appealing to you. Does that make, does that make sense?
Yeah. Does all that it does tracking. It does. Yeah. And I know one of the things that people are gonna be like, oh, but I don't want people to think that it's me, but it's a robot. So what we've done, like if you guys are listening to the podcast or you're, maybe you found this clip right here on my Instagram reels,
and you can use ManyChat right now to comment the episode number and get the link to the podcast Anyway, regardless, we have it come from Emma, my office manager, my cat, love that. So like, it, it's very obvious that it, it is a robot. It is not me. And so people can just know, like they know full expectation that,
hey, here's this, so you can have fun with it, is what I'm getting to. Yes. It doesn't have to be like, cut and dry or feel like you're tricking anybody. Yeah. You don't have to feel like you're tricking them. It doesn't have to feel really stiff. I love, first of all, I have gotten messages from Emma and I love getting them,
but I love that idea, like, literally everybody here that's listening, that is a pet photographer, steal that idea. Like, take a mascot pet and make them the person who, you know, like, Hey, it's Emma here in the ManyChat. Like, you know, whatever. But the other thing is we, we know, like, we understand that we are interacting with ai,
like when we chat help, you know, on like, you know, you're on whatever website and you chat ai, you know that you're talking to a, a bot initially. And honestly, part of that is appealing because, you know, you can just like get the information that you need and then, you know, you'll get to a person if you like,
really have a question. Like, you know, that there's a real person behind the scenes. And, you know, I think people are very aware of that. But yes, I, I wanna reiterate what you said, which is like, have fun with it. Make it sound like you and don't, don't feel like you have to trick people.
Like there, it's okay. They don't, they understand that you're not literally in your dms every second, like responding to people. And they, and they appreciate that they're just getting the information that they need in the moment. Yeah. I think the other important thing about it too is it opens up a potential conversation with them. Because I remember, gosh,
ages ago when it was like, I don't know if people still teach this, but like to go and, you know, DM new followers and this and that, but now that to me at least feels like just kind of rude and intrusive. Sure. Of just like, you know, like, we just got so many, like how many, I got a scam thing yesterday to go photograph somebody's birthday party.
I'm like, oh my gosh. Like, enough. So this opens up a real conversation that I've seen so many people have, like that first MiniChat piece, and then you can come in with an actual personal message. Yeah. You know, to thank them or just open up in a conversation that is, is something that they've raised their hand for.
Yeah. I think that's important to point out, Nicole, if you haven't ever seen ManyChat behind the scenes, it, first of all, it's very visual. So I think for creatives that's really helpful. The way that all of the pieces are laid out is like in these little boxes with little arrows connecting them. And when a ManyChat conversation is done,
it like leaves the door open. You can come in as a human at any point and be like, oh, just checking. Like, were you able to get that download? Or, you know, whatever. Like you can jump in and have a, a human conversation with them after they get the information that they need from ManyChat. And you can also ask ManyChat.
Like sometimes I'll say, you know, are you here for this download or this podcast episode? And then I'll say, actually, no something else. And then you can say, oh, no problem. Just like, leave me a message. I try to check my dms a few times a day and I tell ManyChat to like mark that conversation as open so that I can see it immediately and hop in and like talk to that person.
Yep. I love it. I love it. So good. So where do people even like start to, to learn about this? Because I can see a lot of people just being like, that sounds great, but head in the sand. I just, yeah. I don't even know tech How to get started. Yeah. Well, okay, I'm not gonna lie.
I think like any technology, there's definitely a learning curve. And I, so when I started to like really get to know many chat myself, and I started to see the way that photographers could implement this in their businesses really effectively, I was like, Hmm, I'm gonna create a training because I think, you know, it's just going to make it really easy for people to,
to be able to watch exactly what I'm doing and say, okay, I just do that, then I do this and I do this. So I, so I've created a training for you guys. I'm just gonna throw that out there right now. Perfect. I've got a training for you. And in that I go through a couple different things that I think like three different ways that I feel like every photographer can use ManyChat to really elevate their game.
The first one is a conversation starter. Now, this is something you don't have to use ManyChat for. Instagram also has it like baked in to, its like, you know, software as well. But if you're gonna use ManyChat, why not use their conversation starter? And that's basically when you come to someone's dms and you're like, you're gonna DM them for the first time,
these bubbles will pop up with like options. And they're basically like your frequently asked questions. But again, instead of making them stiff and like really corporate, make 'em fun, like if it was me, I would call them stock my portfolio, like get pricing deets. And then I would do whatever my lead magnet is, like get my top five dog toys that'll keep your dogs busy for hours or whatever,
right? Yeah. And so if somebody's coming into your dms because they have a question about availability or pricing, but then they like, maybe they see, they're like, wait, I want those, I mean, what dog mom or parent doesn't want a dog toy that's gonna keep their dog busy for hours? I mean, boom. I would click that immediately.
So like I would get a little distracted, click that, now you have my email address. And then I would come back and be like, oh, I wanna see her pricing information. So again, you're just giving me your most frequently asked questions and letting me sort of self-qualify behind the scenes myself on my own terms. I understand, again, I'm not actually talking to a person,
but I'm engaging with your brand. I'm building trust, I'm getting the information I need. It leaves a really positive taste in my mouth that I was like able to get all of this information. It was fun, it was easy. Like, and I'm like, yeah, great. This is the person for me. Or maybe I'm like, actually,
nope, this is not the photographer for me. And now you haven't wasted your time doing like a, you know, an intro call with them because they've self-selected out. Yeah, I think so many times people are worried about that with any type of marketing and I'm like, no, they were never gonna work with you. At some point they would figure out that they don't like you,
so it's better just to put it all on the table. Agreed. Just be like, this is my flavor. Like, if you don't like the way I talk, you know, I, I have a very specific way of speaking and I think for some people it's probably great. And for other people they're like, so, you know, that's fine.
Like, you find your people. And I agree. It's like, just trust that your people will come and find you. Yeah. So I think that's the simplest way that you can use ManyChat. Okay. Just conversation starters. Easy peasy. I think another great way is like the next level is gonna be like what we were talking about at the top of this call.
How do you pull people from social media over to your email list? Well, you have to offer them something, right? So think about what you get asked for a lot or what are things that your ideal clients really could use? So again, because we have a lot of pet photographers here, five dog toys that will keep your, or you know,
or cat toys, whatever, that will keep your dog busy. These can just be your favorite dog toys that you have found on Amazon or whatever. But like at the average person doesn't have time to go and research all of these toys. So like, if you've gone ahead and done that work for them and been like, these are my dog's. Five favorite toys,
keeps them busy for hours. Like dog parents are gonna be like, thank you very much for that information. Here is my email address. Yeah. And I say bonus points, you can make 'em like Amazon affiliate. And then you get like three books all the time with like, you know, your $10 you make on Amazon every now and again.
Exactly. Like why? Literally, why not? Or I mean, I don't even know, I should know. Like, does BarkBox do an affiliate program? Like, you know, you could do, I Don't know. Bet. Yeah. But like something like that, right? So basically what that looks like is, you know, you're gonna create a post,
a reel, whatever that says, you know, these are my, you know, here's a picture of a dog playing with one of the toys. And it's like, as a dog parent, you know, so we're writing the caption as a dog parent. One of the, you know, the things that you're always looking for is ways to stimulate your dog's brain or keep them busy.
So here's my top favorite toys that are it, you know, engaging their brain and you know, like tiring them out. And it's like all the sniff toys and the puzzles and like something like that. And so comment puzzles below and I'll send you the link. Okay. So they comment and then you set up, so you set up the ManyChat that says,
anytime someone comments the word Puzzles On this post, send them this message. That's as simple as it is. And then the message just says, Hey, like you, I saw that you wanted my list of, you know, my top favorite dog toys, right? And then they say yes. And then you go, great, here it is.
And you send them a link where you, you know, there's a couple ways to do this. I think the easiest way is to just send them a link where they can go to your website and fill out a little form that you have embedded in your website name, email address. They put in that, and then your email marketing system takes, takes over.
So we're like passing the baton over to your email marketing system. It has now been pulled, their information has been pulled over, and your email marketing system says, when someone fills out this form with their name and email address, send them this pdf. And so then you send it right over to them. Well, now you have that person's information in your email because only a very,
very small percentage of people are ready to work with you the very first time that they find you. Oh yeah. So 95% of marketing is just finding creative and fresh ways to stay top of mind until people are ready to work with you. So now you've got them on your email and that's a whole nother conversation. But now you can email them, you know,
every two weeks just with like d you know, whatever you're sending out to your whole email list. And then that is a way that that person now has gone from just finding you on social media to getting something from your brand that they actually really value. Because they'll probably go and buy one of those toys and think about you every time they use it.
And now they're getting emails from you every couple of weeks. And when they're like, you know what? Dang it, it is time to get photos with my pets. Like, let's go. That's exactly what happened to me when I first got, you know, my first round of pet photography. I was like, okay, let's do the thing,
you know? I love it. I love it. Yep. And there's, oh my gosh. Yeah. I mean, you can go as deep as you want into that rabbit hole too. People that are in my world know that I talk about Zapier quite a bit of different ways to connect. It's basically a software that connects different software. So when this thing happens over here,
it tells the software to go do that thing. So you can even, you know, Mrs. Master's level, ManyChat, but you know, keep the whole conversation right in there and it zaps over to your email marketing and oh my gosh, there's the, the sky is the limit, is what I wanted to say there. But you can also keep it really simple.
Okay. So conversa conversation starters, and then pulling people over from Instagram into our email list. Yeah. There a third way to Use it. Yeah. I think this way is so fun. Just creating, okay, so this is kind of putting like a, a couple different marketing strategies together. Creating urgency, creating a little bit of scarcity, and then also using like some kind of like automation,
like ManyChat and your email list. Creating a wait list around a certain like type of session that you offer. I, I think this is like best done during either like busy season, like, you know, and for a lot here in the United States, like in the fall when everybody wants their, like portraits done for like holiday cards, but in the spring as well,
there's often, and sometimes in the summer, there's often what I'll call like a pretty season. Like here in Phoenix, the wild flowers bloom. Okay. But we don't know exactly when it's gonna happen. So it's like, if you want to get on the wait list for my wildflower sessions, like comment on this post and I will add you, you know,
to, to my wait list. So they comment wildflowers and ManyChat pulls them over and you know, you say just checking, you wanna, you know, you wanna get put on my wait list? Yes I do. What's your email address? Okay, great. I'll email you when the wildflowers start to blue, right? So now we've like agreed,
I'm giving you my email address because I wanna know when the wild flowers pop off. I wanna be at the, on your wait list and now you've pulled them over to your email and you can just add like a little tag or you know, put them into like a little group. However your email system works. That's like the wild flowers wait list 2024.
And then you just create an email now, you know, so for the next three weeks on social media, all you do is promote that same keyword. You're like, if you wanna get on the wait list, comment wildflowers. If you wanna get on the wait list, comment wildflowers, like over and over in your stories on your posts everywhere. And then you're just building up this list of people that are in,
you know, in your email marketing. And then as soon as the wildflowers go, you're like, okay guys, I've got 10 spots available. First come, first serve. And you send out that email blast to as many emails as you've collected. And like, by the way, if you only get 10 people on the list and you only have 10 spots,
nobody knows how many spots you have or how many people are on that list. So just create that urgency. There are limited spots available, you're not lying. There are limited spots available and it's on a first come, first serve basis. Blast that email out and watch those, those sessions just like fill right up because we love feeling like there's a limited number of things and we wanna feel like special,
so we're gonna get one. And there's also like that little competitive like, oh, I gotta be first. Oh, first come first serve. You know? Yeah. And you've also sort of psychologically gotten a a pre Yes. From people because they've said, I do wanna be on your wait list. So they've basically said, I do wanna hire you.
Like they've already said yes at that point. And so now you're just saying, great. Like let's sign on the dotted line, you know? Yes. Oh my gosh. 100%. And this is even more important with pet photography because unlike other, other genres, like if you're a newborn photographer, like okay, the baby's born, I hire a photographer,
I'm getting married, I hire a photographer, I'm graduating high school. Even though it's a bigger season, like it's still, oh, I hire a photographer like pet photography until like, unless they wait until their dog is older and maybe has limited time, there is no urgency there. It's so easy for pet parents to be like, oh, I really wanna do that.
I'll call next week. Next week. Turns to next month. Next month turns to next year. So having things like this that we can get people to take action now. Yeah. Oh man, it is so critical. I used to do something, it was gosh long before we had all these little hacks, but I would do the same kind of thing for snow sessions because I was in Pittsburgh.
Oh, Thats so Fun. Yeah, it was. So I love shooting the snow. I miss that here, but, but I don't actually miss living where it snowed, so it's very, very challenging. But yeah, I would have a wait list started because we never knew when we were gonna get enough snow. 'cause it would be like, oh,
maybe an inch of snow, but it doesn't cover the grass. Yeah. So it's kind of yucky. So like, only a couple times a year would we get enough snow that it was like truly winter wonderland. It's on the branches. Like yes, it looks gorgeous. So yeah. Had to do that kind of thing too. Yeah. And I,
I love that. And I'm just, because you said it and my little marketing mind is going, I'm like, okay, so let's create reasons for urgency. We just talked about pretty season sessions, we talked about holidays. Okay. But specifically for dog parents, if you have a new puppy, like I got photos when my puppy was little. I'm so glad I did that.
You're so right about the senior dog thing. But then let's create, create urgency within your brand. Maybe you do gotcha day like photography for the dogs or just regular birthdays or you know, splash pad sessions. Yeah. Snow sessions. All of those are just, you just get, start to like think about ways to create a time limited offer that really there,
there really is a limited time. Like, you know, their birthday only comes once a year or you know, the summer's only so long. Or like you said, the snow's only there so many times a year. So yeah, that's just like a, another way that you can start to create like urgency and a, a little bit of like specialness around these different sessions.
Because one client might love the idea of a splash pad session, whereas another client might be really into the idea of a snow session. You know, then you're appealing to multiple people. I love it. This actually sparked a something in my brain too, talking about it. Yeah. One of the things I love to do is charitable marketing. So partnering with a charity that you make some special offer to their supporters and man,
you can do this. And then make yourself some reels, some social media posts make that charity a collaborator that then it also goes on their social media and then people are opting in to find out more about the special offer. I love that. Boom, Boom. This is why I love marketing. 'cause I feel like it's always best done in like a little group because you get ideas and you're like,
oh wait, that made me think of this and what about this, what about that? And so I think, again, to circle back to what we were very first saying at the top of our conversation, it's hard to be a solopreneur and have to do all of this stuff by yourself. It's also hard to have to do it in a silo.
So, you know, like find finding, you know, a community or like finding somebody like this, maybe you're, you know, photography bestie that you can like bounce ideas off of. You just see how Nicole and I organically had that, like B, BB back and forth. It really does help. You know, we're creatives, we like,
you know, we vibe off of each other's energy and that it can really help you, like start to come up with ideas and it can help you be accountable. Like if you find somebody that you're like, okay, we're gonna post on social three times a week, let's come up with ideas and let's share captions and stuff like that. So, you know,
find an accountability buddy. I love That. Yeah, I love it. Oh my gosh, you guys, we have given you, if you don't have any marketing ideas, like go back and listen to this again. This has been such a fun conversation. Dana, you mentioned before this ManyChat training. Yes. Can you let people know where they can find that?
Yes, yes, yes. Okay. So guys, if you're interested in learning about ManyChat, go to this camp, be that hard.com/manychat, all one word, many chat. And I've just created like a little walkthrough and I walked through those three scenarios that I talked you guys through. So the conversation starters, giving somebody a lead magnet, whatever your like PDF is.
And then also how to create that wait list. So I, it's like a screen share. You can literally watch me create these step-by-step. And then hopefully you'll be able to go ahead and take that, that training and put this into use in your own business because I think it could be really great for you guys. I love it. Oh my gosh,
so, so good. Thank you so much Dana, for being here again and let people know again just where they can find you and, and yeah, more just great business. Yeah. Yeah. So Ami and I run a monthly podcast called The Consistency Club. That's our marketing podcast inside of this can't be that hard. So you guys can just search for the Consistency Club.
It's like once a month we drop a little marketing lesson and we talk about, you know, just like, just like what we did here. Like maybe one thing on Many Chapel, we'll teach you something new every month. And then if you become a subscriber of the Consistency Club, we help you write your captions, we give you reels exact, we tell you exactly what to make on your social media and we write you email templates as well.
So that's the best way to find me inside of this. Can't be that hard. Awesome. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for sharing with us, you guys. Yeah, this is so good. Reach out to Dana, let her know how you are going to implement this and if you love this conversation. And yeah, can't wait to see what you guys do with it.
We'll see you next Week. Thanks so much for having me, Nicole. Bye. Oh my Gosh. Of course. Bye everybody.