Running a small business is no easy task. It's messy and thrilling, and terrifying all at the same time. But no matter what, it's definitely a journey worth taking. As a mom of two littles, I know the daily struggles, and I'm here to walk this journey with you. If you're ready to feel empowered, encouraged and on fire for the things you truly love, then you're in the right place. I'm Rebecca Rice, a pizza loving hot chocolate drinking family photographer and educator. And this is the business Journey podcast.
Hey, friends, welcome back to the business Journey podcast. I'm your host, Rebecca rice. And today we're on episode 96. I can't believe it, talking all about how to market your mini sessions in 2023. Now, if you've been following me for a while, maybe you're like Rebecca, I've heard you talk about marketing minis forever. Listen, guys, in 2023 times are changing. And so some of the things I'm going to mention today are things that you've probably heard before, but some is going to be slightly different. So take a listen, stick with me. Because you're gonna want to apply some of this stuff. Let's just say that now before we get too far, I wanted to let you guys know about a brand new free class that I'm so excited to be offering. It is the six steps to double your photography revenue this year. And it's a class unlike any that I've ever done before. And honestly, I'm the most excited about it, then, like any class have ever done, just because of the potential for change in your business this year. Like I'm so excited. So if you're listening to this episode, as it's going live, it's happening live this week, on Wednesday and Thursday, I'm going live twice, so you have two chances to sign up. And if you're not able to tune in live, there is a replay available but only to those who register. So you have to go ahead and get registered, pick a date a time, and then you'll get sent the replay afterwards. And so right now we have over 500 photographers signed up for this class. And I am just thrilled for the opportunity for that many people to be able to come together and learn all the things to be able to double your revenue this year, because here's the deal, it is absolutely possible for you to double whatever you hit last year, and I can't wait to give you the six steps that I did. To do this in my own business. I've done it twice where you know, to grow a business from the ground to six figures. And these are the six steps that I used. Like I said, I'm so excited, it's going to be very packed with all kinds of stuff. So come ready to take notes. And I just know that you guys are gonna get so much from it. So I hope to see you there live, there will be a live q&a At the end too. So And don't worry, like you won't be on video. It'll just be me on video, but you will be in the chat. And so come ready with any questions that you may have. And I do this like rapid fire q&a at the end. It's honestly where I thrive. It's my one of my favorite parts of classes like this. And so come join us, I know that it's going to be super helpful for you. And I can't wait. So I hope to see you later this week. Now, talking through marketing, you guys know I can talk about mini sessions all day. I love them. We are here in spring season already, which is just wild, I feel like spring came so fast. But now is the time to be marketing if you haven't already. So I'm going to give you some very practical things, I have five things that I'm going to walk through today when it comes to marketing, that is going to be super practical that you can apply hopefully, as soon as you're done listening to this when it comes to your mini sessions. So the very first thing, which I think is one of the most important is to give yourself a head start. If you're wanting to open up mini sessions, and then you know shoot them two weeks later, I can tell you unless you have a really large client base, you're probably not going to fill all your spots. So my ideal that I tell all my students is to give yourself at least six to eight weeks to market well because good marketing takes time even for the best of marketers, the best of photographers, good marketing still takes time. So give yourself six to eight weeks, ideally, four weeks at a minimum I would not go below four weeks for anybody. But the more of a head start you give yourself the more likely you are to book out your spots because that's the goal is fully booked many sessions not many is where you book one or two spots, right? So you want to give yourself a really solid Headstart. What I like to do is pick a mini session state that is you know, six to eight weeks out and then work backwards to say okay, eight weeks out what
Do I need to do seven weeks out? Why do I need to do all the things leading up to your mini sessions. And if you're like, I have no idea what to do six weeks out of my mini sessions, I have a mini sessions playbook that's available in my shop that will walk you through basically step by step every single week leading up to your sessions, I think it even start like nine weeks out. But it gives you what you need to do each week leading up to your sessions, including your marketing, all your things, so you can go check that out. So you've given yourself a head start. The next thing that I would say that is vital to marketing your money as well is to use promo shots. Today, I think more than ever before, this is absolutely vital. And what I mean by this is, when you're advertising your minis, you're gonna want to use a photo that you took with a real family, at whatever location you're shooting at. If you're using a setup, you want it to look as realistic as possible, exactly like it's going to look or close to what it's going to look like. But you want to include a real family, because people want to see themselves in your advertisement, not literally, but you know, they want to be able to see your advertisement and put themselves there and say, I want my family photos to look like that. And so you want to make sure you get promo shots for this. Now, some people are like, Okay, well, I'm doing sunflower minis for the first time this year. So I don't have any promo shots. In a case like that, obviously, because you can't go out right now and take sunflower photos because the sunflowers haven't bloomed yet, what I would do is, in your advertisements, I would post a picture of sunflowers next to a picture that you took so that people can see the quality of your work. And they'll put two and two together, it's fine. Ideally, if you have photos to use from sunflower sessions, use that. But if not, then use a stock photo and then one of your images, I think it's really important to know I keep emphasizing your images, because I would think it would need could go without saying but it happens all the time. So please don't use somebody else's work to advertise your mini sessions. Even if you pulled it from Pinterest or whatever or you say not my photos or photos as inspiration, guys, it's illegal like actually not legal to advertise using somebody else's work. And this has sadly happened to me a lot, especially around Easter time. A lot of my Easter minis are popular on Pinterest, they show up every year. And so every year I have people using my photos to advertise their Easter minis. And I have to go through and tell them like hey, please take my photos down. That's not legal. So use your own photos. And then as like a little bonus, don't use one of those like cutesy Canva templates or like Etsy templates to advertise your mini sessions, you know, the kind where it has like a collage of pictures, and then all the minis details on it and all the things don't use those ads. Just do a single image with all of your information in a caption, I promise it'll perform better. I've been telling photographers this for years and I'm telling you it will 1,000% perform better without the ad the ad is very salesy. People don't like to be sold to and you're like put it says all the information. Listen, just take my word for it. Don't use the ad put the info in the caption instead. That was like, I'll get off my soapbox. But it had to be said, Okay, so number three for marketing your mini sessions in 2023 is to open your mini session spots to your VIP email list first. And if you don't have a VIP email list, no worries. But if you do, you want to give them a little VIP perk. And if you're like I don't know what a VIP email list is, basically it is people that I have asked to join my email list or they have opted into my email list. I call it my VIP email list because who doesn't love to be a VIP, but that is the best way and the fastest way to reach your warmest leads. These are people that are ready to book with you. They like you, they know you they trust you. And so I always open up to my VIP email list first and usually booked several spots if not a whole day of just VIPs before I ever go public so you can you know spend your offseasons I know we're a little late for it right now if you're listening to this live but you can spend your offseasons building up your email list so that when busy season comes in, it's time to book minis you have a list of people to be able to market to so after you open to your VIP email list, the next step would be to go public with it. This would be posting on your social media your business Facebook page or Instagram page. Local Facebook groups tick tock I know I'm like slowly becoming a like tick tock person. I have a love hate relationship with tick tock I think tick tock has a really dark
died. But surprisingly, Tik Tok is turning into a search engine. And I didn't expect that from a platform like that. But it truly is it's turning into a search engine. And more and more people are going to tick tock to search things like Nashville photographer or whatever. And so while I would say don't spend a ton of energy here, because I think most of your ideal client isn't quite on tick tock yet, they're starting to be right. The generation of tick talkers are now in like early college, and they're starting to get married, they're starting to have kids and so may as well start getting used to it now. Because here in the next few years, those people are going to be your ideal clients, and you're going to want to market to them. So well, I don't suggest spending a ton of time marketing on tick tock, it's worth at least like looking into once you do all the other things, if you've got extra time, if not, no worries, you've got a couple years, maybe a few years before, it's going to actually be like vital in your business. But for now, if you've got the extra time, if you already have a tick tock account, great, make a little video if you have like video of you shooting awesome, if not, you can do like a collage of pictures or like a swipe through of photos to be able to advertise and make sure to use words about your location like Nashville photographer, because that's what people would be searching. So go public with it, whether it's on social media and local Facebook groups, whatever, after you hit your VIP email list. Now, this next one is one that three years ago, I would have said is totally unnecessary. But social media has really changed over the last few years. And so this one that I'm going to say is to run Facebook ads, Facebook and Instagram, when I say Facebook ads, I'm really combining the two Facebook and Instagram because they're run by the same people, when you run ads, it's under the same platform, all the things. So Facebook, more and more has become a pay to play game. If you haven't noticed a lot of your posts probably aren't getting a lot of traction when you post organically, whether it's on your own Facebook or Instagram page in groups, whatever things are just not being seen, the algorithm is making it so that a very small percentage of your audience are actually seeing what you post. And that is very frustrating. So the reason that that's happening is because Facebook and Instagram favor paid advertising. They want people to pay for advertising, obviously, because they make money from it. But what I can tell you is that it's more vital. Now more than ever, to running paid advertising in your business. Now I will say don't run paid advertising until you've exhausted all of your free avenues. But paid advertising is now one of those things that in my opinion, and people may disagree with us. And that's okay. But in my opinion, paid advertising. It's essential now in the current landscape of Facebook and Instagram. So don't let that scare you. Because I know it can be terrifying to you know, you spend all these years advertising for free and getting bookings. And you're like, why would I pay when I've you know what I mean, all these past years, I've never had to pay a penny for all these bookings times are changing guys. And so it's gonna have to be something that is built into your budget. Now, what I can tell you is that Facebook and Instagram ads platform is very intuitive. And it can target people in kinda creepy ways. But it gets you in front of your ideal client very easily. And so you know, if you know your ideal client is a mom that is, you know, 25 to 49 or whatever and has kids that are eight and under, then you can tell Facebook and Instagram, I want to target these people. And it will put your ad in front of those people in your local area. You define what like cities you want, what radius all the things and it gets you in front of those people. And the beautiful thing in my opinion about Facebook ads, slash Instagram ads is that it's very easy to see your return on investment. First of all, it's gonna be scary to invest in the first place not knowing that there's a return on investment. But the more that you do this, the more confident you're gonna get. And I love using this example one of my students, Sarah, she was in my mastermind last round. She is like a prime example of this because she had never run Facebook ads before she was nervous as everybody is to run Facebook ads, but I said Sarah, trust me like let's just give it a try and see how it goes. So she ran ads. She did full session ads and mini session ads towards the end of last fall. And she ended up booking over $20,000 worth of photo sessions.
from spending, I think she spent $2,000 on ads, which is insane. So let me ask you, would you spend $2,000, if it would bring you $20,000? I for sure would. And so I'm not saying you have to spend 2000 Right off the bat, absolutely not, you can start with a budget that makes you feel comfortable. Some people do $5 a day, I would not suggest that you're not going to see results very fast, because it doesn't show it to that many people at $5 a day, I suggest at least like 15 to 3030. If it's, you know, in your budget, that is going to actually get your results in a reasonable amount of time within like one or two days. And so my suggestion is to start with $30 a day, commit to doing it for three days, just three, and I have a whole YouTube video, if you go on my YouTube channel search Rebecca rice education, you'll find it that walks you through exactly how to set up a Facebook ad campaign. I also have a Facebook ad mini course, that is going away soon, just to let you know, because I have something coming out very soon, that's going to include this information. So just take that as you will. But talking through all of your Facebook ads, when you get it set up correctly. Let's say you spend $30 A day you'll know within the first day if your ad is working or not. So don't think you're gonna have to spend $2,000. Before you even know if it's working, you'll know within the first day if it's working or not, based on how I show you how to set it up. And I'm telling you this is the best way to reach an audience that does not currently follow you and honestly to reach audience that does volume because most of your followers are not seeing your stuff organically. And so as scary as it may feel to run Facebook ads, this is the year 2023 that I highly suggest getting into Facebook ads. Now like I said, you're gonna want to like educate yourself about it. So don't just go blindly into creating Facebook ad, go watch my video, I'm telling you, you don't want to do it without like guidance, because it can be tricky, and you don't want to waste money. But Facebook ads when done right can be extremely effective. So don't write it off. I think it is an important part of a marketing strategy in 2023. And I hope I didn't like scare you with it. But the possibilities are amazing with it. You guys, I'm telling you, a couple of years ago, when I started my associate team from scratch, they had zero client base, I did not have them, you know, use my email list or any of my previous clients, they had zero client base. And they grew to six figures in 10 months, because of Facebook ads. Literally their only marketing plan was Facebook ads, because they had no followers on Facebook, they had no followers on Instagram. They had no previous clients. And so we ran Facebook ads for 10 months, and they hit six figures, which was amazing in the first year. Facebook Ads work, don't shy away from them. Because I'm telling you, it's necessary I would say now more than ever, like I said some people may disagree with me on that. And that's okay. But from my experience, and from what I have seen in the trends of social media, paid advertising is a necessary part of advertising in today's day. So take that as you will. So just to recap how to market your mini sessions in 2023. Give yourself a good head start six to eight weeks, use promo shots with a real family and then open to your VIP email list first, then go public with it on social media, local Facebook groups, things like that. And then once you've exhausted your free options, run Facebook ads to fill your remaining spots. So I hope this episode was helpful for you. If any part was confusing, or you have questions about stuff, feel free to find me on Instagram at Rebecca rice photography. I would love to help answer your questions. You can shoot me a DM I'm super active in my DMs. So I would love to be able to chat with you there. With that. I'll go ahead and close out for today and I'll see you back in a couple of weeks with another episode. Bye guys.
