Welcome to minis Made Easy, the podcast that's all about making your mini sessions simple, profitable and stress free. I'm Rebecca Rice, and I've helped 1000s of family photographers, just like you, build thriving businesses through mini sessions. Somewhere along the way, my students started calling me the queen of minis, and I'll gladly own it, because I love showing photographers how to maximize their time and profits while working smarter, not harder. Whether you're brand new to the world of minis or you've been running them for years and are ready to level up if you're in the right place, from pricing and marketing to posing and workflows, this is your one stop shop for everything minis. So grab your favorite drink, get cozy, and let's dive in. You're just one episode away from transforming your
business. You Hello
friends, welcome to the minis Made Easy Podcast. I'm so excited to be here with you today in our episode, we are talking about why your minis aren't booking. Now if you're listening and you're like, my minis are booking, fine, amazing. This is probably not the episode for you, but if you ever find yourself struggling to book your minis or they are just not booking the way that you had expected. Then listen up, because this episode is for you. First of all, I want to acknowledge like we have all been there, okay? It is such a frustrating place to be, and I think it's a lot of times imposter syndrome and things like that really kick in when things just don't go as we expected, and especially something like mini sessions. I mean, any kind of photography is so vulnerable to like, put ourselves out there and market the things, and then to not get the bookings, it can be just the worst feeling. And so first off, I want you to know you're not alone. We've all been there. I've definitely been there. And although it is not a fun place to be, there are some things that we can check in on and adjust to get those minis booking. So the very first thing that I want to touch on is I want you to look at your timing and your theme when it comes to timing, one thing that you really want to pay attention to is what is going on on the calendar outside of your own personal calendar. Okay? Is there Spring Break happening the weekend that you set your minis? Is there any sort of holiday? Is it the weekend of Mother's Day? Like I feel like that. I've definitely been guilty of this where I scheduled a set of minis, and I've done it actually two different times. Once I scheduled a set of minis the weekend of Mother's Day and did not realize it, and was getting zero bookings, until I realized, like, Oh my gosh. How did I not realize I set these on Mother's Day? And so of course, when I changed the date, booking started coming in a lot easier. It was just wild. And then I also booked minis on spring break weekend, where everybody and their mom was going out of town for spring break. And of course, I was sitting there wondering, Why in the world are these not booking it's because everybody was out of town. And so something as simple as taking a look at the calendar your kids are not in school yet, or anything like that. Look at your your local district or county or whatever, and check their school calendar and see what's going on on the calendar. Because timing is everything. Another thing to look at, not just dates, but like time that you set. If you set your minis right at nap time or way too early in the morning, you're gonna have a harder time booking. And so you want to pay attention to who is your ideal client, when are they needing to book their mini sessions and kind of work around there. So timing plays a huge role in whether your minis are gonna book or not, and then your theme. Okay, here's the deal with themes. So I feel like I have like a little soapbox here, because especially, you know, in the spring and summer, a lot of photographers like to get very creative with their themes. They're like, I don't want to do just regular wildflower minis, because everybody does regular wildflower minis. I want to do something special. But then, like, the theme that they choose is so far out there and so unnecessary that you actually hinder your ability to book so one of my favorite examples is using ice cream minis. Okay, so I have seen photographers advertise ice cream minis, where, literally it is them taking photos of kids eating ice cream, which, okay, cute, sure. But at the end of the day, as a mom of three, I don't need. Made professional photos of my kids eating ice cream, right? That is not a must have theme. That's not a must book theme. Compare that to like unicorn minis, okay? Unicorn minis, absolutely. I would book that any day for my daughter, for her to feel like a princess. She She is seven and a half. She loves all things, unicorns and Princess and all things and so that would for sure be a mini theme that I would book over ice cream minis any day. And so I want you to take a look. What is your theme? Is it a must book theme, or is it one of those that your audience might find unnecessary, because that might be why you're struggling to book. I know that there's a lot of, like, trendy things, like, I've even seen some where it's like they have just a big white sheet and paint. I've seen these usually as like, Mommy and me's where the kid and the mom are, like, splattering paint on each other or whatnot, although, yes, the end result is really cute. That is not necessarily like a must book theme. It's going to be a very, very small pool of people that are going to want paint splatter photos with their kids. It's not to say that the demand isn't there. Sure there are going to be a handful of people that would like that, but I would say the majority of your audience is not going to necessarily want that, and so you want to pay attention to your theme and ask yourself, Is this something that the majority of my ideal client would want to book? Because if the answer is yes, then you're going to have a lot easier time booking? If the answer is no, you are probably going to struggle. So we're gonna take a look at our timing and we're gonna take a look at our theme right off the bat and decide, is this the reason why my bookings are struggling? Okay, let's move on to the next thing after you check your timing and you check your theme. The next reason that you may be struggling to book is you don't have a complete marketing strategy. Now here's the deal, posting once on your social media and hoping for bookings is not enough. I say all the time in my minis classes, only about 4% of your followers are actually seeing what you post because of algorithms, and so it is vital that you get outside of just your followers if you want to get more bookings. You know, I see photographers all the time in my minis Facebook group. They're asking, oh my gosh, like, how do I get more people to see my posts. I only had you know, 50 people see my stories, or whatever, and at the end of the day, like the algorithm is the algorithm, there's not much you can do to increase your organic reach for your stories, and so you've got to add in other marketing elements to have a complete marketing strategy. Now that's not to say that social media marketing is not valuable, because it absolutely is, but it's just a piece of the marketing puzzle. It cannot be the whole thing. Some other key marketing elements that you want to make sure that you have outside of just posting on social media, number one, I would say email marketing 100% this would be the fastest and easiest way to book your warmest leads. These are people that know you, they like you, they trust you, and they want to book with you. Therefore having them on your email list, they are going to book the fastest and the easiest out of everything. It is just wild. The statistics of conversion rates of email marketing versus social media. I mean, email marketing is so, so much more effective. And so if you don't have an email list today, today, I want you to start an email list. I have a link to flow desk, which is my all time favorite email marketing platform. It's like the Canva of email marketing systems. It's so easy to use, beautiful templates, everything that you need to get started. I've got a link below if you want to go check it out for free. I'm telling you flow desk is where it's at, and so if you do not have an email list, start an email list today. Okay, so key marketing elements we have our email list. The next thing that you can be doing is reaching out locally. Okay, so leverage your local Facebook groups. If you're a mom, look for local mom groups in your area. Now I know that every mom group has their own rules about posting about your business and whatnot, but it's still valuable to you know, follow the rules and get your post out there, because that's a great way to get in front of 1000s of local moms in your area
for free. Okay, so check out those local Facebook groups or community pages or. Whatnot, you can look at partnering with local small businesses, things like preschools or hair and makeup artists or boutiques or pediatricians offices, like there's so many different avenues that you can go here. I had one of my students just the other day telling me about the fact that them partnering with preschools has like, totally changed the game for them, and so they actually do preschool photos now also. And then all of those families are now familiar with their brand and with their business. They have the chance to join their email list, and then they can book minis from their email list, and they came from a preschool just because they're doing preschool photos for them. So there's so many other like local avenues that you can do. Another thing that you can do as a key marketing strategy is make sure that your SEO, your search engine optimization, is up to date, accurate, working for you. What does this mean? Basically, we are making sure that when people are searching for photographers in your area on Google, that you are ranking, that you are showing up, and that they are able to book you from Google. A lot of people still Google for photographers, and so you want to make sure that your SEO is where it should be, so that you are showing up for, you know, those Google searches. So all of these things are pieces of a marketing strategy. We cannot go all in on just one thing or another. All of these strategies work together, your social media, your email marketing, your Facebook groups, partnering with local businesses, your SEO. All of these things, they work together to form a complete marketing strategy. And so I want you to, like, take a look at what your current marketing strategy is, and if you're only doing one of these things, or maybe two of these things, it might be time to dig a little bit deeper and start adding in other pieces of your marketing strategy to get in front of more people so that you can get more bookings. Now the third thing, the final thing that I want to talk about when it comes to why your minis may not be booking is, I want you to look at your messaging, because it could be that your messaging just is not speaking to your audience. Now, what does that mean? Your messaging is the words that you're saying, the captions that you're using, anything that they're you're communicating in your marketing about your mini sessions. So ask yourself, like, is your language that you're using resonating with your ideal clients? For example, maybe your clients don't just want mini sessions. Maybe they want stress free, quick, affordable, beautiful, family photos. Yes, all of those things happen in mini sessions, but if you're not communicating that, then how is that going to resonate with them? Another thing to think about with your messaging is, what is your main focus? Are you focusing on what you're offering or why they need it. Because, yes, it's one thing to talk about what you're doing. Hey, I'm doing these spring minis. They're on this date, at this time, this price, blah, blah, blah. But if you're not talking about why your ideal client needs those mini sessions, you're missing a huge opportunity in your marketing and in your messaging, because that's what really moves people from just hearing what you're saying to actually envisioning themselves and taking action to booking the session with you, is when they realize why it is that they Need to book mini sessions with you, and so you want to take a look at your messaging. Are you using language that resonates with your clients? Are you focusing on why they need it, and not just what you're offering? And then also, are you clearly explaining the details? Okay, what is a mini session? When are your mini sessions? You know, all the pieces that come with it. If you're not clearly explaining what it is and then what action you want them to take to book with you, then you're probably going to struggle in your messaging. And so pay attention to what your messaging is saying, what it is that your marketing is saying to your ideal clients, because that can change the game to give some quick action steps, fix these things and get your minis booking. First, you're going to assess your theme and your timing. Next, you're going to look at your complete marketing strategy and make sure that you are doing more than just posting to your social media to get those bookings. And you're going to refine your messaging so that you are speaking to what your audience wants and needs from you, and not just what you are offering. So take those things. I hope this is helpful for you. Take those things and apply them, and I bet you're gonna see your bookings increase. Just for making those few tweaks that it seems like not a lot of stuff, but I'm telling you, those tweaks are massive when it comes to marketing and booking your minis. So if you have any other like questions about this, or you have other struggles you want me to touch on in this podcast, shoot me a DM on Instagram at Rebecca Rice photography. I would love to chat with you there. And I'm always like adding things to our content calendar. I had somebody just last week had said that they loved the podcast, and they had a question that they would love covered. And so we added it to the content calendar. And that is, I'm telling you the best way, if you want me to talk about something specific, shoot me a DM on Instagram, and I will make sure that we get it added. So to close, I just want to leave you with encouragement. You absolutely can fill your minis this season. You just need the right strategy, and this episode hopefully gives you the Jump Start that you need to make those tweaks and really run with it. So excited for you. I know that when you put your head down and you put in the work, it pays off. And I can't wait to see all the bookings that start to come in when you make these tweaks. Hopefully, like I said, this is helpful for you, and we'll be back next week with another episode with more tips for you. It's just gonna be great. So with that, we'll close out
and see you next
week. Bye, guys.
