Welcome back, babe, for another episode in the Amplify Your Wedding series! In today’s episode, we are digging into my best tips for collecting reviews and using them to boost your brand awareness and find more of your dream clients. I’m also sharing one of my best kept secrets for amplifying your business through reviews. Remember, reviews are one of the most impactful gifts your clients can give you!

Today’s episode is brought to you by The Greenhouse, my resource garden for creatives to plant their dreams and grow money trees! These easy-to-use guides and templates will help you AMPLIFY your heart online and in real life to get dream clients begging to work with you year after year!

The Best Gift For Your Business (1:50)

How Do We Get Reviews? (3:05)

“We Got Our Photos!” Email or Text (3:27) 

Client Responses (4:34)

Send Them A Request For A Review (6:23)

How To Write A Review (7:20)

Where Do You Share The Reviews? (10:45)

The Best Kept Secret (11:49)

Review the Transcript:

Welcome to Quianna Marie weekly, a podcast for creatives who love to celebrate wins big or small by dancing in the kitchen photographers who are excited to serve their clients and friends who are ready to chase really, really big dreams. You can find all of the resources mentioned in this episode at quiannamarie.com/podcast. Join me as I share weekly motivation, chat about growing pains, finding genuine connections and celebrating your wins through the lens of a photographer at heart. Come join me for a dance party ready to love though.

Morning, my love it. Today we are back and we are soaring through this entire series called amplify your weddings. And I am here for this party I have been having so much fun. And I love the feedback that I’ve been getting as far as just sharing that we’re not alone in this and that we have so much to offer. We have so much going on on wedding days and things get crazy. But at the end of the day, we are so passionate about what we do. And now we just need more people to see us right we need to break down these networking walls, we need to make new connections and really boost our brand awareness. Like I’ve mentioned before in past episodes, you’re already doing the work, baby.

So let’s show up and find really creative ways to get new dream couples to find us fall in love with us and to pay us our worth. Plus tax. Okay. So for today’s episode, we’re going to be digging deep into sharing reviews. And I actually have one quick tip, it’s actually a really big kept secret that I cannot wait to tell you about that. I will be saving that towards the end of the episode. So please stay tuned. But I just want to talk about capturing testimonials and reviews.

Capturing these reviews for clients to share their experience can sometimes feel too pushy or even a little bit annoying. I get it. But what if I told you that as long as you did your job well, you over delivered even a tiny bit and kept a positive attitude during their wedding experience. Your clients will be thrilled to write a review. Now I know it’s frustrating and sometimes awkward asking, but what if gifting you some feedback is actually something they would prefer over gifting you a candle or Starbucks card or something simple like that. In fact, I had one of my beautiful brides Kelly, who she responded right away and she wanted to gift me a camera lens. She wanted to give me a camera bag, something for my business that she knew that I may be needed or wanted but just haven’t bought for myself. And she was literally racking my brain for a really awesome gift to thank her for shooting her wedding. And to be honest, after I put some thought into it, I just kind of laughed and requested a review. I requested a genuine, heartfelt testimonial from her and her husband. And that was the best, most priceless gift for my business.

So how do we get them there are a couple of ways to trigger reviews. And the first one actually is a really sneaky way of capturing a review without even asking for a review. So this is how it kind of Jedi mind trick my brides to send back a quick response and to almost kind of praise me and rave a little bit about their photos. So number one in the email that I send once I deliver their gallery, so I use pixie set to deliver my galleries and so in that direct email towards the bottom of the page, like the bottom of the last little signature thing. I have this and it will be in the show notes so you can reference this as well. But I just say at the bottom PS if you’ve made it this far without clicking the view photos button, please respond with a quick Yay, we got our picks email or text nothing scares me more than having your wedding photos stuck in a promotions folder or stuck in your spam while you’re biting your nails counting down the minutes to open them. Thank you love you forever XO XQ.

Now, this is just a tiny little phrase most of my couples kind of blow right past it and just click their photos and start looking at them. Yes, but since I’ve started implementing this and putting this in the email once they get their pictures I have had and I’m really bad with numbers but I would say like almost a 65 If not 75% success rate with response to that. Okay, so here’s just a handful of responses instantly after delivering their galleries. Giuliana one of my beautiful reason brides that experienced like super crazy rainy wedding day with tons of last minute decisions like bringing her dream winery ceremony amongst the vineyards into the barrel room.

She was literally a saint bless her heart, but this was her response Upon receiving her photos literally within minutes that she received her wedding gallery. She responded with this. Hey key these photos are amazing and All caps. We cannot thank you enough for perfectly capturing our day and giving us this beautiful gift. We will treasure these pictures and memories forever. Thank you for all of your hard work, positive energy and support. Hello, thank you my love. That was an incredible, incredible review. And I didn’t even ask her for a review. All right, let’s share another one. Another quick response from Kendra. She is actually one of my gorgeous gorgeous COVID brides that experienced three different wedding date changes, it was chaos, she responded omg these are amazing. We love you can’t wait to share with our friends and family. Thank you so much.

Another response came from Jacqueline and Miguel. And they said Yay, we got them and love them, you’re seriously the best. And we’re so thankful for you. Now the reason why I’m sharing this is because you can literally take any piece of the review and you can kind of chop it up into pieces, you can turn it into a quick little one liner or one phrase, you don’t have to include everything when someone shares a review. Now, I don’t want to be shady about it. And we’re not trying to be reporters trying to push an agenda about us, right? We’re not mad looming, and like copying words and pushing things together to make it make sense to make a sound better. You’re literally just maybe deleting a sentence or two, to add to wherever you need it.

Okay, so another way that I suggest getting a legit review even after your brides shoot over this quick thank you message is to send over another request specifically for the review about a week after their wedding. Sometimes couples are juggling moving into new homes, honeymoons and even possibly just shutting down and like interpreting for a little quick sec, after their whirlwind of their wedding year, give them time to think and process. The biggest key tip I have about requesting them is to create a plus site on your website or whip up a blog post that gives them directions on how to share a review. Trust me, this may seem a bit bossy, or maybe make you feel a little bit demanding with these requests. But I promise your couple will appreciate them. And here’s what I mean by that.

Okay, so we’re gonna go through exactly just some ideas about ways that you can request this review. Okay, so how to write a review, this is something that you can easily whip up and just kind of be a template for them or a guide, and they will be so grateful. Step number one, keep it simple. Please share how we met, why you decided to work with me, and anything that sticks out about our experience. Number two, talk about your fears. I know this sounds silly. But what were some of your fears when booking vendors, couples today have the same fears when picking their roster of their dream wedding vendor team? Were you fearful of pricing? Good communication? Were you concerned about vendors being reliable, consistent with their work that they see online? Were you concerned about finding someone friendly and funny for your wedding day someone happy to work with personality is a big thing, quality of work or referrals. So I add these little questions into these kind of topics so that they feel that they have like a Kickstarter, like they feel like it’s not just creative writing an open ended book, they feel like they can answer these questions.

And then on one last note, I asked please share a specific memory or a detail about your day that would be missed without me there. This is where I love for them to enter maybe their favorite photo that they have describe their favorite picture, describe a special moment, something that sets me apart from their day or help make their day extra special. It doesn’t have to be more than a couple sentences, no essay required. And I also try to warn them that I try to give them a little time request to say hey, this is gonna take 30 seconds, this may take a good five to 10 minutes to whip up a super genuine review. And I love giving them that update or kind of like that warning that if they need time to think about it, please noodle on it. But you don’t have to do this right away.

Also in the guide I include with what to do next. So after they’ve typed up that review, I actually just encourage them to copy and paste it to a handful of different platforms. So the three most important for me are my Google reviews, like my business, I just I have a link for them to go directly to the Google business page for my business than not. And also Yelp. There are literally a gazillion different ways that you can leave a review you can leave a review on the Wedding Wire and tons of different other wedding planning websites. And I’m sure there’s a bundle more things.

Of course, I can’t think of them off the top of my head but they’re not Google and Yelp, I would say are the three top heavy hitters that you would like those reviews and then at the bottom of their guide, I have a feeling stuck need a little help to get started. Here are a couple of real reviews for inspiration. And then what I did is I I actually shared three specifically different reviews, one that is only two sentences long. One that is a bit more of a lengthy paragraph. And then one that is almost like two or three paragraphs long Geryon, that anything that they come up with is going to be helpful. So if they only have a few wise words to crack, and they are feeling a writer’s block and aren’t sure, or maybe they want to really go down the rabbit hole and share every bit of your experience, whether that’s working with the engagement session, to the boudoir shoot, to the wedding and to the album, I love to create these little Kickstarters for them. So they feel like they’re almost like filling out a Mad Libs page, right? This is so important for you to get these truly, truly genuine reviews. So now that you have these sound bites, and you have those reviews, where do you share them? Where are you posting them,

I highly encourage you to think outside of the box and not just have them on one page on your website. Obviously, they need to have the on your website. But don’t forget to sprinkle them throughout multiple pages, add one to your contact page, add a handful of them to your client experience paid. So were you when you rattle off stuff about what’s coming up for your wedding experience. And you talk about the steps that it takes to work with you. Don’t forget to sprinkle in some reviews on that page. Oh, and your about me page is super important. I would absolutely love to see a handful of reviews, raving reviews for you on your contact page. Because statistically your about me page and your contact page are the ones that have the most hits. So that is where your potential clients will be going to look.

And to just sprinkle them in there. It would be amazing. You’ll be adding so much more credibility to your work and your business. If you have them kind of scattered all over. All right, are you ready for the best kept secret? This is something I’ve been kind of holding out with, I feel like this is a secret because it’s not really a secret. It’s just I feel like nobody does this. And I truly believe that you will have kind of an upper hand when it comes to building super easy brand awareness. And once again, this is free. It literally just takes a couple minutes a day to add this incredible impact to your local wedding vendors, your local wedding scene and even your community. And nope, if you’re thinking, if it’s a video testimonial, it’s not although I couldn’t move on without answering that question. Okay, so although those are golden, and they take just a couple of minutes to request a review, either through zoom or through your phone, I highly encourage you to be requesting those video testimonials. They’re so fun. But once again, I would totally offer little samples that your your past couples can see just to give them some ideas. But good guests, if you were thinking video, the best biggest kept secret is writing reviews yourself.

Yes. Okay. I know this is like a no brainer. And after I say this out loud, you’re going to think oh my gosh, it really does. So yes, I challenge you to write out a handful of reviews each week for every single venue you’ve ever worked at. Of course, if you love them, and you would like to work there, again, every wedding vendor, every local Bridal Boutique, or all your local brides finding their gowns, maybe you should read a review about them and even local restaurants that you frequent. Yes, the strategy is writing reviews where your dream couples may be searching already. That’s what we’re going for. We’re going for this cross promoting and brand awareness. So these potential dream couples will see your name and they may not even notice that it was you they may not even click it they may not be shopping for a wedding gown or looking for their their next florist that they want to check pricing for and then they see a review from you. And they may not even connect the dots, but they will eventually Okay, that’s the crazy part. Like I said, we’re planting seeds baby, we’re planting seeds. So yes, I highly encourage you to write reviews for your local like wedding scene. But it literally takes two minutes to write a review for your nail lady, for your gym, for your own hairdresser or your own hairstylist and even your dog walker, if you have one. I believe kindness is sparked like confetti, the more reviews and more love you put out into the universe, the more good will swing back into you and your life in your business. So I hope this is encouraging to you.

I hope you feel empowered and kind of have like a little I don’t know, just a little Kickstarter to start really pushing those reviews from your clients. And then I hope it inspires you to spread love. Because I feel like sometimes we are in that position where we feel like we’re giving right like we’re giving our heart and soul we’re giving our passion to businesses and to others. That’s what’s gonna get back to us. So I highly encourage you to love on your community. Leave those reviews, blast your name everywhere. Don’t forget to post on Facebook and share. Share your praise for them because once again, that’s where your name gets picked up. On All right, wishing you the best. I really hope you take a moment to pop over to the greenhouse. I have an entire garden filled with resources for photographers and small business owners filled with resources and downloads and courses and workshops, all the goods to help you truly step into your power plants have deep roots, and let’s go make some money, honey. Okay, all right, keep dancing. I am cheering for you and cannot wait to see you soon. Love you. That’s a wrap on another episode of Quianna Marie weekly. Thank you so much for your listenership and support. You can find the resources and show notes for this episode and more at quiannamarie.com/podcast. I’d be honored if you show your support by leaving a review and rating on your favorite podcast app. Until next time, keep on dancing.