As business owners, how do we even begin to navigate the limitless possibilities that a new year holds? We may feel overwhelmed by the rush of the new booking season and feel like we are at the mercy of our competition. In this episode, I’m breaking down five key ways I recommend marketing your business today in order to attract dream couples and fill your 2023 calendar.
On Quianna Marie Weekly, we’re chatting about business growing pains, finding genuine connections, and celebrating wins of all sizes through the lens of a photographer at heart. Sprinkled throughout stories and interviews with past clients, photographers and other business owners this podcast is designed to help you step into your purpose and to truly create a life you’re proud of, a life worth photographing and sharing.
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Today’s episode is brought to you by The Green House, my resource garden for photographers! Let me help you AMPLIFY your heart online and in real life to turn bridesmaids into future brides through templates, workshops, and freebies!
Review the Show Notes:
Break Out The Calendar (2:58)
Second Shoot For More Weddings (6:33)
Join Communities (7:56)
Crush Your Content (10:00)
Sell, Sell, Sell (10:42)
Mentioned In This Episode:
Shine Online Wedding Photography Mastermind
Episode 28: Hosting Events To Book More Weddings
Episode 32: Creating Reels + TikToks To Amplify Your Weddings
Review the Transcript:
It’s the new year and I think this week we’re finally feeling the energy of the new year. For me, the anticipation for the new year has a high vibe. And I love the new chapter and just the feeling of limitless possibilities. However, I know for many of us, we kind of tiptoed and kind of slowly embrace this new year. So it’s the second week of the new year and I want to help you reach the hole shot for your business. holeshot is a term in motocross when the racer reaches the first corner or turn in the race. If you’ve ever seen the start of a motocross race, over a dozen or more racers all start on that front line. And then bottleneck full throttle into that first bend on the track.
Not everyone makes it, some people bathe and crash and some are just kind of at a standstill, while others rush by and wiggle on through. And when I say will go I mean powerful motors, wiggling by your thighs and your ankles. And I just want to give you that visual because for some of us, we feel like those razors, we feel that rush of the new year, or new booking season for our business and feel like we’re at the mercy of our competition. When in reality, I want to help you create a vision and a marketing system that doesn’t make you the racer in this scenario. It makes you think of the big picture and the fact that you can carve out your own track.
You’re in control of your business, your energy determines your success. Let’s not blame social media algorithms, inflation or customers that aren’t aligned with our values. It’s on you, baby. It’s on us. Let’s set up this year for success on our own terms.
Today, I’m excited to break down five different ways I would market my business today to attract dream couples and fill my calendar with Dream weddings and photoshoots. As a photographer, y’all know I speak from the heart from like behind the lens. But please keep in mind and apply these strategies to any business. I am speaking and I’m like Eric coding over here from a wedding and photography language, but the art of selling and sharing your business can be translated to anything.
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 loves though.
All right, let’s break down what I would do this month to create magnetic content and boost a ton of brand awareness. These are all things I have done in the past and continue to do throughout the year. Number one, break out the calendar. Now was the time to make quarterly goals map out your year and plan your photoshoot events. I highly suggest you highlight the weekends you are available to book weddings, the ones that are completely off limits for family time, vacations, celebrations and adventures.
I always pick up a gigantic laminated yearly calendar that I pick up at Office Depot or OfficeMax or something. And then once I have the calendar, I put it up on the wall in my office so I see it daily. And then I have a collection of I think you see I think it’s called washi tape, which are just those super cute colorful, tiny rolls of tape. I color code them and place them on the calendar to identify what’s available and what’s off limits.
I have colors for literally everything for weddings, boudoir shoots mini session weekends, when I’m hosting events, content days that are available content days that already booked family vacations, holidays that are off limits to book etc.
There’s a color for everything and I make like a little key at the bottom. So I don’t forget, this not only helps me keep my peace throughout the year with padded time off. But it’s also a great snapshot of the year to make a marketing game plan I know it can be overwhelming to make so many decisions in the beginning of the year, or planning an entire year out like just thinking about planning your life that far in advance can be overwhelming, and I understand that. But as entrepreneurs and business owners, we have to put our sanity first and make a game plan.
This helps us look at the entire year and reminds us of booking season wedding season hustle season and that downtime that really just means our time of year when we may be shooting less low. We’re just as busy behind our computers right like I don’t know who came up with this offseason thing because it just doesn’t exist. Now the deeper lesson I want to share about this calendar tip is to remind you that it’s important to create your own magic. Take a look at your calendar to see where you have some empty boxes and I challenge you to create connection or plan an event for your business.
So for example, if Do you plan ahead now, I suggest hosting a Valentine’s event for your favorite local wedding vendors, reach out to your local venues and ask if they would be interested in hosting a lunch or happy hour. Now, if that’s not an option, either they’re not getting back to you or the venue has no interest. Let’s be honest, we may not have the funds either to host a party. But I want you to think about this many of my favorite venues or golf courses that have a diner or a fancy restaurant attached.
Instead of hosting the event, like actually paying for all the drinks and meals for everyone to attend, I suggest create an event to simply gather and ask everyone to join for lunch, you kind of already setting the precedent that, like they’re coming to pay for their own stuff, but you’re just wanting it like you just want to facilitate it and bring everyone together, you can invite your favorite wedding vendors. And this is where it gets a little like higher level here. Or you could even invite your past couples, or future couples planning their wedding, and episode number 28. I share all about hosting events to amplify your weddings.
Check that out for a ton more ideas. I also suggest looking at your calendar now and picking out dates for many sessions. I love to start as early as September. This way you know around spring or summer you can start marketing for them. The whole point of this calendar game plan is to look at your calendar, mark off your committed days and make new commitments for yourself to boost brand awareness and excitement in your real life. Bring people together spark or reason in real life to get people talking about you online.
Number two, second shoot for more weddings. Now you may have a thriving business already, and I’m sure you do. But if you’re looking to fill your calendar with more weddings and ultimately increase your revenue, I would reach out to local photographers and let them know you’re interested and available to be considered to be their second lead photographer. And just to be added to their list, I suggest checking out the honey book community and responding to second shooters searches, or even make your own posts to share your interest and availability.
Now I don’t want to sound sneaky or like a crazy opportunist. But the underlying fact here is that the more weddings you book, the more you attract, not only will you embody the energy of a fully booked wedding photographer, but you also get the opportunity to be introduced to new vendors, a ton of wedding guests, wedding parties and new people.
It’s completely unacceptable to market yourself as your own business while second shooting. In fact, and many of us wedding photographers have contracts that clearly state you must carry yourself as an employee, or an extension of that main shooters team. But it’s inevitable that you’re going to meet people, to make friendships and to get your face recognized. So if you have like a good attitude, and you do your job, well, you will get noticed. Once again, it’s up to us to make our own magic.
This is the perfect opportunity to gain exposure locally, gain a ton of experience. And just get out there and learn the ropes. Number three, join communities. Community has been the hottest keyword for 2021 and 2022. Business and brands are building their own communities. And it’s such a powerful source of connection, friendship, and a sense of belonging. Now, I would love to see you build your own community. And it’s totally possible to create mega fans for your business, to last for generations, filled with past clients, Dream clients, family and friends.
This marketing tip is actually about encouraging you to go out and join as many communities as possible. Let’s start there. There’s literally a community for everything. Yeah, I mean, it’s just insane how there’s there’s literally something for everyone. If you have an interest in baking sourdough bread from scratch, there’s a community for that, actually a bunch for that. If you’re recently divorced and raising children, for book clubs, photography groups, car guides, the golden doodle dogs, like literally there’s a group for any type of breed of dogs like they’re out there, ladies that have pink homes.
I’m not even kidding. That’s like a whole trend. Of course, yoga vibes are V families that are traveling across the country and oh, wow, there’s even a whole other like deep deep group for homeschool parents, right? Like they mean church communities, you name it, there’s a literally a community for anything.
I challenge you to get out and join as many that feel aligned with you. Now that’s that’s really, really important. Don’t just start joining Facebook groups and meeting with everyone. spend time thinking about your own interest and what makes you happy and then go out and find your people. I’d start with local wedding vendor groups, or at least a couple that are related to your business. But don’t stop there.
Check out a ton of groups outside of your bubble. I think many business owners get stuck being so close to their business that they forget everyone knows someone engaged or insert, you know the offer that you’re looking for. Get out of your own way and meet people go have fun, make new connections and you’ll be surprised how quickly you build that brand awareness and people start asking so what do you do? Number four, crush your content. Now this is the time to make a game plan and record as much of your life as possible your business life adventures, all the things. I know it sounds crazy because none of us have an MTV crew to follow us around.
But the message with this lesson is to remind you that you’re already doing the work, you just need to get it online and share more. If you scroll back to episode number 32. All about creating reels and tiktoks it will help you remember to shoot. Sometimes we get so caught up in coming up with new content, when in reality, we just have a ton of content that we’ve already shot. We just need to share the stories, introduce vendors, highlight venues and showcase our work.
Number five, sell, sell sell. Now let me ask you this. When is the last time you went on Instagram or Facebook and talked about your wedding collections? What do you offer? What do your packages include? Where are you located? Do you have a recent review from a raving client or a bride or groom, maybe even another wedding party guest? Share it? What makes you and your business different from everyone else? This is your year to shine and book an entire calendar of dream weddings. How are your couples supposed to find you online if you’re not showing up or giving them anything to scroll to see, I have an entire series on the podcast called amplify your weddings, you can check that out.
There were literally tons of interviews with wedding vendors, professionals and just really fun of my like, like business besties that we go into all of so you can help amplify your weddings. Also, I am hosting a mastermind this month starting this month to help you crush your content. Connect with Dream couples and book more weddings. We will be covering all the different types of content to boost your weddings. We will be covering what to create for before the wedding during the wedding and after the wedding. So you are aligned as the professional. You will not only book more weddings, but you will book more high value weddings. That’s what it’s all about.
So check it out. I cannot wait to see you succeed. And honestly just blow your own mind this year. I wish you the best and I hope to see you in the mastermind. If not check out the resource garden at quiannamarie.com/shop To learn more grabbed tons of resources, guides templates and education. It’s just I have so much to share and I just I just can’t say it all here on the podcast. So I hope you can tap in for more and always keep growing. Hope you have a beautiful day. Love you. Bye.
That’s a wrap on another episode of Quiana 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 Kiana murray.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.
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