Original subtitles

Cool.

Now, I just have to say, you guys,

every time there's a clap, I feel like

it's a Catch-22, right?

Do I clap and give the impression that

I'm clapping for myself?

Or do I just stand here and be

like, you know, it's that awkward thing.

So I'm going to do the half clap,

the air guns.

Okay, we're going to be starting this section

on the best wedding photography marketing.

And I'm going to state the obvious.

The obvious is there is no one way

to market your business.

If you are doing something and it's working

and it's getting you the type of clients

and weddings that you like and enjoy and

are pushing your brand forward, continue doing what

you're doing.

Now, we all have our own approach, and

I'm not saying that my approach is better

than anybody else's approach, but I do think

that we can learn from each other.

I learn from other photographers on a constant

basis about what has been effective in regards

to marketing and maybe perhaps in traditional forms

of marketing, social media marketing, or even client

to client marketing.

So having said that, what you're going to

see is an aggregate to my approach.

And in future lessons, we're going to get

into maybe smaller minutia in regards to how

I market after shoots specifically, but today we're

going to get into a big global block

of how I do that now in order

to keep this as streamlined as possible, because

marketing can go in 500 different directions.

And I would rather you guys walk away

with three concrete things that will act as

a foundation so you guys can fly off

from there than me trying to do a

thousand different things.

Although when we get to the Q&A

at the end, if I didn't address something

that you guys really want to know, please,

please, please ask me.

So in light of what those three sections

would be, I'm going to give you an

overview of each.

We're going to get into the logistics of

each, and then we're going to conclude with

the application of each.

You guys are going to see what I

do and specifically how I do it with

examples.

In future lessons, you're going to see how

I do this after we participate in the

Knot Wedding.

And on that note, for people who are

kind of joining in at different points in

time, so just as a refresher, I am

honored to be the Knot Wedding photographer.

I think this is an opportunity of great

and grand proportions.

I'm going to get into a little bit

why some people might perceive it to be

different in a future slide.

We're going to get to that a little

bit later.

But what I want to do is to

give you a front row seat to every

step of my approach.

Every step will be how I shoot, why

I shoot, how I present it, and then

how I empower my clients and creative teams

to do so.

Because over the course of the next 30

days, you're going to see how the marketing

machine really pushes things into momentum.

This is really a first time that I've

ever been able to do this, because it's

one thing for me to stand up here

and say, hey guys, I really think you

should do this.

Then it's another thing for me to say,

guys, hey, I think you should do this,

and here's how I'm doing it in real

time.

Then it's an entirely different thing to say,

here's how I do it, here's how we're

doing it in real time, and here are

the results.

This is going to be the beauty of

this particular boot camp.

We're going to see beginning, middle, and end.

One thing I want to note before diving

into the details is you will hear me

use the word evangelist.

When I refer to my efforts, when I

refer to things that I do, I use

the term marketing or marketer.

But when I refer to outside marketing efforts

that reside squarely with evangelists, I refer to

them as such.

Now, an evangelist can be described as zealous

advocates of something.

I don't want you to have marketers, I

want you to have evangelists.

I was going to say, I want you

to have zealots.

No, no, no, I want you to have

evangelists who are very zealous and pushing forward

what you do.

Basically, I want you to create evangelists because

their endorsements are far more powerful than traditional

modes of marketing, and furthermore, they're so much

more cost effective, and this is how we're

going to do it.

On a side note, and I don't have

this written in my notes, but I think

it's going to be important to lay out.

If somebody is encountering this course and they're

thinking, oh, well, that works for her, or,

oh, that's what she does, or she could

do that because.

I believe that there are two types of

people.

There are people who have reasons, and there

are people who have results.

People can find reasons as to why this

marketing approach works for me and would never

work for them, and then there's other people

who can say, I think I can do

what she does and make it better because

it's going to be my own, and then

you get results.

I started my business, I shot my very

first wedding in October of 2006.

I shot that first wedding for $1,000,

and I thought this was just the biggest

thing to ever happen in my life, and

it was, but in the course of a,

and then I shot two more weddings in

the course of a month for a total

of three weddings in October of 2006.

In 2007, we booked 38 weddings, all at

much higher price points.

Now I say that because we didn't spend

a dime on marketing.

We completely shifted from three separate markets of

people who could potentially book us, and we

didn't spend any money, and our profitability was

off the charts, at least for me as

a young single entrepreneur in Orange County trying

to start my business.

So now that you know that I didn't

have credence in the marketing sector, I just

left law school, I also didn't have money

because I just left law school, I had

just gotten married and my husband was with

a startup company, so we didn't have any

money, and I was working part time.

That's the back story in a nutshell version

of how we started the business.

The marketing approach that I took then, ten

years later, even though things have changed in

my business dramatically, are still the same things

that I do because it works.

I am not saying that if I had

the opportunity, perhaps if I had money, perhaps

if JD had the wonderful great job that

I can invest buying a traditional print ad

in a magazine, maybe that would have changed

my opportunities and the outcome, but that was

not an option for me.

So if having thousands of money, thousands of

dollars, I was like that does not make

sense, thousands of dollars to invest in marketing,

if that is not for you, then maybe

you can apply some of the things that

I'm going to teach about.

And on a side side note, I think

it is just as valuable for you to

know what you don't want to do as

it is for what you actually want to

do.

Because if I'm sitting here and everything I'm

saying is pushing you, you're being repelled by

the thing that I'm saying, that is just

fine because it's going to eventually push you

closer to the thing that you actually want

to do and how to apply it to

your business.

Now having said that, we're going to take

a three part marketing approach.

This is mine, and this is how it's

going to unfold.

Or this is actually, here's the thing I'm

going to say, this marketing approach is no

longer mine.

It was never mine to begin with, but

the more that I shared it with other

photographers, it became ours.

And I hope that after walking through this,

you partake in a tiny bit so that

it's no longer one way of doing it,

but a collective way that we can all

make each other better as a result.

So part one, client evangelists.

Part two, creative team evangelists.

And part three of my approach would be

personal marketing.

So now what we're going to do is

we're going to get into section one of

three, and underneath each section are going to

be sub-components and explanations.

So just in case you're taking notes, because

you guys all know, I've mentioned it before,

I was like one pen shy of a

pocket protector.

I graduated 4.0 from college because I

was like, I'm going to be the best,

I'm going to be the Valley Victorian of

note takers.

So now that I'm, some people just write

notes, but I like organization, I like to

follow.

So if I get off my notes, just

let me know, be like, where are we

at what point?

Because I want you to go home as

you're watching this online to look at it

and say, oh, I see how she connected

the dots, and if I'm missing it, please

help me.

So part one, we're going to start with

client evangelists.

Now we all want word of mouth referrals.

We love it, it validates us, we think

it's powerful for our business.

Now the question becomes, how do we get

word of mouth referrals?

How do we go through and get people

talking about us in a way that we

want?

The first thing I suggest is manage client

expectation.

How do you manage client expectation?

You exceed client expectation.

If you want people talking about how great

you are, you must over deliver on every

count, because if you just deliver, people will

think they got exactly what they paid for.

But if you over deliver, it empowers them

to say really nice things about you.

So how do we manage expectations?

I have seen on wedding forums, brides are

just like, I can't believe that it's been

a week and I haven't seen my wedding

photos.

I'm just like, what?

And I don't think that's the fault of

the bride.

I think it's the fault of the photographer

for not educating the bride how long he

or she might need to process the images.

So when I talk about managing expectation, what

I mean to do is I know, and

we're going to get into what my post

-processing workflow looks like in a future lesson,

but I know that my clients will see

their images about two to two and a

half weeks after the wedding day.

But I tell my clients that they're going

to see their photos three to four weeks

after the wedding day.

So I know that I'm going to over

deliver on a promise that I've already cushioned

for myself.

After an engagement session, I tell my clients,

you will see your photos in about two

to two and a half weeks when I

know the photos will be online a week

to a week and a half later.

So these small things, it could be even

as small as when I end an engagement

session, I tell my clients, I'll post a

sneak peek in about a week.

And they think, oh, that's amazing.

Great.

Awesome.

And the next day I've posted a sneak

peek.

We're really just shifting small things.

We're really padding how we interact with them,

but we're finding ways to create connections with

them.

And I'm going to get more about this

in the future.

But after an engagement session, I'll probably get

ahead of my notes, but it's okay.

After an engagement session, because it fits right

in, is after I said this for the

third time over, after an engagement session, I

send them the gallery and I give them

the information and they usually email back, like,

thank you so much at minimum.

They'll say, thank you so much.

A couple of days later, I email and

I say, hey, would you mind telling me

which photo was your favorite?

This really gives insight into how we should

approach your wedding day photography.

This will give me and JD a way

to figure out what you prefer.

When in actuality, what I'm doing is I

want to get their favorite because I'm going

to order a print, either a canvas print

or a pop-out print from White House

Custom Color.

And I drop ship it to my clients.

So I have managed their expectation by not

saying that they were going to get a

surprise canvas from me.

But I've exceeded their expectation by sending it

to them, even though I have already calculated

those costs into my profitability and I know

this is part of the course.

This is what I do.

But far be it from us to include

a canvas print in the collection and then

we're like so bummed that they didn't say

thank you about the canvas print.

They paid for it.

Like, you know, it's like when's the last

time you wrote a thank you note to

the guy who sold you a car?

You just got this transactional service.

But if you go out of your way,

if he throws in car mats or extended

warranty, you're like, wow, this is amazing.

Manage expectations so you can exceed expectations.

Now, image turnaround.

We talked about how I can control managing

expectations by image turnaround times.

Also, how many images are delivered?

So one thing that I want to say

is I will tell a client when somebody

signs a contract with me, I itemize the

things that are included in each collection.

And I itemize that a client will get

between 50 and 55 photos after an engagement

session.

But I know that I usually deliver 60

to 65, right?

So I'm going to pad the session.

And this works for me two ways.

That if I encountered a particularly hard engagement

session where I just couldn't get what I

needed and I deliver on the 50 to

55, I fulfilled my contractual duty.

But if I can get to that number

that I really like, which is my consistent

number.

Now, your numbers will be different.

I get it.

But for me, my sweet spot is that,

like, I can get 60 to 65 that

I'm really proud of, that I feel like

are solid pieces to start marketing my services.

What they get when they see this, and

I make note of it when I email

them.

Hey, engagement sessions usually have between 50 and

55 images.

But we had so much fun.

I got such great images.

I couldn't get down any less than 66.

I have managed their expectations to exceed their

expectations.

That makes them feel what?

Awesome, great, good looking, happy, portfolio.

And all I did was cushion myself to

ensure that they felt better about it.

And I also just talked about client gifts.

Now, I did talk to you about asking

clients about what their favorite image was, but

also included in the cost of each collection

that a client gets is at the end

of the year, it's a surprise.

But at the end of the year, I

send them a wooden box filled with five

by seven prints mounted on styrofoam so that

it's a kind of like a curated version

of my favorite photos.

And they're between eight and 10 photos.

So they get a wooden box, they slide

open the top, and they just bring out

pieces of their favorite photos from the wedding

day.

By the time the year ends, I usually

know what their favorites are because they've created

an album.

So they kind of give me a cheat

sheet to what they absolutely loved.

And then of those great things, and this

is the beautiful piece of this marketing component,

is I order them in November.

They are delivered to my clients in early

December.

And guess who's over at the newlyweds house

over the holidays?

Guests, friends, family.

And what are my clients having out as

their new surprise thing from their wedding?

A wooden box full of five by seven

mounted prints that can stand on their own

or against the box or just simply act

as something on their coffee table.

It is marketing that goes such a long

way.

When somebody walks into a house and they

see a 24 by 36 canvas print or

a pop-out print on the wall, it's

like, hello, can I have a billboard in

your apartment?

Thank you.

So these are small things that we can

do to manage expectations and then exceed expectations.

Now, when I refer to things like a

quick turnaround, this has completely shifted in light

of social media.

10 years ago, Facebook was still there.

I'm totally aging myself right now.

10 years ago, Facebook was prevalent, but it

was heavily prevalent in the collegiate arena, not

so much in the social arena.

And Twitter wasn't even, gosh, I feel like

I should stop saying this stuff.

Twitter, Instagram, Vine, I mean, all of it

was not available.

So people were seeing their photos probably the

next day when people were uploading their digital

prints and their digital images, things of that

nature.

But what I was doing then, which is

what I still do now, which I feel

like is very, very powerful, is as the

guests are eating dinner, usually that's the time

where a photographer has 35 to 45 minutes

to themselves to eat.

I will eat and make a slideshow, a

same day slideshow, because I want my clients

to see their images for the first time

from me.

I don't want them to end the wedding,

go back into their hotel suite, and as

the bride is surfing Facebook, the only photos

that she's tagged in are her on the

dance floor after she's drank too much, ate

too much, and is sweaty.

Because her first experience seeing herself on her

wedding date will be not the most complimentary.

I want her to see photos from me

first, heavily curated.

Now, here's the thing.

Not every bride will go and see a

slideshow.

I understand that.

However, I will have a slideshow set up

on a laptop similar to like this, on

a bar table similar to like this.

JD will take the bar table from the

cocktail hour that's no longer being used.

He will bring it into the reception area.

We put little candles.

We might get a little flower piece that's

no longer being used.

We set up this, and people will look

at it, and even if the bride doesn't

see it, they'll go up to the bride.

Oh, Mikayla, you look so pretty.

We saw your wedding photos.

And she's like, really?

So people are validating your work.

They're letting her know that she made a

good decision hiring you because she looks so

great.

And that's the first interaction they have with

your photos.

Now, I also have a sneak peek the

following day.

Now, I wait.

I know that some photographers will tag their

clients the night of the wedding, which is

fine.

That's great, as long as you're starting a

conversation.

But most of the guests are tagging the

clients on the night of the wedding, early

the next day.

I wait till the afternoon because I want

my photos to be at the top, right?

I don't want mine to get buried under

hundreds of iPhone photos.

So it is a strategic decision, but I

still, because she's already seen the slideshow or

at least has been validated.

Am I speaking too fast?

I feel like I'm just, I'm like sold.

Okay, I want her experience to be night

of with me.

I want her experience the next day to

be the next afternoon with me.

And hopefully what I'm doing is I'm going

to be sharing two to three sneak peek

photos.

And I will always include a horizontal with

room because ideally if I can lobby for

the masthead and the profile picture, it's a

win.

That's marketing to her entire audience.

So we do the sneak peek the next

day.

Now about a week and a week and

a half later, I will do a blog

post.

And this is after the images have been

processed.

Like I mentioned in a future lesson, we're

going to go through that workflow and how

we actually make that possible.

Now, when I write the blog post, I

leverage that on my chosen forms of social

media.

Because I am so active in social media,

I seem to attract clients who value the

same thing.

But one of the things I want to

point out is that the engagement session in

Los Angeles for the Not Dream Couple.

Samantha and Taylor shared sneak peek photos from

their shoot, both on Instagram and on Facebook.

Between the two of them, just on Facebook,

they have a collective audience of 2,400

people.

She got her photo.

And even if just one third of each

audience, even if one fourth of each audience

saw that and they tagged me in it,

and they validated it, it wasn't like sneak

peek.

It was like, we had such a great

time at our engagement session with, linked, Jasmine

Starr.

And I'm like, amazing.

That's exactly the marketing that I want.

She had passed me the camera.

She's like, I'm so sorry, her phone.

She's like, can you take a photo of

us?

Because I want to share it.

There are some photographers who prefer to kind

of keep their experience sacrosanct, no, no, no,

this is our moment.

I don't want to get distracted.

Are you kidding me?

I was like, 18, 20, take a lot

of photos.

She has options.

I wanted her to be able to choose

a photo that she felt best represented her

entire experience.

And that's pretty darn amazing.

Now, on that same note, in the same

vein as blogging and social media, I want

to talk about personalizing their images.

Because so often I see it not as

a disadvantage, but as a lost opportunity.

When you have the ability to personalize the

client's shoot, images, experience, I want you to

leverage it for all it's worth.

Now, the way that I personalize their images

is first and foremost by way of my

blog.

On my blog, I write a blog post

about the couple.

Now, when I am blogging an engagement session,

the story is how they met and or

how he proposed.

Now, people often ask me, how do you

get that information?

When I meet with my clients during the

initial client consult, I ask, how did you

meet?

If they end up booking me, we will

shoot their engagement session a couple months later.

And then I say, hey guys, remind me

how you guys met.

And then it's a little trigger in my

mind.

Oh yes, they met in college.

And it's not enough for me to say,

oh, you met in college, okay.

Well, I want to know what college you

went to.

What did you major in?

Did you guys meet in class?

Did you guys meet like by way of

a Greek party?

Was he drunk?

And so I'm trying to ask all these

things because people will give you the yes

and no answers.

Yes, we met at college.

Yes, we met at a party.

No, we weren't part of the Greek system,

right?

But I need to get all the details

so that in my mind, I can start

creating and crafting what the post will be.

Now, for people who find writing rather difficult,

I have been in situations where I've worked

with clients who I'm just like, we don't

really resonate.

I didn't ask the right questions.

I'm struggling to find things to write and

or say.

So how to tell their story if in

the case, you cannot get the right information

during the meeting or at the shoot.

What I propose is the three and three

rule.

The three and three rule is very simple.

Three unique things about the couple.

Three unique things about the engagement session.

This stuff can be written off the top

of your head.

So three unique things about the couple.

Well, when Danny kisses Sophia, her nose scrunches

in such a way that light shines on

her face.

That Danny always opens and closes the doors

when she gets into the car.

This could be stuff that's just random conversation

or it can see stuff, visual cues that

you're seeing.

Another thing could be that they had met

in college and they met at a frat

party and he, out of all the people

in the room, saw her and she stuck

out.

If you write one sentence for each of

those things, we have three sentences.

Now I want you to write three unique

things about the engagement session.

Well, we shot their session in Santa Monica.

It's a special place because they had their

first date.

It was a bright and sunny day, but

the sunset was beautiful.

And three, she's really excited to wear her

new favorite pair of shoes.

I mean, I'm just pulling stuff from thin

air, but you can find three things about

the couple and three things about the date.

If you were to write a sentence about

each of those things, you have six sentences

and six sentences is a paragraph.

And a paragraph is amazing for two reasons.

One, you're telling your clients, I was there,

I listened to you, I heard what you

were saying.

People like to read about themselves in third

person narrative.

It changes the dynamic tremendously.

Another reason why it's really valuable to personalize

the images is this little thing called Google

juice.

Google reads text.

Now I can't tell you how many times

I have booked a wedding by like three

things removed.

One of the top things that just come

to mind is somebody had typed in Korean

Hollywood hairstyles and they'd come across my blog.

And my blog was because I said the

bride had family coming in from Korea.

They got married in Hollywood at Yamashiro and

her hairstylist was this person and I linked

to her.

Now the girl who came across that was

not looking for a wedding photographer, but her

cousin was.

And she sent her cousin the link to

my blog because she was looking for something.

So I have seen a lot of photographers

to be like, I'll let the photos do

the talking.

Or just say like venue, client, and then

photos.

And that's great.

I'm actually glad to see that people are

pursuing that, but I think that there's another

missed opportunity to get randomly found.

Now that's just about the blog post.

Let's talk about how we use the blog

post as the foundation to move into different

forms of social media.

Now what I'm going to show you, I'm

gonna get into more into depth about what

their album, I'm gonna talk about their album

from the client evangelist, from the creative team

evangelist, and then I'm gonna talk about social

media in regards to my approach on the

back end.

I'm gonna show you Samantha and Taylor's Facebook

album.

Now I shot their engagement session in Los

Angeles, and then I posted their photos on

Facebook.

Now one thing that I want to do

is talk about how they shared this album

to their network.

And again, we now know that their network

is somewhere between 22 and 2400 people.

So not only did they link to me

during the engagement session for the sneak peek,

they also shared this particular post.

Two amazing marketing opportunities to leverage their audience

right now, which became great, because not only

did they, they just didn't share the album,

right?

Just the way that they didn't share their

sneak peek.

They said, we're so excited to see a

sneak peek and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

right?

They're validating their decision to work with me.

Now that is section one.

This is kind of just seeding where we're

ultimately gonna go.

We're gonna go into section two.

And section two is what we call the

creative team evangelist.

Now in the past, I've learned that building

trust with wedding professionals is powerful.

To me, building relationships based on trust and

credibility have been fundamental game changers in my

business when it comes to marketing.

Now I didn't get referrals from wedding peers

and other industry folk for at least two

years.

So the first two years of my business,

I flew solo.

I wasn't depending or looking for other people

because even if I had tried to get

it, I wouldn't.

I wouldn't get it because I was a

stranger to all the people I wanted to

work with.

Furthermore, even if they felt gracious or benevolent

to give me an endorsement, they are really

putting their brand on the line.

If they endorse me and I show up

late, I don't show up.

I don't give them their images.

It has not only ruined my name, it

has smeared theirs.

It is very rare for a new photographer

to get endorsements from a professional without getting

to know them on a personal level because

if we go back to this idea that

I've addressed in previous lessons about being a

shy, introverted photographer, I was never going up

to wedding coordinators and emailing them and being

like, hey, can we have a time to

meet?

Do you have time for lunch?

Can I buy you a drink?

Like, oh my God, I mean, I think

it's amazing, but that's just not who I

am.

So in light of that, I said that

when our paths finally do cross, I'm gonna

prove it to you.

I'm gonna prove that when you endorse me,

I will not let you down.

That when you send a client to me,

your business will be taken just as care

of as mine.

Now, coordinators started referring me after our paths

had worked and after I had proven myself.

Now, one thing is that I needed to

prove that I wasn't gonna let anybody down,

but furthermore, I needed to prove my work

ethic and my capability for success at every

time.

It didn't matter if we had worked three

weddings and they were all fantastic and amazing.

If I let her down the fourth, that's

it.

And I think that this is the way

that marketing principles work.

Take care of people and they will take

care of you.

Now, the way that I take care of

them, maybe the creative team starts at the

engagement session.

And here is how it works at the

engagement session.

So the day before the engagement session, I

will email the creative team who is applicable

to the shoot.

I will not be emailing the officiant or

the venue because they're not there.

People who are usually applicable to the engagement

shoot are the coordinator, if there is one,

and the makeup artist, if there is one.

If I can connect, I usually get this

information from the bride and then I will

email them the day before and I will

say, hey, I'm gonna be shooting Samantha and

Taylor and this is what I did for

Samantha and Taylor.

I emailed Jeannie, their wedding coordinator.

I emailed the team at The Knot and

I emailed my producer here at CreativeLive.

And I said, hey guys, we're gonna be

shooting the engagement session tomorrow.

Please let me know if there's anything I

should be aware of, but I just want

to let you know how excited I am.

This email is basically just to put me

on their radar.

I want them to know what's coming.

I want them to actually start being cognizant

of the idea that I will take care

of them.

The day of the engagement session, I will

take behind the scenes photos and then I

will tag the creative team.

So when I shot the engagement session for

The Knot couple, I tagged Jeannie, I tagged

The Knot and I think I tagged JD.

I'm not so sure.

But what we want to do is we

want to highlight people that are directly involved

with the shoot because it's an act of

goodwill.

Like, hey, we're all in this together to

make Samantha and Taylor's day great.

Now, the following day after the shoot, what

I do is I send a sneak peek

photo.

Now, I've told the clients they're going to

see a sneak peek in a week.

So I'm about to share that sneak peek

the following day.

But before I get all of that traction,

the social traction that all of us find

very valuable, out of respect, I email the

coordinator and if applicable, the makeup artist.

So in this particular situation with Samantha and

Taylor, after I'd emailed them the day before,

the next day I said, hey guys, I'm

going to share a sneak peek.

It's attached here in this email if you

guys would like to use it too.

If not, no worries.

Just want to give you a heads up.

They might not use it.

Did not use it as part of their

stream.

And I'm okay with that.

But the act of respect says a lot

about me taking into consideration how they might

feel about that situation.

What I want to do every time with

the creative team is I want to empower

them with decision.

I do not want to make the decision

for them.

Whether or not they choose to share my

photo is not of importance to me.

It's just saying, here you are.

You can choose what you want to do

with it.

Now, the night before I blog the engagement

session, an average engagement session blog post includes

eight to 10 photographs.

So what I want to do is the

day before the engagement session, I blog the

engagement session, I will email the creative team.

And I'll say, hey guys, here's a sneak

peek of what I am blogging.

And I include all eight of them.

I say, I will be sharing them tomorrow.

And if you guys would like to, here's

the link to the blog post.

Here's the link.

And here are photos from the shoot.

If not, no worries.

I'm so excited for what is in store.

They were such a great couple.

That was the email.

Whether or not they decide to share them

is not important to me.

So I told them that I was going

to list it in a blog post.

I told them that I was going to

list it on my Facebook fan page.

And I told them that I was going

to tag them on Instagram and or Twitter

if possible.

I was letting them know what I'm doing

for them.

And I hope, graciously, they would return the

favor.

And most people, I'm talking about 98%

of the people do.

They return the favor because we know how

it works within the industry.

And that's pretty darn great.

Now, if done right, the engagement session could

be seen by a network far larger than

yours.

And that is what marketing is.

Marketing is getting your stuff seen in networks

that are not yours in order to build

your network and also start creating alliances and

feeds and inquiries in regards to that.

So my network on Instagram is X.

But if I get X plus Y from

the coordinator and X plus Z because of

the makeup artist, and if we're really lucky,

you know, X plus 2X from the not,

then we'd be a total winning spectrum.

Worst canary, worst case scenario.

Worst canario?

Wow, we're just slicing these words.

Worst case scenario is if I only hit

my network, that's fine.

I'm busy doing what I do, empower others

with the decision.

Now, I follow the same pattern.

I follow the same pattern on the wedding

day.

So what you guys just saw, empowering them

from the engagement session, I'm going to empower

them on the wedding day with the same

pattern.

We're going to add a few differences.

Now, here's how I follow the same pattern

on the wedding day.

I ask the coordinator for the creative team

Instagram handles and I have it prepped on

my phone for the day of the wedding.

I don't want to be running around asking

people like, oh, what is it?

What is it?

And there are networks that I wouldn't naturally

know.

So if there's a lighting company that comes

in and does lighting for the venue, I

might not have access to who that is.

If there is a furniture rental company, I

might not have access to who those people

are by the time I actually go in

and shoot those things.

So if I can get all of those

things in advance, I now know how big

my network could potentially be.

This is all that it boils down to.

Now, for people who, for weddings that do

not have wedding coordinators, I will work on

my own and I'm going to talk about

how I prepare my clients for that, how

I get the information in advance.

And then I will go out and I

will contact the florist.

I will contact the venue.

I will just do my own research.

I don't need to email people and be

like, what's your Instagram handle?

People usually have it on their website.

So doing that type of work in advance

really helps.

Then on the wedding day, I take a

sneak peek iPhone photo.

Now, if you guys follow me on social

media, you guys are going to, you guys

know like this is the pattern.

We get it.

Okay.

But I'm telling you the pattern because it

freaking, it works.

I should say something freaking.

Okay.

Because it really works.

So I take a sneak peek photo on

my iPhone.

I tag the creative team.

And if the wedding has a hashtag, rock

the hashtag.

Because now all their friends get to see

the legit photos, right?

These are not all like the silhouetted photos

when they're at their first kiss.

You're posting real awesome, cool photos that are

reflective of your brand.

You want to pick up followers and then

you want to put as a seed.

I can't tell you how many bridesmaids that

I have booked or how many friends at

weddings simply by being seen in that hashtag.

It's a powerful thing.

Now, after I tag the team on the

wedding day in the iPhone photo, I do

something that a lot of people may not

want to do.

And I only recently started doing in the

past year because it's more competitive.

And the more competitive the industry gets, the

harder you have to work to actually stay

relevant.

So when I go home, when I'm driving

home, depending where we're coming from, I go

home and I go through and I just

quickly look at a few detailed photos.

I'm not so concerned with the bride and

groom favorite photo yet because right now I'm

just dealing with the creative team.

So I go home and I pick like

three photos from the reception, three photos from

the ceremony and maybe a couple other cool

like a boutonniere shot, a bouquet shot.

I'm getting stuff that sets the scene.

Five to eight photos.

And I will know the CF card that

I shot it at, shot it and because

I keep chronological order of my cards in

my card case.

So I can say, oh, two cards back.

This is where I was shooting the detailed

photos that I need to pull.

I pulled that card.

I quickly go through it.

I pick five to eight.

And then, yes, and I do know this

is a little bit crazy, but like one

o'clock in the morning, I'm sending the

creative team sneak peek photos because I want

them sharing my photos of the wedding day,

not what their creative team took of the

wedding day.

We must know that our photos will be

better than anything they could capture on a

simple basic DSLR or worse, even on their

iPhones.

So don't miss that opportunity to get to

have sharing capabilities.

Now, one thing is I see a lot

of photographers is we share our detailed photos

in advance of the coordinator of the venue.

And what we're seeing is that we're the

gatekeepers.

We get to share them because we have

them.

But why not empower other people to share

them?

Because just as much as we wanna show

a sneak peek of the bride and groom,

they want to show their network a sneak

peek of the hours, the year that they

spent planning it and the hours they spent

building it.

It really goes a long way in building

those types of relationships.

You wanna take care of them the way

that they take care of yourself.

Now, let's start doing the application because I've

just been talking and I feel, I feel

us fading.

Let's bring it back.

I'm gonna show you an example of a

wedding that I shot a few weeks ago

in Newport Beach, California at a venue called

Pelican Hill where there was a collaboration with

a wonderful, great team.

Now, the event designer and florist has a

pretty solid following on Instagram.

And it was really great because when I

went home, I knew that it was gonna

be a really great opportunity to rally the

entire team about making this a win for

everybody.

So this is what she posted on Instagram.

I cannot stop loving you to her partner,

Helm of Design and Production, my partner in

crime and bestie left arm for White Lilac

and Jasmine Star, my diva of photography, Pelican

Hill Resort, Fernanda Jameg, Alison Howard, Amber Events

Production, Classic Orange County, Blue Kite Cinema.

So she got 4,200 likes on the

photo.

She got hundreds of comments.

And I did the math.

Everybody from this wedding Instagrammed a photo and

linked to each other.

The cumulative reach for this one photo was

240,000 Instagram followers on Instagram alone.

That is powerful.

And the thing is, is that I sent

Sunny, the leader, lead designer of White Lilac,

eight options and she posted three.

I got hit three times from a huge

source.

And what do I do?

Well, of course, I have to link back

to her as a way of saying thank

you and to the entire team.

That's huge.

How much did it cost me?

30 minutes of sleep.

That's what it cost me.

It didn't cost me nothing, boo.

I mean, I had to stay up.

And JD's like in the bed, like, come

on.

I'm like, I'm coming.

But we're playing the long game.

Do I think I'm gonna book a wedding

that instant because of the photo?

No.

But do I think I'm seeding it, the

groundwork?

Do I think that I'm building relationships with

my partners?

Yes.

Can you imagine this is just an Instagram?

Wait till we hit it on Facebook.

And then ancillary, like Twitter.

I think it's gonna be powerful.

I think it's gonna be a really, really,

really great wedding.

So I want to talk a little bit

more about what happens the night before I

blog the session.

This is a pattern.

Then we're gonna get to the application.

The night before I blog the wedding, I

send the images to the vendors and I

let them know that I'm going to be

sharing it.

Now I'm going to say that it's been

great because I've been able to develop a

following on social media.

This following on social media, and I am

not just one person.

There's a lot of people doing this in

a lot of different genres and a lot

of photographers are doing it.

So often photographers, because we provide digital content,

have larger followings than say a wedding coordinator.

The wedding coordinator is dependent upon the images

from the photographers.

So if I have a larger social media

following and then I email the team and

I say, look at all the things I'm

doing to help build your business, I'm hoping

that they will reciprocate.

And mostly they do.

Here's how.

So I tell them, I'm going to link

you on my blog.

I'm going to list you on a folder

in Facebook and I'm going to tag you

on Instagram and Twitter.

So they know what's coming and I'm going

to be hopefully preparing them for success.

So that's what happens and that's what we

do.

Now there's that initial push, that initial social

media push after the blog post, the sneak

peek, everyone's like, great.

Now once the gallery is complete from the

wedding, I will send my creative team a

gallery to the full wedding and I tell

them, feel free, I need to smile more.

I feel it right now.

I said, I send the gallery to the,

like, I even like bring it on down

a little.

I'm going to smile and be pleasant.

I send the gallery to the creative team

and I tell them that they can download

the high res images on watermarked.

And I tell them that if they use

the images to please cite photo credit listed

as, and I put Jasmine Star, I'm giving

them the option to empower their portfolios without

me having to go through, pick your favorites,

I'll watermark them.

What's the resolution?

No, you take it and take care of

me.

And so far I will say that it

has worked very, very well in that regard.

Now an average wedding gallery for me, I

tell my clients that I average around eight.

I tell my clients I average around 100

images an hour.

Our average collection is eight hours.

So our clients will average 800 images.

When I send the client, when I send

the creative team their gallery, in my mind,

I think I have 800 opportunities to be

tapping into their networks.

And what does this cost me?

Nothing.

Take care of other people and other people

will take care of you.

So let's talk about the process of sharing.

Now the process of sharing has been streamlined

and my communication with the creative team.

So if I shoot a wedding and I

shoot weddings quite often, I'm shooting a wedding

and I'm following up with the creative team.

I was noticing that I was writing an

email after every single wedding.

And so I just started, I started thinking

I need to stop recreating the wheel.

I have a template email that I send

to my creative team.

So I simply copy and paste and I

put it in the email and I just

change things.

Oh, we were at Pelican Hill.

Oh, the date.

Oh, the gallery link.

I make three modifications to the template.

I send it to them hands off.

That process for me is so fantastical because

they can download images, download the images directly

from the gallery when they want to and

share when they want to.

I send these email templates and for a

while I had a hard time kind of

putting to words what I wanted.

I had to explain the download process.

I had to ask for photographer's credit, which

could be a little bit awkward.

So I created these templates.

If there are photographers who are kind of

struggling with what it looks like to write

the templates, I sell my templates on jasminestarstore

.com.

Now, now we're going to focus.

Now we're going to the third part.

I know you guys, we're going to rally.

Here we go.

Here we go.

This is actually my favorite part.

I mean, the other stuff is my favorite

part, but it's also a little bit hands

off for me.

This is direct 100% my marketing efforts.

What you've seen is we have empowered evangelists

and when I market from my studio perspective,

from the Jasmine Star brand perspective, I focus

on personalization.

Anyone can take great photos.

In fact, I'm going to look around this

room and the fact that you're here investing

in your education, I can confidently say you

take great photos.

You probably use a great camera.

You probably invested in great presets.

You probably have a pretty solid computer.

Good for you.

But the thing that's not so good about

that is that other people have the same

camera as you.

They have the same computer as you.

They use the same presets as you and

they might live in the same town as

you.

So what is going to be another way

to diversify your competitive abilities?

I think it's sharing the vision behind the

couple and your imagery.

I use it as a competitive advantage.

I'm going to show you how.

The primary source of personalization comes by way

of my blog.

Like I told you, I craft a personal

story.

Now we know how we write the story.

You now know the vision behind the story

and you now know how you can apply

and write a story if you don't have

anything to say.

Now once the blog post is shared, posted,

I share it on Twitter, I share it

on Facebook, and I share it on Instagram.

That's my zhuzh.

Now I have discovered for me that Facebook

by far is the most powerful marketing vehicle

for wedding photographers.

It might not be the most powerful vehicle

for florists.

It might not be the most powerful vehicle

for venues, but for photographers.

What I have noticed, and I have substantial

followings on each of these social media outlets,

Facebook, Facebook, Facebook for the win, again and

again.

Now I don't take out ads to advertise.

When I get an inquiry by way of

Facebook, it's 100% organic.

That's not to say that I have not

taken ads on Facebook.

If I take an ad on Facebook, it's

geared more towards photographers because not everybody wants

to listen, right?

So you got to get up in their

feeds.

But for brides, we're talking exactly how that

happens.

Now Facebook is a great way because it

leverages the thing that I think I'm good

at and the thing I want you to

be good at, which is personalization.

Twitter, it's hard to personalize because it's 140

characters and you need to say something nice

about the client and then you need to

add a link and hopefully add a photo.

So what it limits you down to is

like 20 characters.

It's just like, had fun.

Not the best way to actually share that.

Instagram is great.

But Instagram, you can't like spatter 15, 30

photos.

It's like you choose one or two that

you really like and that's your go.

But Facebook is powerful because it allows me

to upload an entire album, a curated version

that is personalized.

Now, I'm gonna revisit the Not Dream Wedding

engagement session so you could see how we

do it with engagement session.

Bless you.

And you will see how we do it.

Were we supposed to pretend like you didn't

sneeze?

Like I'm just gonna go on and be

like, yeah, no, what was that?

Like no, bless you, bless you.

We're gonna use this engagement session as an

example and then you will also see how

we do it on the wedding.

What you're gonna see is the same thing.

Same thing because it works.

Now, what I want to point out is

the geotagging capabilities.

So I linked that we were in Rancho

Palos Verdes at Abalone Cove Shoreline Park.

Now, when everybody or anybody searches for Abalone

Cove Shoreline Park, I can come up.

That's a free way, right?

You just wanna get up in people's business

as many times as possible.

Now, I wanna point out that the reach

for this post was over 47,000 people.

For this blog post, it was shared 16

times and it had over 1,000 likes.

Now, the thing about the beauty, the beauty

and the beast of the Facebook algorithm is

that it can treat you really well the

minute that you get momentum to it.

And the good thing about my clients sharing

it is that they empowered their friends to

share it.

And that's where the algorithm beat up.

Beat up?

Built up, excuse me, thank you.

Michaela, you're like, built, it was built.

Built up.

Okay, so I just wanna lay the foundation.

That's where we are currently right now.

But let's get a little bit deeper.

What we have here is this exact story

that I shared on my blog.

I copy it into Facebook because studies have

shown that people don't like to leave the

organic space in which they are surfing the

web.

And if I say, hey, go check out

the blog post, I do, but I understand

that I am missing a group of people.

So I do say in the morning, I

wrote a blog post for Samantha and Taylor

and I add a link and some people

will go to that.

Then later on in the day or maybe

the next day is when I upload the

folder.

So I'm gonna hit my Facebook audience at

two different times.

I have to be very strategic about how

I'm gonna be asking for somebody to click

on a link or to click on an

album.

Now, it's a personalized love story.

If you guys wanna read more about that

love story, that's fantastic.

I'm gonna read the first paragraph.

She was invited to a minor league baseball

game in her hometown.

So Samantha decided a night with friends was

what she needed to unwind.

The girl sat close to the field and

cheered for the cutest players because really, home

or visiting team mattered less than seeing men

in uniform take the field.

Girls cheered loudly and when a player noted

they were cheering for the visiting team, they

shrugged and kept at it.

Then we go on about how Samantha saw

this cute pitcher and she just chose and

he was from the opposing team.

She's like, you're just cute, I'm gonna cheer

for you.

At the end of the game, his friend

says you should go talk to her.

And he went up to her, she was

sitting like close and he started chatting and

he said, we should go country line dancing.

And she said, okay.

The next day went country line dancing.

They stayed friends for a year and when

his team came back to her hometown, she

was like, I like you.

Like we've been texting and emailing, but I

like you.

And then she hit the road with him

and followed him from city to city to

city.

She met him on an off chance and

felt completely and wildly in love and they're

gonna be getting married in June.

I could have shared the album and said,

had such a fun time at Abalone Cove

Shoreline Park.

But instead I said, these people are the

real deal.

They met and true love exists at minor

league baseball games and on the floor of

country line clubs.

And it can exist on text messages.

And do you have country line dancing clubs?

No, I mean, I don't know.

I don't know if that's the right term.

I was just like, I'm thinking like girls

and like doing like shorts and cowboy boots

being like, you know, like, I mean, I

don't know if that exists, but it happened

for them.

And that's the thing that I want to

do.

And I also linked the team that I'd

be working with.

Like I said, The Knot, Creative Life and

then in a separate post on one of

the pictures, I tagged Jeannie Savage of details.

I said what I, I did what I

said I was going to do.

Now, that personalization reveals vulnerability.

When you personalize photos, you're putting yourself, your

narrative onto their story.

And sometimes people respond to it and sometimes

people won't.

And that's a risk that we take as

photographers, as creatives, as writers, as painters, as

artists.

Anytime that you put your thumbprint on something,

you take a risk.

But by you taking a risk, when you

write nice things about your clients, you empower

others to do the same.

And I'm gonna show you how this happened

in real life.

Margaret Ann Ferguson says, so wonderful to read

about them.

My son and his girlfriend will be at

the wedding as Renee mentioned.

Look for Brian, red hair, six two and

his lovely girlfriend, Jenny.

They're a very nice couple.

So what I want to note is the

story that I wrote, chances are nine, eight,

if I was feeling lucky, eight out of

10 photographers, sorry, two out of 10 photographers

probably would have written what I wrote in

that album.

Two, maybe.

But eight out of 10 friends and family

probably read what I wrote on the album.

I do not write the story for photographers.

I write the story for friends and family

who have no idea who I am to

personalize our experience before we actually engage.

Secondly, I want you to notice that what

the story empowered people to do was it

gave space for family members to express their

excitement publicly.

Carol Brasher Sinclair, Jasmine, how stunning and beautifully

composed these shots are.

I am partial being his mom, but I

think Sam has found a good one and

I know Taylor has hit the jackpot.

I can't wait to meet you and share

the joy of the wedding.

So mother of the groom wrote in, I

now know that I will meet Carol at

the wedding day.

And she said nice things both about her

future daughter-in-law and her son-in

-law, which as a son, I'm thinking loosely,

he would be like, cool, my mom likes

the photos.

She probably said into his face, but in

case she didn't, at least he's been publicly

validated.

Third example, I want you to notice that

there was nice comments from their friends and

this validates my work and assures the client

that she made a good decision moving forward.

Christelle writes, amazing job.

Can't wait to meet you on the big

day.

Thank you for capturing for the world to

see how incredibly beautiful my Samantha is.

If only pictures could show how much more

beautiful she is on the inside.

And there's no one better out there to

love her than Taylor.

He is the husband we have all been

waiting for Sam to meet.

He has genuinely made her whole.

Okay, so these are nice things.

I write nice things about the couple and

then their friends write nice things about them

and that's a big love fest.

But if I were to put on my

strategic marketing, no emotion hat, the more people

write on that post, the more that that

post gets in other people's feed by Facebook

algorithm.

Right, right, right, right, right.

The more people that like, share and comment,

the higher probability you can to get organic

style marketing.

Lastly, I want to note that Janet Karish

wrote, Samantha's mom, Jasmine, you captured their love

on camera.

Samantha's mom is undergoing heavy doses of chemotherapy

and radiation.

She's struggling very much right now.

So these photos are powerful.

And the fact that I have created emotional

connection with not just one mom, but both

moms, is an incredible thing.

When I show up on the wedding day,

I now know that as a division of

my brand, and I make sure that I

respond to family members and friends directly in

the feed.

When I see them, I will not have

to say, introduce myself, hello, my name is

Jasmine.

I can bring them in for a hug

and say, I am so excited.

I see you.

I feel you.

And I'm here for you.

That emotional connection is so deep.

It's so powerful.

And there is not money that you could

pay to create that unless you did it

on your own.

So we're gonna talk about homework.

I know there's a little huh, huh.

There is, and I'm hoping that the huh

is, dang, I got some work to do.

Okay, so what I want you to do

is I want you to create ways to

connect with the creative team in advance to

the engagement session, in advance to the wedding.

And then I want you to empower them

to share your work.

They may or may not.

That doesn't matter.

You want the decision of empowerment to them.

Secondly, I want you to list at least

two ways to exceed client expectation during an

engagement session and then during the wedding.

So we're talking about four ways, right?

So two and two.

Two ways to exceed client expectation before the

engagement session.

Two ways to exceed the client expectation as

something around the wedding.

Lastly, I want you to find three ways

to personalize the ways in which you share

your images.

If you aren't blogging, I encourage you to

do so.

If blogging still isn't your thing and you

just don't want it, you don't want to

deal with the Google juice, that's fine.

Go directly to your social media, but find

ways to write something that personalizes the entire

experience because it is a competitive advantage.

That gives you insight into my marketing approach.

I appreciate you guys seeing the beginning, the

middle, and the end.

And I look forward to seeing what you

guys do with your marketing approaches in the

future.

Thank you.

Nice, right?