These three marketing campaigns helped us get 120 paid events our first year in business!
If you apply these strategies, they can help you get organized, focused, and reduce stress. But! To be clear, they take work to implement and require an open mindset.
Read more to find out…
Campaign #1 – PRE-Event
This campaign is used before an event is booked, paid, and conducted.
The goal of this campaign is to get the lead or prospect to follow through and actually pay you so you can get them on your calendar.
This is basically the end of your sales cycle and you are influencing people to follow through on their desire and interest to hire you (it is totally normal and very common human behavior to delay or procrastinate with actually paying).
Most people already do this type of “follow up” sales communication but they do it the hard way, the manual way, and the inefficient way.
Solution: use technology to implement an effective communication system/process that takes YOU out of the equation, which reduces your stress, gives you more time, and makes things super efficient.
Effective PRE-Event Campaigns
You can use technology to create a calendar event every day at 8am that includes a list of leads you need to call and get the deposit for their event or pay in full or whatever.
This is the most important priority task items you should be completing every single day (or delegating to another team member to follow up on).
PRO Tip: if you are wanting to automate this type of follow up you can easily create a “reminder” email or text message to encourage them to complete the payment.
Campaign #2 – POST-Event
Most super busy photographers/business owners drop the ball after the event, unfortunately. It makes sense, I get it, but they are leaving money on the table, here’s why.
The goal in your photography business is to capture people’s happiness. When people are happy and having fun and loving life, things are awesome.
When you have an awesome event you gotta capture their thoughts on how your services helped create a great experience eg. reviews, referrals, testimonials, etc.
Most (not all) but most photographers will email or text their bride or client asking for a review on wedding wire or social media, and never follow up.
Life gets in the way especially if there is a honey moon or a hangover to cure. Similar to the need to follow up on inspiring people to follow through with their payment, it is completely normal that people drop the ball and don’t write a review or give you a referral.
Effective POST-Event Campaigns
Just like the PRE-Event strategy, you can use technology to create a calendar event every Friday at 8am that includes a list of client’s you need to call, email, or text and beg them for a review, referral, and testimonial.
Just like the PRE-Event campaign, you can totally delegate this to someone or use technology to follow up. The cool thing with using tech services to do the follow up is you can tell the system to stop notifying them after they actually do the thing you want them to do (that’s kinda advanced but it’s totally possible and I would say it’s 100% needed if you are wanting to double your events this year, you know what im sayin’????).
PRO Tip: incentivize your clients to send you a testimonial with an Amazon gift card, which can all be done digitally and easily with a few emails. Lets talk more about incentives shall we? You can provide a really cool referral strategy for previous clients who refer an actual paying client to you like… a free photo session, flowers, gift certificates, discounts on services, etc. These are all a write off and would be included in the “client acquisition sales/marketing budget.”
Speaking of referrals and incentivizing…
That brings us to power campaign numero three!
Campaign #3 – Partnership Referrals
Okay so this campaign is PRO Tip 100% all the way!
Keep a log of your networking buddies and get super organized with who they are, what they are looking for, and how you guys can work together.
Then create a really great “thank you” package when they refer business to you such as flowers, Starbucks gift certificates, an actual commission check, donated services, etc.
The newbies miss this strategy all the time so if you are still reading keep a going because this is really really powerful.
Most people in this industry will network and refer business with you such as:
- wedding planners,
- event coordinators,
- venue managers,
- videographers,
- previous clients,
- etc.
After they have referred someone to you and things are cool, treat the partner like royalty! Buy them all these things as a thank you and make it annoying that you are overflowing with gratitude through your gifts.
Then. Invite them to have a coffee or food or drinks or whatever and see if they would be interested in making things “exclusive” but be prepared to present an irresistible offer to them such as a generous commission paid via direct deposit, Venmo, or Apple Pay. These are sales expenses that are written off on your taxes as a deduction to acquire the customer. In other words the IRS literally accepts this as a “cost” or expense in getting the new client while the referring partner is super happy and you are super happy and everyone is happy! YAY! I’m happy too!!!!
Be creative with the offer! You could include something like for every ten referrals they get a free photo session for themselves or a gift certificate they can give to a friend or family member. Maybe for every 100 referrals you take them on an all inclusive paid cruise or vacation to the Bahamas including you or not including you whatever just get creative and have fun.
Effective Partnership Referral Campaigns
This is a long-term play that ensure recurring referrals, sustainability and growth. If you apply this and be consistent, you will dominate your market.
It won’t happen overnight. This campaign needs time to build.
The Ultimate Goal: It’s about creating win-win situations with other influencers and go-getters in your industry. Just work on this one hour a week and it will snowball over one year trust me!
Here’s What You Need to Know
These three campaigns are strategic. They aren’t new. They aren’t crazy. They are simple.
- Get people to follow through before the event,
- Get people to follow through after the event,
- Build a network of raving fans, partners, and people who send you business.
If you can increase your sales by 10% by implementing the pre-event campaign, increase your reviews and referrals by 10% with the post-event campaign, AND build a network of consistent referrals bringing in 10% new business every month, then you could effectively increase your business by at least 30%!
But in order for you to effectively use these campaigns you gotta be focused, take action, and get organized.
And the best way to get results from these campaigns is by using a CRM “Customer Relationship Managment” Database.
That’s why I created a FREE On Demand Workshop training to help you get more organized and focused. I show you these strategies in a little more detail so you can apply these campaigns in your business and get results, check it out below!