As a business owner, nothing beats wedding shows for generating leads for your services. Unfortunately for introverted folk like myself though, they can also be dauntingly loathsome – packing up studio sales rooms of albums, wall portraits, tchotchkes, business cards, promotional swag, tables and cloths, standing around for hours in uncomfortable clothes smiling and making small talk with total strangers all with hopes of making some money, then at the end of it all you have to pack it all away – breaking down walls while collecting studio samples before collecting names from fish bowls full of names in fish bowls full of names from everyone in attendance.
Fish Bowl
A fish bowl represents all that’s good and bad about shows: its hopeful promise of people interested in your services, but who didn’t book immediately. People who put in their name for any freebie you may offer and then don’t follow through and book at some later point; chicken scratch of names, emails and phone numbers you have to sift through to contact. After this show ends you know you must sit down with all this information to decipher – maybe while soaking tired feet in Epsom salt while hoping ibuprofen and beer kick in… Or tomorrow when all this will have to happen again!
Or perhaps you didn’t use the fishbowl (or clipboard). Maybe you didn’t realize you should. Or perhaps you find the concept too silly. That’s fine…just remember: shows are for marketing; and marketing doesn’t just involve showing up; it requires following up too!
Just put yourself in your prospective client’s shoes… let them understand! Imagine all day surrounded by vendors. Your prospect may have spoken with multiple photographers as well, making their experience overwhelming. While as artists we think our work speaks for itself, in reality your prospect could be feeling overstimulated, tired and even overwrought from all they encountered today… they might be hoping an ibuprofen and beer will ease their symptoms, as well as having an assortment of promotional material they have yet to sort through or will do tomorrow.
Tomorrow, their inboxes will become overwhelmed with vendors who finally sifted through their fishbowls and sent emails on one particular day, only to follow up once and never make contact again; any emails sent from you (even if just one), may become lost among this mass of correspondence.
MEANWHILE, I HAVE ALREADY ENTERED THEIR DMS…
or at least their inbox. Prospects are already receiving their initial email from me during events when they sit and check their phones during fashion shows, before becoming overwhelmed and exhausted from all the noise around them. I hit their inbox before becoming overwhelming themselves or before an avalanche ensues! Email them useful wedding planning advice instead of trying to sell something they don’t need! And the email should instantly feel familiar–they will recall our booth, which increases the odds that they will reach out. Over the coming weeks, I will send each prospect an email reminding them about our show specials, along with additional messages to guide them into my sales funnel as they begin to trust our brand more and more. If this seems familiar to you, keep listening closely! If it has already begun happening for you too.
Attraction and Nurturing Leads with Drip Emails
Over the past several months in The Business Corner, we’ve explored using digital tools to attract and nurture leads in order to acquire new clients. A lead magnet – irresistible client bait known as client magnets – enables us to gather potential client contact info then target marketing emails directly towards them through targeted drip campaigns (see previous articles from August, September, October and November of The Business Corner for examples of marketing automation)
Applying this concept to wedding shows is straightforward; just create educational material that would benefit brides-to-be planning their special day, and you’re set. Instead of using fishbowls, bring along a laptop or tablet loaded with your landing page content as the centerpiece for engagement.
At the show, simply do what you do: Schmooze. Sell. Repeat. Book them immediately if possible; for each interested prospect let them know you will send additional information via email and provide some wedding-planning tips that might assist them along their journey. When an interested prospect enters their email and phone number into your sales funnel they enter it automatically as part of your sales process.
There are various methods available to you for collecting leads, from giveaways to free engagement sessions for photographers. High-value giveaways can be an effective strategy in other forms of advertising, but can be especially difficult to stand out at wedding shows where photographers offer similar services. Furthermore, high-value giveaways could attract clients that seek the item instead of your services. Wilmington hosts a show where couples attend even after they have tied the knot, simply because vendors offer giveaways. One couple in particular continues attending for annual portrait sessions! Jeff and I both found that our lead quality improved significantly when we switched from using an e-sesh giveaway to educational lead magnets as our magnets. No matter what method is chosen as their magnet, the process remains the same: visitors enter their information on your landing page to enter your funnel.
Have you been reading our articles over the last several months? If so, the majority of your work should already be complete. In your previous process, you probably created an auto-responder followed by carefully crafted drip emails. Now simply swap out your auto-responder for lead magnet emails; when prospects enter one of your contact form segments they trigger this lead magnet email immediately before being moved onto a standard drip segment in which they receive more emails over time – your basic follow up now completely automated and instantaneous!
EXPOSURE: NOT JUST A PHOTOGRAPHY TERM
Recently released movie Focus featured Will Smith as a con artist who entered into an elaborate betting match at a football game against another individual – where one of his main cons was having them pick any player on the field in their mind while Smith would guess their jersey number (55 for instance). For days prior, Smith has been following this man and placing 55s all around as potential spots where this individual might see them – of which when picked as his selection…it turns out this person picked – 55 was already planted there for him!
Jeff and I use the “mere exposure” effect in our show booth to our advantage. Simply stated, repeated exposure increases liking and rememberance of something we find familiar. This principle holds true in Jeff and my show booth setup as well. One wall of our booth features a seven-foot-wide canvas triptych of one of our past wedding couples, while the remainder features multiple couples in various poses and images – none are particularly notable or dramatic. But, our show pamphlet also contains this triptych as its cover image to help visitors recall our booth in their memory. In addition, this image appears when entering their contact information and in our first email that we send them.
Of course, simply seeing an image repeatedly will not suffice in captivating a prospect’s attention; we still must do all of the typical wedding show activities such as smiling, being informative, being approachable and talking with strangers; however it can help clients make connections between these photographers they met at Booth 107 who gave them pamphlets and are sending emails regularly.
How Are You Standing Out? In an ocean of vendors, what distinguishes your offerings? How will clients remember you later when making decisions? If all that’s happening after an event has concluded is one email after the fact or no follow up whatsoever then perhaps more work needs to be done beforehand to ensure a successful follow up strategy and experience for all involved parties. As Jeff and I both understand well, show follow up is essential for successful events and extra efforts before hand can make that follow up much simpler and smoother.