S14E09 | Show, don’t tell when it comes to injecting personality into your website copy
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You’ve heard it a thousand times before.. “add personality to your website” but.. What does that even mean other than saying “Hey I’m your wine-loving pet photographer?”.. Well today’s interview with Austrian based elopement photographer and copywriter extraordinaire, Mariah Wall has got you covered.
WE COVERED:
How to get started with improving copy
Tips for incorporating personality, naturally
The benefits of repelling some clients
Finding your own brand voice
Brand Archetypes
AND IN THE MEMBERS-ONLY EXTENDED EPISODE:
How to convert your website visitors into bookings, through your pricing page
Answering objections with great copy
MENTIONED LINKS
https://mariaharianna.com/copywriting-for-photographers
https://www.instagram.com/mariahariannaphoto/
Mariah Arianna
Copy by Mariah Arianna, Austria
Hey all, I'm Mariah Arianna! I'm an American adventure elopement photographer and copywriter based out of the Austrian Alps. Since I know a ton about the creative niches through direct experience, I specialize in writing personality packed copy for creative businesses driven by passion and purpose - just like me :)
Transcript
Do you always hear that you should add personality to your website, but what does that even mean other than saying, Hey, I'm your wine loving pet photographer. Well, today's interview with Austrian based elopement, photographer and copywriter, Mariah Wall has got you covered. So tune in.
Welcome to the Pet Photographer's Club. Tune in as experts share their insights to help grow your business with higher sales, creative marketing, and kick ours business strategies. Now onto the show.
Hello and welcome back to season 14, episode nine of the Pet Photographers Club. I'm your host, Kirsty McConnell, and today I'm chatting with Mariah Wall of Copy by Mariah Arianna, welcome to the Club Mariah. Hi.
Yeah. It's stoked to be here and yeah, can't wait to get started.
Awesome. And I know I got your name right because you have this cool thing on your website.
It's like, uh, something hilarious that made me laugh, like your entire website about, um, it's, uh, Mariah, like the singer or something. Not, uh, Maria, like the saint, was it? Yeah. Mariah liked
the singer, not Maria, like the saint. I live in Europe, so I get called Maria daily. I got called it a few minutes ago.
Um, yeah, no, it's Mariah.
Okay, nice. And uh, on that note, yes, I absolutely am stoked and excited by your website. Both of them or like, I dunno if they're actually one, but like the F one that you have for photographers and all the pages for your photography. That's why I've got you on the show today. I'm mentioning the email, but I'm just gonna tell the listeners anyway.
I am married, as most of you guys already know, our wedding was like in the middle of Covid. We only had like two friends there and their baby as like our witnesses. Um, our family watched a loo. It all suited us perfectly. And then, anyway, I landed on your site recently and uh, I found myself not only drawn to your images, I mean already I'm your perfect client.
You know, I don't want wedding a wedding. I, um, Like a proper, traditional word. I mean, uh, we're hikers ourselves, you know, so like your image just drew me in straight away. But not just that, I actually found myself stopping to read the words on your side, and that's something that I certainly don't do very often.
I know most. People just, we don't do that anymore. We don't read websites, especially if it's for a service that we're not in the market for, which I'm certainly not. But soon enough, I, uh, yeah, I, I was reading all the words on your site. I wished that I was eloping again. Uh, it just says all the right things at all the right times.
It gave me like, you know, confidence in you and what you do. Not too many words that I was gonna skim through it. Um, and I just, Yeah, I mean, I was just really drawn in by your site. It's really something we don't see that often. It did show your own personality, not just like, I don't know. All these sites always seem to sound the same these days.
And so when I learned that actually you help photographers write their copy and you had to reach out, and that's why we're here today. So before we get too much further, I did kind of skim ahead a little bit. So maybe you can tell the lister, Mariah, Who you are, where you are from, where you are based now, what it is that you do in the world of photography, and also how you help photographers.
Oh my gosh. Um, if I could bottle up that introduction and keep it for every rainy day, I absolutely would like. Wow. Yeah. You just said so many things that just wiped away all my imposter syndrome and every doubt I have about what I do sometimes. Um, thank you. Goodness gracious. Um, yes, I, let's see, where should I start?
Um, well, I, how did I end up where I am? Um, yeah, so I guess I'll start. From the beginning ish. I am American. I was born and raised, um, in the United States, uh, Michigan, for those of you who are familiar with the lesser famous states of the United States. Yeah, that's where I was born and raised and attended university.
Um, I studied applied linguistics and, and English and um, rhetoric and whatnot. So I've already kind of, even at that point, like had a love for writing. I had written poetry and entered into contests. Throughout like my teenage years and school, um, always been a big part of me writing just generally. And then it's, it's always sort of stuck with me.
I mean, photography as well. It was one of those things where it was really hard to choose. You get to a certain age where, you know, people are pressuring you to choose one job or find. You know, a real job where I think in this industry of photography, all of us have encountered at one point or another, somebody who has told us like, this isn't a real job or winner, you know, but what's your day job kind of thing.
And you know, that was always really disheartening. As in from one side, the photography, which I was so passionate about, growing up in a family of artists and painters and writers, and also the writing, which was something I was just always really drawn to. And. I guess talented at, but not having any idea really how to apply it.
A long journey to where I am now. I think, um, I, I traveled a lot after graduating university. I lived across the states in a couple different places. I had been to Nebraska, Hawaii. I lived in Spain for a little while, Canada. Um, and it was actually in Canada where I met my current partner, Johanne. He was, he is German and we were doing sort of a work in travel.
Um, in Canada, in British Columbia, and the mountains that summer. And that's more or less how we met. And, you know, before I graduated college, I had sort of, I had studied the most practical application of language and linguistics that I could, which was. Teaching English as a second language, knowing that I wanted to probably move to another country someday, or travel the world in some capacity.
I knew teaching English would open a lot of doors for me in that respect. So that's sort of what I focused on. And yeah, I, I guess it was an uncanny prediction because a few years later I ended up meeting Johannes and um, that got me in the door starting a business in Germany, teaching English to non-native speakers, mostly around Frankfurt like.
Lawyers and tax advisors and like in this very, I don't know, it was, it's an industry and a type of people that I can only relate to. Like the color beige wasn't really
lighting my creative fire you.
I was missing creativity and I was missing my photography and I was missing language in a more creative way. And yeah, that's where I sort of started getting back into this idea of creating a photography business again. And I had a, a girl who was in the army in V spot and not far from Frankfurt, where there's a big US military base.
She had found me and reached out to photograph her wedding, but. In her message. She was like, but it's kind of not really a wedding. We've already been married because we're in the the Army and we really just wanna have like put on beautiful wedding clothes and get dressed up and then go explore the mountains because that's our idea of a perfect day.
And my mind was kind of blown. And after I shot that, I realized, like standing in my kitchen that day, I was thinking to myself, if I could shoot one type of thing the rest of my life, like this would be it. And mm-hmm. I kind of let that sit for a little while and then realized. That's what I need to be doing.
So that it was at that point that I decided to create my adventure elopement photography business. I started pouring my heart out into my website. I just was, was so impassioned again by this idea. And it was through the process of really creating my own brand identity and finding my own brand voice and creating that for myself, um, and doing that deep work that is the foundation of, I think, all good copywriting that.
I discovered that this might be the best application for all the language and writing skills that I also had at this time. And I started having photography friends reach out to me about helping them with their own website copy. And so I came up with this whole strategy on how to get their brand voice out of them and how to do that deep work, um, which is kind of my brand strategy questionnaire and.
Yeah, too long didn't read. That's how I ended up on this podcast.
Ok, so lemme summarize for a second. So you've only just started your photography then, relatively. I mean, you mentioned the pandemic, so I mean, was it 20 20, 20 21 you started this, um, photography.
This business? Yeah, I've been doing photography since I was a teenager.
I am 30, almost 31 years old, so I have over a decade of like hobby and professional photography experience behind me. But this business is. Brand new. Yeah. Wow.
You cannot tell, I mean, on your side it looks like, I mean, I had no, I didn't, you know, go finding your curriculum or stock you on LinkedIn. Yes, yes.
And on your side it just looks like so professional. So up there, I cannot tell that you've only been in business a couple of years with this business at least. So
yeah, I mean, thank
you. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Um, Everything.
And then you mentioned like a few friends were asking you to help you help them, sorry, with, uh, with their copy. And so that's what led you into also offering the copywriting service for photographers. Is that right?
Basically, yeah. I mean, even though both my photography business and the copywriting are relatively new, if you wanna think of it like on a chronological scale in a sense like.
There, it's sort of where all these skills that I've been honing and pursuing for so many years, like it's finally clicked into place. It's, it's finally like, it's settled into the, the perfect culmination of all my skills and talents and like it's in a good spot. Yeah. And it was basically doing that deep work into my own brand where I found like the best application of my writing skills.
Um, and that's helping other, specifically photographers cause that's the niche I know best, but generally other creatives and small businesses that are driven by like passion and creativity and purpose and, uh, service the world and their clients. That's where, that's where I found that I was able to show up and help people the most.
Yeah.
Okay, nice. So just quickly, Mariah, what is the split between your revenue between, or income actually, yeah, between photography and, and copywriting. What, where does most of it come from?
Oh yeah. It's getting, it's getting hard to tell. I'm like, I'm, it's starting to split 50 50 at this point. Um, nice.
And it also is dependent on the year, the time of year. Right. Because, uh, I just had a full lot of, um, projects. For what is typically the down season for photographers over the winter. Right. And then throughout the summer, the, the bulk of my booking starts to become, um, you know, the, the summer season in the mountains with the different elopement and whatnot.
But Oof. Yeah. I wanna say right now photography is 75% because the, the booking. Price is just generally higher, but I'm slowly, you know, working up the copywriting as well. And I imagine at some point it would be 50 50.
Well, we all get in quick before price.
No, that's great. It's just really interesting, I think, to hear like, you know, because I can tell you're very passionate about both worlds. You know, it's not like sometimes we see, you know, photographers offering a secondary or opening a secondary income stream because they're not. Hitting their goals with their photography.
But for you, I can tell that you're very passionate about both, which is really exciting and I love that you're able to, you know, offer both side by side and they do compliment well because like you said, you know, your copywriting you can do during the low season of your photography and then vice versa.
So that's really nice. So if let's, I know that you specialize in. I mean, you're an elopement photographer, but Right. I can tell that all of this, uh, all of your copywriting would apply to, you know, to all photographers or even many industries really. So let's look at some like hardy tips. So, Let's say I'm like about to create a brand new website.
I've got nothing at the moment. Um, I'm a pet photographer. I specialize in working with dogs. I mean, where does one start in terms of understanding what words need to actually go onto that page? Oh,
yeah. That is a fabulous question. This is where I think a lot of people. Start backwards. I, I, I think a lot of people, they start wanting to design a website, and what they do is, you know, they pick out a nice template or they hire a designer and then they have this beautiful design, and then they're sitting there wondering, okay, I need to put words on this.
Okay, well there's a, there's a placeholder here. There's one here. Let's just start filling it in. And. In my opinion, um, I always follow the rule and I learned this from an amazing designer who I worked with years ago at a, at a company, um, back in Omaha. He always said, follows function and. Anything you're creating, whether it's physical, whether it's nonphysical, like, like something like a website or copy or design, um, good design follows function and the function of a website.
Um, and the function of website design is to deliver the copy. Most effectively, most engagingly to readers who are on their phones and their attention span is half of the second before they close it out and go to TikTok and start, you know, scroll next 30 are fighting for people's attention. So, I always encourage people start with the copy first.
This, this is not just words. This is the foundation for your brand. It's the foundation of your services. It's the foundation of why you do this and why most importantly, anybody who hires you and gives you their money should care. So starting before you ever even look at the design of your website.
Setting the foundation, setting that intention and really thinking about what you're doing and who it's for. That's step number one. So, um, thinking about things like your client avatars, who is your ideal client? How do you describe them? Where do they shop? Where do they work? What do they spend their money on?
What are their values? Thinking about things like keywords, SEO is a huge part of this. Being really strategic about how the internet is gonna, um, rank your site. And position it in the algorithms. Being intentional about those keywords and those headers is another big thing I, I want people to focus on early on and, um, you know, create space for that.
And also getting really clear on their values and what it is that you offer. I mean, for photographers it's always, yeah. I preserve moments, I document people's lives. That's great. But there's deeper values that we need to hit on. That's, that's more than just that, you know, the photos are more of the how, um, the why might be something like, you know, I lost a pet who was like a family member to me and I don't have any photos of them and I wish I could go back and have more of those moments and, and just.
Helping people find a deeper reason and a deeper emotional connection to your services is step one, and then you can start putting it into words.
Okay. Okay. And then what do we do with this information? I mean, okay. I know that my ideal client, you know, maybe they. They drive like a, a high middle end kind of car.
You know, they're not driving a Lamborghini or a Porsche, but maybe they're in a Landrover. Um, I know that they have like a car that has room for the dog to be like somewhere where it's not all over the front seat, although some of them might also be on the front seat. Um, You know, I know that, you know, they dress more like me.
They're not dressing like, uh, like fancy, fancy, but they're, they're in jeans and a and a sweater most of the time. This kind of thing. I mean, I know these things. Our, my audience probably also, or yeah, their listeners, they, uh, they, you know, they recognize these things when their clients rock up to their shoots, et cetera.
Mm-hmm. We wanna speak directly to this person. Where do we like, uh, weave this information? I mean, obviously I'm not gonna say, Hey, you drive a Land Rover, right? Right. So like, how do we, what do we do from there? Basically to, to know where to put this on the site.
Yeah, that's a brilliant question. It's a lot too.
It gets into market marketing psychology. It gets into, you know, what people are trying to signal with their purchases, what they value, um, in their purchases when they're spending that amount of money. Oh gosh, this conversation about cars just came up in another photography group that I'm in. You know, what do people's cars say about them?
And for example, you know, think of somebody who drives, um, A Jeep. Oh, what is the, the Jeep that everyone drives? Is it like the Jeep? Uh, yeah, like a Jeep Wrangler. Like think of, think of Jeep Wrangler guy versus Subaru guy versus Dodge Durango. Like F 1,500 truck. You know, I don't know how big they are, but think of all three of those guys and how different they are.
You know, Jeep Wrangler guy, he's probably got two big Huskies in the back of his car. He's got a roof tent. He's got. A lift kit cuz he goes mudding every weekend. And you know, then you think of, you know, let's see, Camaro guy, he's probably not doing too much camping. He's probably not spending his money on outdoor gear or too much traveling.
Like they just value different things and they signal that in what they, and what they buy and how they spend their money. And what you can do when you create an avatar for a person and it takes a bit of creativity, it takes a little bit of imagination, but you can start to. Positively stereotype people.
You can start to sort of make assumptions about their values and the things they do, and you can create a story arc for these people, and you get closer to people by becoming more specific on the things that they value and the things that they connect with. So, for example, when I send out my branding questionnaire, I have people build at least two avatars, at least a little bit different from each other.
And when I go to write the copy, I analyze the answers. That they write, you know, the clothes that they buy, the places they shop, what kind of job do they have? What problems are they hoping your service will solve? I, I take those answers and I start to create copy that speaks a little bit more directly to the person.
So infusing some of those ideas into the copy in a way that it's gonna catch the eye of your target client. They're gonna be like, wait, she said something about the show, Brooklyn Nine nine. I love that show. Like, um, or she said something about, you know, Hosting with a glass of whiskey. I'm such a whiskey drinker.
Everyone else talks about glasses of Prosecco and wine, and here's somebody who's talking about whiskey, like, ah, that's awesome. You know, it connects with people in just little sprinkles of people's personality in the copy. When they see that, they start to connect to you in a genuine way, right? We don't wanna trick people.
We want to just be ourselves in a way that's effective. We wanna be ourselves in a way that's, People see themselves reflected. And when you're talking about a service like photography specifically, there's an emotional desire for, for the product and for the service. It's not a logical thing. You're not getting on a website that's selling you pens or office supplies, and you're just like, okay, I need this thing for, for this purpose and great, I'm just gonna order it.
It's, it's an emotional connection, so, so it also takes an emotional and creative approach in the copy to keep people's attention.
Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay, so you just said something that grabbed my attention just then, which was about the whiskey, right? Mm-hmm. And every time I see this kind of thing on somebody's website, because we hear people talking about it all the time, I always question like I.
Does anybody care about this thing? You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do people really care? And actually, when I scroll through your side, I mean, maybe you did. I mean, you know, I didn't read absolutely everything. Maybe you do say something about it, but it seemed to me like you are speaking somehow. More directly to your audience.
You're not talking about like, oh hey, like, um, this is my name and I like to drink this thing. It's just not like a point of things. You know, you're really speaking to your audience. So how do we go from being the photographer that's website is like, Oh, do you like whiskey too? I also like whiskey. You know, how do we go from, from being that photographer to, to having a website that really speaks to the audience just like yours has?
I mean, where's the jump there?
Yeah. That is such a fantastic question, and I'm so glad that you articulated that because I think that is so important because I think that's what so many websites are trying to do, but it's the delivery that's off, right? You want to show, not tell. Okay, so for example, I'm, I'm immediately thinking of this one client I had.
Um, her name is Andrea Cable and she's a photographer, um, based in dc. She's an amazing photographer. I loved working on her project and she had this bright, bubbly personality and she wanted to attract higher end clients in the area who. Also enjoyed her bright, bubbly personality. So we made sure, sure to infuse that in the copy.
And there's one line in her copy where this is a perfect example. She mentioned her ideal client, like they wanted, you know, maybe their communication style is meeting up for an app Appall Schlitz one night and going over some of the wedding timelines. And you know, she loves her Appall Spritzes and her clients.
They always bond over Appall spritzes. And if you think about it, this is the hypothe of. Thing that a really basic influencer would put in their Instagram bio. Like, eh, appall spritz, obsessed with kombucha, whatever. Um, but instead for, for us to write that her copy instead, what we did is I side it. So I showed, I didn't tell, I wrote something like, I wanted to connect with her ideal client's values.
So in a part of her copy I wrote, raise Your Appall Spritz if you agree with the following. And it was, you know, joy based photography, a family focused gathering experience on your wedding day, spending time and money on the things that matter, not the things that, um, signal money or something like that.
And that was our way to infuse the copy with a little bit of that, you know, I drink Apple alcohol spritz. But without saying you drink app, you know, without just telling, it's showing. It was, it was, it was demonstrating through another way. It was a sort of storytelling instead of just saying, I love Apple all spritz.
Do you like Apple Schlitz? It was. Yeah. It's, it's, it's creating a story out of it. It's, it's sidestepping it in a way that's showing and not telling, if that makes any sense.
Yes, it does actually. That's great. Because, yeah, I just always find myself like I'm trying to weave personality in, but at the end, my side always sounds just like, Very normal, you know, and I have an interesting story.
It shouldn't sound normal, but it does. And so maybe that's a thing. I mean, I avoid any personality at all because I. I don't wanna be that like I drink, you know, I don't, I drink spritz. I don't wanna be that photographer, so I just avoid it entirely. But yes, I love this idea of showing, um, instead of telling.
That's really nice and I think a nice spot as well To wrap up, pop one of this episode because we're gonna sit. Save. I'm trying to speak here. You wanna save, uh, some really nice juicy stuff for the second half of this interview, which of course goes out to the members only. I wanna get into some more tips of finding your own voice.
Um, you mentioned personality earlier, so definitely. Yeah, I wanna talk about that a little bit more. And then also I want to talk about your pricing page on your photography website, because I Right on. Approach to that. And I think that that's something that, I mean, pet photographers, alert photographers, doesn't matter.
Anyone can do the same, I don't know, flow, I suppose. Um, yes. Or their version of that. And uh, yeah, I just think it's really beautiful and really nice. So I wanna get into that, but I'm gonna save that for our members. So before we do wrap up the first half of this episode though, Mariah, can you let the listeners on Spotify, iTunes, wherever they're listening to this first half, can you let them know where they can go to find out more about what it is that you offer for photographers?
Yes.
Um, so I've recently started splitting these brands. I think you mentioned at the beginning of the episode that, um, my website currently is kind of both. And this year it is a work in progress that I will be completely splitting the websites and creating a brand new home for my copywriting services.
Um, but currently if you. Go to mariah ariana.com. You can see my photography website. And then right there at the top left corner in my navigation, you'll see a little button that says four photographers and that will link copy page where you read all the goodies on everything I offer and feel for what's work with me.
Awesome. And I will link to that in the show notes anyway, but um, yeah, there's heaps of great. Yeah. Informative information there about what it is that you do. I see that you offer a few different packages, like you can do, um, seo, uh, blogs mm-hmm. Full website copy, or even, uh, an audit of copy that they currently have.
So, um, is that kinda the, the bulk of it?
Yeah, basically, um, the, the seo blogging is like helping people put together those big heavy cornerstone blogs that offer a free, um, a ton of free value for their ideal clients. And also, you know, starts getting you, um, lots of eyeballs on your page from Google. And then the full website, um, services for full website copy services is, um, helping you kind of identify your, your brand voice.
And strategically, um, coming up with copy for each, um, page on your website. And then the auditing is a sort of DIY option for people who want a bit and a little bit of.
Okay. Nice, nice. It's really nice that you have these, um, yeah, especially the two, the, the full website copy versus the audit. That's really nice.
I think. You know, somebody to suit everybody. Something to suit everybody. And then of course, blogging. Who likes blogging themselves? Like hardly anybody. Just probably only me.
Literally only me.
Nice. So that's a great service to offer. Awesome. I will put the links to, or the link to that site in the show notes, um, as well as to your elopement, uh, photography page as well because um, I think it'd be a really nice example for people to check out what you do.
So guys, make sure you head on over to check it out. But for now, we are going to wrap up this first half of the episode. If you miss anything, head on over to the pet photographers club dot. Com slash v podcast, uh, slash 14 0 9 because this is season 14, episode nine, and you will find all the show notes in there.
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