S15E14 | The power of a strong website for organic pet photography bookings with Angie Rose
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For most of us pet photographers, we have to have a strong, layered marketing plan in order to get consistent bookings. But what if your website did all the heavy lifting for you? For today’s guest, Angie Rose, that’s exactly the case. Her marketing budget is almost exclusively spent on a her content creator who does all her blogging, which she admits wouldn’t get done otherwise. That blogging, combined with the main website is her biggest lead source and then it’s through her booking process that those leads are converted into dream clients.
If ditching expo’s, affiliate programs and Facebook marketing sounds like a dream to you- tune into this episode to hear how Angie runs her business without all that!
We covered:
What clients book Angie for
Angie’s booking rate and the process to booking
Working with professionals to establish a high converting website
How the website helps attract enquiries and convert them to bookings
IN THE MEMBERS-ONLY EXTENDED EPISODE:
The benefits of using your name as a business name
How people find Angie’s website
The positive impact of blogging
Outsourcing content creation for newsletters and blogging
How Angie customises her sessions
Why pets with their people?
Partnership Blogging Challenge
What would your business look like if your business partners, did your marketing for you?
If you could simply text your contact at the local specialist vet clinic, doggy daycare or equine centre and say “Let’s do it again”, and within a matter of days, you have high quality bookings?
And meanwhile, your website actually gained organic traffic and some of those visitors easily converted into your highest-spending clients.
No Facebook Ad spend. No time to dedicate to expos.
Just a shoot, a blog post and some gift vouchers.
This is my best marketing strategy, and with this challenge, you can access the exact steps I take to make it happen.
Angie rose
Angie Rose Photography, USA
Angie Rose Photography is about making lifestyle portraits full of emotion and feeling of pets and their people on-location or in-home in an artistic, everyday style. Located in the Northern California part of the United States, I can't help but to infuse a very relaxed, easy-going vibe to my photography. My photography journey started much, much later in life and it's so exciting to begin a fun and challenging chapter. I am super excited to see where this new adventure takes me.
Transcript
For most of us pet photographers, we have to have a strong layered marketing plan in order to get consistent bookings. But what if your website did all the heavy lifting for you? For today's guest, Angie Rose, that's exactly the case. Her marketing budget is almost exclusively spent on her content creator who does all her blogging, which she admits she wouldn't get done otherwise.
That blogging combined with the main website is her biggest lead source, and then it's through her booking process that those leads are converted into dream clients. If ditching expos, affiliate programs, and Facebook marketing sounds like a dream to you, tune in to this episode to hear how Angie runs her business without all of that.
By the way, if you've tried to set up third party marketing partnerships without success, or you simply want more of them, but you'd really prefer to spend your time blogging, I've got something for you. I'm launching a challenge really soon that helps you to use blog as a way to build relationships with other local businesses.
It's my best advice. Marketing strategy in 2024, and I'm here to share it with you. Join the wait list at the pet photographers club. com slash blogging dash challenge.
Welcome to the pet photographers club. Tune in as experts share their insights to help grow your business with higher sales, creative marketing, and kick arse business strategies. Now onto the show.
Hello and welcome to season 15, episode 14 of the Pet Photographer's Club. I'm your host Kirsten McConnell. And today I'm chatting with Angie Rose of Angie Rose Photography. Welcome to the club, Angie. Hey there. Thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited. I've never been on a podcast before, so just bear with me as we go through this.
It's going to be fine. I mean, we were chatting before the, before we press record. And as I was telling you, it's really nice actually to have, you know, a whole range of photographers on the podcast that, you know, some are early on in the business, some are, you know, 15, 20 years down the track and others are business expert and experts and everybody brings something unique.
I think you know, that's, that's interesting for the listener, whether it be, you know, a really actionable tip or advice, or even if it's just. For us, you know, as fellow pet photographers to feel a little bit less lonely and realize, Oh, Hey, that person's in the exact same stage as me. I think that's really valuable too.
And that's the feedback that I received. So don't worry about that, Angie. It's a, it's really nice to have you here. So before we, you know, get into it too much, let's just.
So let's just give the listeners a little bit of an intro as to who you are what it is that you do and where it is that you are based in the world. That sounds good. Again, my name is Angie, like you said, from Angie Rose photography and I am in Northern California United States and more specifically, it's the San Francisco Bay area.
And what I do is I. I, I make photos of mainly it's pets and their people. And I love doing it with just so much emotion and feeling. And it's usually at you know, on location or at their home. I'm not a studio photographer. And my whole thing is just that really easy, relaxed lifestyle vibe.
That's just how I that's what I've gravitated towards. That's all I've done. I haven't really done other types of photography. That's just what I love doing. Beautiful. And two questions then about that one, when your clients come to you, what is it that they're usually looking for? Are they coming for digitals?
Are they coming for wall art? Are they coming for albums? That's a good question. It varies, you know, everybody these days they want digitals. So I do offer Both products and digitals, but I think once somebody gets to my website They kind of understand What I do that offer both, you know, I do the session fee Or the session with the session fee and then they, with no credits or anything, and then they purchase after, after the session.
So but I have all the cart and collections, so sometimes people don't know they want to do the photos. And then they decide after, but I do go over everything at a time. So they know some people after I explain everything, I might not be the right photographer for them. And that's good if they know and not we go through the whole experience and then I don't do what they want or have what they want.
So Angie, I hope that makes sense. Yes, it does. So when they first find you and we'll get into that part later on, like how they find you, when they first find you, your, your clients or your inquiries. Probably like most of us, they're, they're thinking they want digitals. Once they go through your process, sometimes they end up just buying digitals, but other times they also buy product.
Is that correct? Okay. And what is your goal? Do you prefer that they buy digitals or, or wall out and albums? More of the products. There are people that think they want digitals and then we go through the process and they want the digitals, but I'll tell them, you know, you can do a beautiful album and get all the digitals and they're fine with that.
I think sometimes people need direction and need to know or want to know the options because all they know is digitals possibly. And then there's people that do understand what a full service photographer is. And when they come to me, they know what they want. It's just, I get a variety of people, but I do, again, at the beginning when I just meet the people and we talk on the phone, I do a lot of talking on the phone.
I, you know, I explain everything and then we decide if I'm the right photographer for them. So what. If you happen to, you know, know this data, what percentage do you think of people that call or that you managed to get on the phone decide that you're not the right photographer for them? What do you think?
So I think this is a really interesting stat. Yeah, that's, you know, I think about that and I I would say probably 25%. I mean, most people that we get on the phone, a lot of people do end up booking with me, maybe 25 to 50%, but once we get on the phone and we talk, there's a high possibility that they're going to book with me.
That would be quite impressive. I think 25%. Non booking that don't go ahead and book. That means 75 percent are booking. I know I spoke to Kim of Kimberly Sarah photography a few years ago now. So her stats are probably wrong. And she's coming up on the podcast soon as well, guys. So stay tuned for that.
And she might have some new stats for us, but I remember her telling me at the time that her rate was one in 10 that would book, so that meant, okay. I'm sorry to interrupt. I'm sorry. That's fine. Go for it. No, I'm just trying to think. I mean, it's really by the time somebody actually gets on the phone with me.
I mean, it is a pretty, okay, so we'll say 50%. I don't know the exact percentage, but it is a good percentage. It is once because when they see my website, they know, they know if they're if I'm right for them or not. Yes. And that's actually what I was looking for. I was leading us to that. So in order to have such a great booking rate from, from phone call to booking, you must be doing something right in the preparation.
So what does it look like from, you know, when the client first finds out that Angie Rose Vita Ravi exists, what does that process look like between then and actually having a phone call with you? So again, usually they find me on Google and they go to my contact form and I will They'll contact me.
I will we, I have a CRM. So I just say, okay, let's set up a phone call, pick a time. And so the first, no one can get through without talking to me on the phone without to get something set up. So, and that first call is to answer all their questions, make sure I'm the right photographer for them. And normally after that, if it's a go, we will set up a second phone call.
And then we will the second phone call is just all about the prep and getting ready for the session. Okay, perfect. So when they first land on your website, eventually they see that they have to have this first phone call. Or do they see that only like, you know, if they email you first and then you email them back.
Yeah. They can either contact me on my contact form. I mean, they can even people, I get phone calls. But it all leads to we're on the phone or if they do email me, that's great. Then I said, let's set up a phone call. Nice. And it's just a standard phone call or is it zoom? It could be, if they really want to zoom, we'll do zoom, but it's really just, it's on the phone.
Nice. All right. So that initial call is just to make sure that you're the right term for them. You know, I guess you're talking about pricing. Yes. All of that. Okay. Perfect. And then is it on that call that they learn, okay, this is what happens next to go ahead and book with me, that they learn that they're going to do a second call and all of the rest of the steps.
Yes. You know, it really, you know, every parent I talk to is just, has different needs, you know, we, that first phone call, they might need something quick, their, their dog might be older and we need to set, get everything taken care of that first phone call. I customize everything for each person. So once I talk to them, I start to know what they want.
I can start talking about maybe the certain products that will work for them. I get to know maybe if they really just want more digitals, but normally it would be a second phone call and that would be, you know, You know, a week or two before the session, get them all prepped and ready. But if we need to get ready and get it done, that first phone call, we'll do that.
It's very, I try to customize as much as I can and make it work for everyone. Nice. I want to talk about that a little bit more about how you, you know, make the experience customized for everybody. But I'm going to wait and maybe do that in the second half for now. I want to talk about. Your website a little bit, because I could see from, you know, when I first landed on it you know, a few weeks ago, and even just now reviewing it again, I can see that your website is doing heavy lifting for you.
It's been, you know, set up to really work and convert inquiries into bookings or to funnel people out as well. And that's also important for a website to do too. So I want to talk about that a little bit and then come back to that. All right. Point about customizing your sessions and how you get people to your website and everything like that in the second half.
But for now, let's just take a look at your website and guys, if you haven't already yet, check it out. Just jump on Google and type in andrewrose. com the website is beautiful. Your work is also beautiful, but what I really love about it is that, like I said before, it's working for you. So take me back to what you told me before we started recording of how, you know, who helped you in the first place with your, with your website and who is managing it today.
Like I told you, when I very first needed to get a website together, I contacted it was Claire and I don't know how to say the last name. It's it's you and Shane. I don't know. But it's Claire and her company is Oh, I wrote it down. Wildflower and pixels. Yeah, and she's in Scotland, but I knew her from just the photography community got a hold of her She helped me get it all set up.
And then I gave her a lot of the content I did a lot of work getting the content to her and we'd go back and forth, you know got it set up You know, it's on WordPress You know, I wanted to flow good and everything, you know, she she helped me. I just gave her all the information The photos. I'm trying to think what else you want to know.
No, no, that's great. So Angie, just let clarify for me. So you wrote all the copy and then I did a lot of it. Yeah. If I remember. Okay. Perfect. Perfect. And then how long ago was that? Sorry. That was probably two, three. There were three, three ish years ago. Okay. And then of course, you know, over time we're always tweaking our websites.
I think at least I am, I'm bad for that, but so for the last three years or something after, you know, you launched this website that Claire had beautifully designed for you with mostly your copy, then you've gone ahead and, and mostly managed it yourself with a little bit of help from a few people.
Is that right? That's correct. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. So I just want to go back to that early. Sorry. Yeah. That early stage, the first website that Claire did. Is that the structure of that website? Is that similar to the one you have today? Or is it completely different now? I think it's pretty similar. It's pretty similar.
There have been a few tweaks on some of the pages and everything, but it's pretty similar. I'd have to say. And can I ask you then, do you remember if, I mean, because I understand that Claire designed it, but was it a team effort or was it her or was it you that worked out, okay, You know, there should be a big, you know, above the fold banner image that has, you know my one liner there and then two calls to action.
And then the next thing has to be about pricing and so, so on, or, you know, was it, was it her or was it you? I think it was more, it was a team effort, definitely. I'm trying to think back. I know it was, I worked a lot with her. We went back and forth a lot and she was great. She would, if I needed to, wanted something different, she'd change it until, you know, it got to where I want it.
She was really amazing. Fabulous. Yeah. I'm just asking because I know that this is where a lot of photographers get either overwhelmed or maybe don't put enough thought into sometimes as well, because, you know, traditionally back in. early 2000s when I did my first website as well websites were just a portfolio.
Basically, we didn't have Instagram. So, you know, people just went to your website and you just showed your pretty pictures and that was enough. Today there's definitely not enough. Unless, you know, you've got. I don't know a really, really good marketing strategy in place. It doesn't rely on your website.
And then you have a different way to educate and, and, and convert people. But generally speaking, a portfolio based website isn't enough. We need something that's really information based, which is what you've created. And so that's why I was just asking you about that Angie, because I think. You know, you've really, you've, you're ticking all of those boxes.
You're, you're telling the clients exactly what they need. You've got a really comprehensive FAQ section. You've got your blog, which we'll get into later. Reviews. There's this plugin that is just amazing for that. And then, you know, it just, you're sharing the process. It's really an informative based website.
So I was trying to understand if that was something you asked for, or if that was something that that clear, you know, sort of helps you within guided you in that process. Yeah, she helped me a lot. And then also, I forgot to mention, my husband has helped a lot too. He just likes to figure things out.
And as he, you know, I've learned so much from all the, you know the photography community, you know, all the different classes and master classes you can take and learn about different things. So, you know, we've tweaked things along the way too. He always tries to figure things out and helps me a lot too.
Fabulous. That's amazing help. So Angie is most of your traffic coming to most of your inquiries coming to you via your website or have you got strong socials or third party marketing set up or another avenue where people are finding you? Right now it is. Google is my strongest amazing. That doesn't surprise me.
I don't look yet. I need to do a little bit more other types of marketing, but I'm a little bit older doing this. So I'm like, if this was working right now, it's fine. I just kind of do things as I need them at my pace. So it's working fine right now. Perfect. I want to get into that a bit more and what it is that you're doing with your website or what your husband is doing with your website to help you rank.
So highly and. Also sorry, I want to come back to how you customize it, your sessions as well. But I am going to keep that for the premium members. So what we're going to do is we're going to wrap up part one now, but before we do that, can you just let the listener know the best place to find you probably your website and your Instagram?
Yeah, just website, and you rose. com and Instagram is Angie P Rose. Perfect. I'll pop the, it was before I started business. So it just ends up my name with my middle initial. Perfect. I will pop the links in the show notes to that for now. We're going to wrap up a part one. So if you're looking for the show notes, you can just head to the pet photographers club.
com slash the dash podcast, and you can search 15, 14. That is it for part one of the episode. If you are a member of the club, of course you can continue listening to part two in the member zone. All better yet by your private RSS feed in your favorite podcast player. Don't forget. If you're not a member yet, you can join today.
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