You may have heard me talk in the past about how marketing is like laundry. Just as soon as you feel like you have finally gotten it done, there's more on the horizon. And that is a perpetual cycle in our photography businesses, basically until we no longer want clients. And so, you know, it's one of those things where you kind of have to make peace with it, settle in and kind of get into a groove. But sometimes that groove starts to feel like
a rut. And when that happens, my favorite thing to do is go out into the world and find new voices, new perspectives and new ideas about marketing, which leads me to today's guest Rachel Traxler is a photographer based in Wisconsin. She is the host of her own podcast and an amazing sort of fresh perspective on all things marketing. And the thing that really stood out to me when Rachel reached out was her suggestion that we need to be moving away from relying so
heavily on social media. This is something that I absolutely believe. It's something that I practice in my own business, but I think that it's a more nuanced conversation, and so I'm really excited to bring Rachel on the show and share with you her ideas about how to build a lead generating machine that doesn't rely on social media for those leads. Welcome to this can't be that hard. My name is Annemie Tonken and I help photographers run profitable, sustainable
businesses that they love. Each week on the podcast, I cover simple, actionable strategies and systems that photographers at every level of experience can use to earn more money in a more sustainable way. Running a photography business doesn't have to be that hard. You can do it, and I can show you how. Rachel Traxler, welcome to this can't be that hard. I'm so happy to have you on the show. How are you today?
I'm great. I'm so excited to be here. This is gonna be a fun one today.
It is gonna be a fun one. And I am just grateful to be inside having cozy conversations on what is a very cold day here, and sounds like an even colder day there. What did you say the temperature was? Yeah, it's
like it was just negative 17 here in Wisconsin, just like wild. My internet is out, my card wouldn't start, my nanny's car wouldn't start. It's quite the little freezing adventure we have right here now,
yeah, Indeed, indeed, it's not quite that cold here, but it is a snow day, so my kids are home and everything is wild. Well, let's just go ahead and dive right in. I would love for you to introduce yourself and and then we could just kind of pick it up from there and and dive right in.
Yeah. So my name is Rachel tratzer. I am a wedding photographer. I've been doing weddings, shooting weddings, for 13 years now. And I'm also a photography business coach. And I also am a host of my own podcast, the gold biz podcast, so kind of dabbling into all the things there as well.
Love it. I feel like it's certainly not the path for everyone, but when I come across people who have a similar path to mine, it's always kind of fun to connect. Because as creative people, we get excited by a lot of different things, and these are all sort of creative avenues. Tell me how, like, long you've had your podcast, because that is actually something that I don't know. I've
had that since, like, the end of 2020. Early 2021. Is when I launched it. So, gosh, four year over four years now, which is crazy.
Yeah, yeah, that is that's amazing. I know that everyone is keen to hear about our general stories, but really, what they're here for is what you are talking about today, and I am here for it too. You are sharing, you know, ways to connect with people outside of social media, which more and more I feel like, with everything going on with Tiktok. And, you know, it's the whole like, how do I grow my audience without relying on some sort of algorithm? So, where do you want
to start? There's so much to talk about here.
There is a lot to talk about. And I think it's not necessarily like, oh, grow. But also I think you can just run your business. You know, also, I kind of want a preference too, that, like social media in general is such a blessing in our business. I think a lot of people kind of forget that and get, like, really frustrated with it, or I'm like, I'm not growing, I'm not getting followers, I'm not getting visibility, and all of
those things. But it really, instead of like, falling victim to the algorithm, just kind of knowing, like it is a huge blessing, like it's a free advertising tool for our business. So I'm not saying it's not important, because it totally is. I think it's great. But I just also think there's so many other ways to grow your business, outside of social media, like right now I'm doing
a little like Tiktok. Challenge, like series on Tiktok, of like, my journey to my next 50 inquiries, and what that looks like like when they're coming in, where they're coming from, if I'm converting them, and all of those things and and I'm just really keeping, like, a close eye and tracking those, and Instagram is like, third or fourth on my list, and which is kind of nice, because then it's like, yeah, I don't know. I don't have to spend so much
energy into it. And things kind of switch around a little bit. So just having other options, I think, in your back pocket that will bring in inquiries without relying on social media, are just, it's like, kind of key,
yeah. And so where, where does one begin? Like, how I feel? Like, that is the thing. Once social media came on the scene, which has been a long time now, it was almost like all the marketing strategies and ideas that people were using for decades prior to that kind of went out the window, and everybody's attention turned straight to social media. So now it's almost become so much of a crutch that people are like, well, then if, if not that, what, what, yeah.
And I think that's such a good point that you made too, because I think people's attention spans are so short that they kind of forget about like the funnel that they're bringing like their potential clients to and like their audience too. So I think like building your funnels for speed, because our attention
spans are so so short. And just like making that buyer process and journey like faster and quicker, you know what I mean, or not only that, but like, create like in that time to like creating more conversation and like connection within that too, because a lot of people, they want connection, and I think like having that connection helps with, like, obviously conversion and stuff more, but I think ultimately, like building funnels for speed, because I think a lot of people are like,
Okay, here's this, but then if they reach out to me on Instagram, okay, then go fill out my contact form and, like, go do this, or like, asking all these questions before, just like getting someone into your inbox, or Like, getting them on a call, or just like, I don't know, as I audit things and do things for people, I'm like, this process is so long, like, no wonder you're losing people. Or, like, and it depends. People fall off at different places.
Are they falling off before they even fill out your inquiry form? Are they falling off after they fill out your inquiry form? Are they falling off after they send after you send their pricing after the phone call. Like, there's different places that people are falling off for
different reasons. And so I think when you can, like, look at your funnel as a whole, and how can you, like, build your funnel for speed, I think that that kind of helps too, but it also it depends, because there's different, like, buyer types. And I think a piece that a lot of people miss out on is speaking to like creating content and speaking to all three, like different buyer
types. And because it's like, typically, we tend to create content or speak to the buyer type that we are, that we kind of forget that well, people purchase from different places, and there's different buyer types that way. And then I also think people forget and or just don't do. Not even forget. They just don't do. They don't have, like, different levels of lead generation. They kind of maybe pick one, so maybe Instagram,
for example. So they are only doing Instagram, and then with their copy and conversion and messaging and marketing, they're only speaking to one buyer type, instead of having like, three different levels of lead generation strategies and then speaking to the three different buyer types within those three levels, like that's just going to be helping getting more inquiries in your inbox, more consistently, more effortly, when you are kind of like dispersing and doing all those
things all at once. If that makes any sense,
yeah, it totally does. But I want to pause and sort of break that down for people. When you talk about three buyer types and three kinds of levels, I actually it's funny, because I have talked about this before, and I think about it as four. So I'm dying to hear what your three are in those, in those two directions, yeah,
and I know everyone kind of has their own, like, I've seen other people say that their own buyer types. Sure, these are just ones that I've created that I've noticed from, like my own audience and like my own like clients, I guess. So number one is like the dreamer buyer. And I think of that one as someone who's like, comes to me and been like, I have had you plan as my wedding photographer since I was 16.
Like, I knew, like, the second I was going to get engaged, like, you are going to be it, like, that was it. And so they need, like, less conversion. You know what? I mean? They don't need to be like, nurtured as much. And then the second one is, like the connection buyer. And so that one like they it's almost, I kind of think of it as like a hot, cold, warm audience type of thing. So like your dreamer buyer is like a really hot buyer, like your hot audience, your connection buyer is more
warm. They maybe know who you are. They've maybe seen you, maybe they're on your email. Mail list. Maybe they like and engage with their content, but they don't quite know exactly like, okay, are we actually going to book her? We know we like her, but like we need to be. We need to connect. And then after you connect them, they're just like, they're sold. And then the third one is the real aspire, which I kind of think of more like a cold audience too, that they might need more like
facts. They might want more data. They might be more like left brain thinkers, and they might be more like analytical and where I feel like as wedding photographers and potential clients, we want to kind of get them in the right brained, creative, emotional thinking space, because that's kind of where we're at as creatives. And so it's easy for us to connect with the dreamer buyers and the connection buyers, but the realest buyers maybe need a little bit more belief shifting.
And so I kind of refer to them as maybe, like a cold lead. They might need a little more, like data driven content and all of that stuff too. So like, if you think about it, like even creating content around it, maybe, like the realest buyer needs a little bit more, like data driven content, um, maybe the connection buyer needs more content. That's like, bingeable. It's like, okay, I like this blog post. Where can I see the next one? Okay, you did this? Have you shot at this wedding?
Okay, I want to see this now. And like, that way you're creating content and having funnels that, like, give them more, you know what I mean. Or even, like, Dream buyers, they want to do it as quick as possible. They don't need that. They're like, I don't need all of your details. I don't need the nitty gritty. I know I want to book usage. Where do I do it? You know what I mean? So if you create content, and when I say content, I mean, I don't just
mean on social media. I mean your blog posts, I mean your website, I mean your funnels, I mean all of those things, emails, stuff like that, that kind of highlight on all of those things. That way, if a dreamer, buyer lands on whom they can do it, if they need more info, cool. See this here, if you need to see like it's there for them, yeah, yeah, it's there for them, and then they can see it, consume it at what
feels good for them. And that's just going to help boost your conversion rate, I think overall,
yeah. And I think the hard thing about, you know, trying to create all this different content and all these different kinds of marketing is that we don't always know when someone is interacting with our online content. So your blog post, I mean, you can go and see how many people landed on there, but you don't really know who they are or what they're doing. You don't hear from you don't know anything about them until they actually reach out and
connect with you. So even though you're inviting them to do that over and over again, kind of depending to your point on what kind of buyer they are, that might be right away, but it also may be, you know, days or weeks or months into the process where they have been binging your blog posts and watching your social media content and reading your emails, and then finally they're
ready to reach out. And I think if I'm understanding you correctly, you are saying that when they do reach out, that's where we need to eliminate all that friction and just get them straight through the funnel. Because once somebody reaches out, they generally are pretty close to ready to make a decision, yeah,
and I am, I almost think you can approach this from all different areas. Like I was saying, before, is it? Is it before? And I love that what you said too, of like, they could be consuming your stuff for a while. I always say, like, the reason I think client experience is so so important is because we never know when their client experience with us starts like, right? The client experience from our end, starts when they reach out and it's like, okay, then we have control, and this is where our
experience with them starts. But their experience with us may have started five years ago when they came across a random blog post, or when they started following us on social media, so you never know when and where someone's coming in from. So I do think that's really important. And like, we are saying that funnel could be before people reach out, it could be after they reach out. It could be after the phone call. Like, these are like,
fine. Those are like, different options and different things you can look at, and just like finding the broken gaps. And so I think if you can approach it like, kind of the key to predictable like inquiries and and conversion and almost like sales funnels, is that if you can speak to all three of those buyer types in every single situation, like, through your like, through the onboarding and booking an inquiry phase, I guess,
yeah for sure. So let's pretend that I am a brand new photographer, and listening to this is giving me, you know, like a headache, just thinking about all this content that I need to create with all these different buyer types in mind. Where does somebody start. How do you intentionally grow your kind of marketing library so that you are reaching different people at these different levels?
I do think a good place to start though is just maybe pick like two or three lead generation strategies that you really want to pour in and put effort into. I always. Recommend that you have at least one or two that don't require your everyday, like, real time attention, so not Instagram, pick two to three and then really put a lot of effort into that so that you can have, like, maybe three. We'll say you have three different lead generation
strategies. Then you can look at each of those and kind of build out your funnels from there. Okay, here's the lead generation strategy I'm doing. How am I speaking to all three different buyer types within this lead generation strategy? Okay, cool. And at what point, at the when they first find me, at the inquiry phase, in the phone call phase and the booking phase, like all three of those things, and then go to the next one and
do the same thing? And so I think if you can pick two or three and just get really solid for that, I think that'd be a really good, like, easy place to start, or just not easy, but simple, like to think of it in that sense. And then as you get those down, you can start adding on more and building up more and adding those things. And that's when, like, things are just going to start rolling in for you effortlessly. So if you
had to pick your top we'll say three. I'm going to use your number three strategies outside of social media. What would they be?
I'm going to look right now because, like I said, I was running that little challenge on Tiktok of my little series of my journey to 50 inquiries. So I want to give you like real time as we are recording this like this morning. This is where I'm at. Google is my absolute is my number one. And that just means with SEO, with my blogging, with like through my website, with like keywords and stuff. I think a lot of that has to do with blogging. The second is vendor
referral. And so that could mean that from wedding planners, from the venue themselves, from other just wedding vendors. I think it's just really powerful. The third one is photographer referrals. So partnering with other photographers, and this one is really good. If, like, you want to travel, or you want to start, like, marketing into a new location, or traveling spots
like, that's really good. Or if you just want to get connected with a few people, like, within your area and industry, like, market like, that's also really powerful. So those are my top three that are bringing me in the most inquiries right now. So to me, that tells me, okay, cool. And like, I've got other ones too. The ones after that came behind that were Instagram and then Facebook. So it's like, that's actually cool to me, that my lowest ones are social media,
because guess what? They're still coming in, because I'm still showing up and I'm still there on social media, but I don't have to put so much effort and energy and thought into it, because I'm still getting inquiries other places. So that's why I feel like social media gurus being like, you should post five to seven times a week and do all these things like, no one can tell you how many times you need to post because they don't know your
lead generation. They don't know if you're what your booking goal is, what your booking rate is, where other leads are coming from. Now, on the flip side, if you were like, Yeah, I'm not getting as many inquiries at these other places, and my highest. Ones are social media right now, then you can look at building out, but then you still maybe want to put a, keep on putting a little bit effort there. But then it also tells me, okay, if I wanted a boost.
That just tells me I can get creative, and if I want to, I can give myself a boost in real time if I'm creative through social media, if I want that, but I don't have to rely on it, which is really nice,
yeah. And I think my whole thing with social media is it's great to your point, it's a free tool that we have access to, that a lot of people are on. And I do think that even if you know there are people out there who are like, I don't want to do social media, and that's obviously up to them, I do think that it can be a problem if someone is, you know, looking around for a photographer, and they find you generally speaking, they're going to turn to social to sort
of see your recent work. So it's kind of an expected platform, I think, for photographers. But if you take the approach that you don't start with social media, so that doesn't require the sort of effort where you're creating new content specifically for social but rather focus your creative energy on something like blogging or, you know,
writing emails or whatever. You can pull content from those things, those longer form pieces of content, and turn that into social media, or if you're doing a lot of like vendor networking or, and I have a lot of listeners who are not wedding photographers, so portrait photographers, so there's networking within you know, if you're a family photographer, you might be networking through
schools. If you are a birth photographer or a newborn photographer, you might be working with local, you know, birth centers, hospitals, OB, offices, those kinds of things. So networking is not limited to weddings, although it is easier with weddings, but if you're doing a lot of that in person networking, then you can be posting photos from that sort of thing. You know, here I was at the. A trade show of some kind, you know, like, wedding show,
bridal. Bridal Show. Been a long time since I was in the wedding world. So I'm it's like my my vocabulary from that has started to fade. But you know what I mean? Like, starting with that other content and then letting it filter down into social, so that your social kind of remains more like, Hey, this is kind of what I'm doing and thinking about as opposed to, I am creating this specifically for to feed the you know, algorithm beast.
Yeah. So I think it's a good idea if you wanted to put most of your effort into somewhere else, and then you can bring it over, like, focus on the conversion there, and then you can just repurpose it to social media without the pressure of conversion content. Because I think that's where a lot of people get hung up, is feeling like my content I'm creating and posting on Instagram is not converting and like the energy that they feel like they need to create
conversion content. It's like, well, then you can just be active and present. And then that way, when people see and go to your Instagram. Like, okay, well, she is present, she's active and like that is appealing to clients, for sure, right? So then that take just takes pressure off, you know,
yeah, for sure. Do you have any specific tips about as you're creating all of these things you don't want to be constantly like, you know, click here to book, click here to book. But how do you essentially ask people for the sale so that whenever they are ready, that's right there waiting for them? Yeah,
that's a good question too, because I feel like a lot of people lack call to actions, or lack strong call to actions. And again, different call to actions are going to speak differently to different buyer types. And so if you can have almost like a few different levels of visibility, that's going to lead to more bookings too, but you also have to make sure that those that's converting content, so you can have almost like different levels of content, so maybe creating like a freebie funnel.
So, like, Do you have a freebie that you can offer to your potential clients that really helps them? That would be, like a very like, low hanging fruit offer, and that's a really easy call to action and be like, hey, like, I made this for you. This is really easy and simple for
you to to see. And then maybe the next up section from there, call to action, maybe like a low ticket offer like, or a low ticket add on, maybe like, Hey, did you know I offer this for $100 or like, you can add on this for $100 that can be an offer in itself, with like, within a post or a blog post, or that can just be a simple email within your nurture phase of like, your workflow. Like that can look different. So you can add that on almost like a low
ticket offer. So that's like just one step level up, and then maybe even the next level up can just be like different forms of like lead flow, like we talked about. You can do vendor referrals. You can connect with like vendor do vendor collaborations, collaboration blog posts, SEO, do albums for people and like other vendors
and stuff like that. You can start growing your email list, like adding on different lead flows there, and so, like, each level is like a little bit different, and then that way your call to actions, you can kind of mix them up a little bit, but also it's okay to have the same call to action and just use over and over and over again, because I feel like people need to see that multiple times, and then they'll need to know, like, Oh, hey. Like, yeah, Rachel's the one that does this.
Like, oh, I've seen her post about this. I probably should just look into it, you know. So it's okay to be redundant a little bit
too, yeah. And I do think that had, I don't know, photographers in particular, get really afraid of being direct or repeating themselves too much. And my thing is always like, look, when someone is excited to work with you, you're not going to turn them off by saying, click here to purchase or click here to book a call or whatever
the call to action might be. And even if they're on the fence like they recognize you're a business and that's what they need, what they do get turned off by, or can sort of lose patience for, is when you make it hard for them to take the action that they might want to take. Don't make them work for it. To get in touch with you.
Yeah, that's such a good point, too. And I always tell people, I'm like, they're coming to you. They know you're a service based business. They know that you're charging money, like they're coming to you for a service. They know that you charge money. It's like us walking into Target and being like, Oh, that's weird. They're going to charge me for this bottle of shampoo. Like, no, we're walking in there knowing that we have to buy it to get it. And so they're coming to us
with that same mentality. So I think it's just silly for us to think, to just be, to be weird about it. I don't know. Maybe it's just because I've been doing it long enough that I'm just like, let's just talk turkey. You know what I mean? It is what it is. And it's like, I don't know. I don't think it's weird. They know that you're charging something, so it's not that weird. So yes, I totally agree with you. It is frustrating when it's just not easy and just not. Eat out at
night, right? That's when things get frustrated, right? Yeah, so don't be like,
if Target had the shampoo, but then they didn't have a checkout line anywhere. You're like, How in the world am I supposed to get out of here?
And then they're going to be like, See ya, this wasn't easy. I don't know what to do. Like, I'm not going to buy it at all. And so it's that same approach. When you're thinking about setting all this up, your call to actions, all of those things, you just want to make it easy, that kind of goes back to just making building out, like fast, you know, funnels and stuff for people
amazing. Well, there's so much good content in here that I could continue talking about this for hours and hours, but I know that you've got a lot of resources for people. Let them know where they can find you and and connect with you. Yeah. So
you can find me on Instagram, at Rachel Traxler, or my podcast, the gold biz podcast, to do a lot of like, business stuff over there. But also, just as we're talking to if you're thinking like, I don't know what other lead generation strategies to do besides just Instagram. I don't know what's going to be beneficial for me. I've got, like, a free video of 10 free lead generation strategies that you can add to
your business. So I will make sure to like, give you that link so that people can kind of watch that and kind of figure out which lead generation strategy would be best for them, perfect.
We will put it in the show notes. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. It has been lovely connecting with you. I hope you stay warm out there.
I know. Thank you too. Thank you so please. It is. This was so much fun. So thank you so much for having me. Yay. Likewise. Have
a great day. You too. That's it for this week's episode of This can't be that hard. I'll be back Same time, same place next week. If you like the show, be sure to check out. This can't be that hard.com. To explore all the resources we have for photographers. And of course, it would mean the world to me if you would leave a review of the show on iTunes or Spotify as always. Thanks so much for joining me. I hope you have a fantastic week. You.