As photographers, we all want to be booked out with a full calendar, work with our dream couples, and get paid at our highest packages, but client experience is truly one of the most important things that will set your business apart from the many photographers your potential couple is inquiring with. If you think of client experience as sending a questionnaire, a guide, simply giving a gift, receiving reviews, or making sure your couple remembers how you made them feel, then there’s so much more to client experience than that.
In this episode of All Angles Photography Podcast, I’ll be touching on 2 important reasons you should care about client experience from a before-booking perspective. Meaning before a couple inquires with you, your client experience could be impacting the number of inquiries you have coming in or that you’re converting into bookings. Tune into this short and actionable episode or keep reading below.
Client experience is much more than just sending a guide or giving a gift. Most education around client experience is for after they’ve worked with you. While that’s important and it is client experience, right now we are in engagement season. More couples are getting engaged now than ever and they’re starting to plan their weddings for the next year and beyond.
What does client experience have to do with this, you may be asking? Client experience starts from the moment they come across your brand and it has a deeper impact on your business success than you probably know or have ever thought about.
When couples are looking for a photographer, they’re wanting to understand what it would be like to work with you. From the types of photos they’re seeing, to how easy it is to click through your website, to how organized you are, to how quickly you respond. If you’re lacking inquiries and bookings, or you’re being told constantly that you’re out of budget, it could be that you’re not communicating the value of your experience and connecting with the pain points they need help with.
If you ask a couple, “What are your pain points?” They’re probably going to have no idea. But if they can get through your website easily, find starting pricing, view galleries to see how you photograph indoor vs. outdoor vs. reception flash, all of those things are some examples of client experience before they inquire. You want every piece of your marketing to communicate the value you offer, connect with their pain points, and address their questions before they know they have them.
If you’ve been listening to the podcast or diving into any of my education, you know I’m all about tangible and actionable tips. This episode is more focused on the importance so if you’re looking for 3 things to improve for your client experience go back to episode 2. I do have a couple of questions I want to ask you though in the spirit of figuring out why you may be low on inquiries and bookings from a client experience standpoint.
After answering these questions, do a marketing and website audit and look at your content. Ask yourself if you’re addressing pain points, answering questions your potential couples have, and make sure you’re communicating the value you bring and what makes you stand out from the crowd. It could be that you’re not communicating enough about your experience and why couples should book with you over someone else in the first place.
Obviously, you don’t want to lay it out as simple as what I just shared, so saying things like, “You deserve a photographer who xyz”, or “You know you have no idea where to start with XYZ”. Then from there, you can share value and education around their pain points.
Many times photographers get started out and we think we’re just going to be taking photos, editing, and delivering a gallery. I get it, I’ve been there too. I quickly realized it was so much more than just photography and maybe you relate to that too. It’s easy to become overwhelmed and feel lost on how to grow. If you don’t have the next steps laid out clearly in front of you, then it can feel like a guessing game. Let’s say you relate and you have no idea where to start and people tell you currently that you’re out of budget, there’s some work that we can do, my friend.
When my students want to raise their prices, it makes sense after going through my coaching program, Book It. They work on mastering the foundations of their businesses, like who they actually want to work with, how to find or perfect their style, how to market with a strategy, how to build a website that converts, and so much more. Then after they have the foundational pieces of their business set in stone, they can move on to improving their client experience and organization, so this creates more value behind their services where they’re justified to raise their prices.
If this sounds like something that could serve you in this season of your business, I would love for you to apply to the coaching program. Whenever it comes to pricing, you want to be sure you’re sharing on your marketing channels and website the value that’s behind the price point you have set. Some of my students may be priced higher (which I am too) and the reason for this is because of the shooting experience we have, the client experience we give, and the education we invest in. So at the end of the day, when it comes to raising your pricing or charging higher pricing than most people in your area, your client experience and how you communicate that value that you bring is so important. This will ensure couples don’t bat an eye but they’ll understand why your pricing is the way it is.
If you can master the foundations of your business and create an organized and streamlined client experience from before booking to during working with you to after the event that’s how you’ll be able to convert more of your inquiries into bookings.
Lastly, I just want to leave you with some encouragement. Our client experience should always be evolving and growing the more that we’re in business, so there are a lot of things you can do to improve it. Specifically, if you’re listening to this and you’re struggling to get more inquiries and bookings and raise your prices to where they really need to be or where you want them, then I hope this episode served you right where you’re at.
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