6 Videos you can create to book more photography clients

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Reels for Photographers

In this episode of How You Pictured It, I’m talking about 6 videos you can create to book more photography clients. These are easiest to create as TikToks or Instagram Reels but you can translate these ideas into video content for your website or other social channels as well. You can even repurpose the actual reel to be used on your website as mentioned in this episode. I get into the important marketing concept of the customer journey and meeting clients where they are at. Each of the video content ideas discussed has a purpose and meets clients along all parts of their journey.

The 6 Videos are:

1. Behind-the-scenes

2. Which one is your favorite?

3. What to expect from a session

4. What to wear

5. How to display photos

6. Meet the photographer

Hotshoe Phone Mount: https://amzn.to/3D5i18s

About Kate Hejde

Kate Hejde is the host and creator of How You Pictured It Podcast and Dear Kate Brand Strategy. She helps photographers create a profitable business that fits into their lives. With over 10 years of experience running her own photography business, while raising three kids, Kate believes that business is not one size fits all and that you define your own success.  Kate teaches through her podcast as well as through course, group coaching, and 1:1 mentoring. 

Check out Kate Online: Website | Instagram | Tiktok | Pinterest

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Full Transcript

Today we’re talking about some easy ways that you can use video in your marketing efforts for your photography business. More and more social media platforms are pushing us towards video, and I know as photographers, that doesn’t always feel natural or easy. You probably see tons of reels rolling through your Instagram feeds, and maybe you’re on Tik TOK too. Even on Facebook, we’re seeing more reels being pushed towards us.

Besides social media, Google search results even favor websites with video. So how can we create video content for our viewers and our audience without feeling cheesy and fake?

I’m not wanting to be dancing and doing a bunch of pointing to things on my screen.

It just doesn’t feel natural to me.

? ? ? But I do know that I have a lot to say and a lot of things that could help my audience, and by putting them on video, it makes it easier for them to absorb.

We also don’t want to create content just for content’s sake.

Each of the ideas that I’m sharing today has a purpose, and everything you post should have a purpose. Always start with why you’re posting. And that will guide you into what type of content is best and what you need to say.

With all marketing, we have to really think through the customer journey and meet our clients where they’re at.

Some people will know that they need some way to capture what’s happening in their lives and save those memories. They might not know that that’s a photographer just yet. Those people are problem aware but not solution aware.

When someone is solution aware, they know that a photographer is the way to capture those memories.

And then when you move to someone who is brand aware,

they know that a photographer is what they need and you’re the one that they need.

These videos that I’m going to talk about today will hit clients at all stages of that journey. So let’s start out with a few simple ideas that you can use in your photography business to get going with video. The first one is going to be a behind the scenes video. This is super easy to do, even though it may sound more complicated at first. I have just a little phone mount that sits on top of my camera in the hot shoe,

and I’ll put the link to that in the show notes for you, but it makes it so that I can record video with my cell phone while I’m shooting. So the viewer of this video gets to see what is happening in the moment and then what the still photos will be like at the end.

With family photography, I think a lot of moms think that their kids are not going to behave and it’s going to be chaos and there’s no way good pictures can come out of that. With a behind the scenes video like this, you can show them that from chaos comes that beauty.

No kids are sitting still smiling, perfectly and acting like little angels for photos. At least not in my experience.

I love that this type of video gives people that behind the scenes look into what it really is like at a family session.

Another way I record video is with my phone mounted on a tripod.

I use this more in the studio, or if I’m shooting in one single location outdoors because it’s something that I can set up before my clients even get there.

With all of these behind the scenes videos, though, I do ask permission from my clients before I start recording.

The videos I record with the tripod are great because they show me interacting with my clients. They show me in the frame and how I work to get the photos that you’re seeing in the end.

Another behind the scenes option is to show your setup before your clients even get there.

With newborn photography people don’t have any idea what goes into shooting those images and what their baby is even laying on.

This sneak peek into the studio can give people a lot of confidence in hiring you.

Lastly for behind the scenes footage, sometimes I’ll just pan over, say, a baby that is about to fall asleep or that I’m just waiting to settle into a pose.

People love seeing videos of babies and their feed. With all of this behind the scenes footage, you only need clips that are a few seconds long. You can string them together or put one video clip and then some of the final images after it into a real.

Add some music and a great call to action and you’ll have engagement and new viewers on your social media profiles in no time.

Alright, video number two that you can create is super simple. It’s actually not even a video at all. You’re just going to take some images that you’ve shot and put them together. I’d suggest either putting a black and white in the color of the same image and asking which one people prefer,

or you could do a string of similar shots and number each slide asking “which one is your favorite?”, as a call to action. Both of these are super simple, but get great engagement and interaction.

For number three, I would suggest doing this one face to camera. It’s going to be a, “what to expect from a session”.

You can layer in some final images and some behind the scenes footage with this but ideally, you’re just talking to your ideal client, telling them what to expect when they book with you.

You’re going to walk them through the process and I would simplify it as much as possible. Talk about how step number one is to email you, step number two is to pick a date, step number three, we’re going to meet and shoot, step number four is when you get your final images back and just simplify all of that and talk about how you help them and what you do for them that is special.

I’ve done this for my newborn sessions before and it was a super useful video

that I was then also able to put on my website in my FAQ’s.

This is one of those places where people don’t know what they don’t know.

So you have to tell them exactly what to expect and how things will happen with a photography session. Sometimes they’ve never booked one before and they really have no clue where to even start.

Video number four is for those that are solution aware. This is for clients who know that they want a photo session, but they have some stumbling blocks in booking a photographer.

Mainly they don’t know what to wear.

So for this video, we’re going to create a, what to wear guide.

I’ve done this by going into the store and picking out outfits that I think coordinate together and showing why I would put those together and how I build a family wardrobe for photos from start to finish.

I’ve also done this with pulling items from our own closets to show that you don’t have to buy new clothes for a photo session. If you’re going into a store shopping, you might feel awkward recording video there. For this one, I just recorded the video of the clothes and then when I got out of the store, I recorded a voiceover to go over it and explain what I was looking at and why I was choosing the pieces I was choosing.

You could also do a “what to wear” with images from the internet of clothes,

or you could show some family images that you’ve taken and why their outfits are great and what you would suggest to kind of mimic that.

Video number five is also for those that are solution aware. For this one, we’re going to do a “how to display photos”. You can show a variety of gallery walls or places that photos have been hung. This is awesome if you can get clients to send you images of how they’ve used their images.

Or you could use software to create gallery walls and show those. You could also do something that shows how to actually hang photos and level them. This kind of content shows you as the expert and makes it again easier for clients to book with you.

And lastly, video number six is a “meet the photographer” video.

This is basically your about me page, but turned into a video.

You can do some slide, show images, you can talk, you can do really a whole variety of things, but this video is to introduce yourself to potential clients. Let them know things that you might have in common with them and let them know how you can help them.

People buy from people, and this is one way that you can show the person behind your business.

So which video are you going to make first?

I’d love to see what you create. Tag me at dear Kate brand strategy in whatever reel you make.

If you found this episode of how you pictured it, helpful, I’d love for you to share with friends, take a screenshot and sharing your stories or anywhere on social media and tag me at dear Kate brand strategy. I’ll see you next week.