10 Marketing Experiments

344 - If you've ever said "I've tried everything and nothing works," this episode is for you. Heather Lahtinen shares 10 simple marketing experiments and explains why the ones that don't work might matter most.

What to Listen For

• Why the point of an experiment isn't the result you think it is
• The mindset shift that makes "failure" feel like progress
• What Heather means by "there is no experiment shortage"
• Why your brain manufactures drama when things are going well
• The difference between playing to win and playing to get better
• How to text past clients without it feeling weird
• A simple way to partner with local vendors for mutual exposure
• The one question you should ask every single inquiry from now on
• Why attending one networking event could change your month
• How to create content that answers your clients' biggest booking question

Marketing doesn't have to feel like a grind. Heather's 10 experiments give you real things to try this week with zero pressure to be perfect. Give the episode a listen and pick the one that feels most doable right now.

Check out Heather's Visibility Workshop with a 90-day done-for-you marketing calendar: flourish.academy 

CONNECT + LEARN MORE:

Explore all things photography education at nicolebegleyedu.com

Ready to build a profitable photography business? Visit freedomfocusformula.com

Master the craft of pet photography at hairofthedogacademy.com

Follow along on Instagram - @nicolebegleyofficial 

Transcript

Nicole Begley (00:00)
What if I told you that nine out of ten of your marketing efforts are actually supposed to fail? This week Heather is back and she's taking over the mic here on the Freedom Focus Photography podcast and she's gonna explain why that's actually good news. She also has 10 marketing experiments that you can try this week and that reframe on failure that's gonna take so much pressure off your experiments. Are you ready? Stay tuned.

Nicole Begley (00:26)
I'm Nicole Begley, a zoological animal trainer turned pet and family photographer. Back in 2010, I embarked on my own adventure in photography, transforming a bootstrapping startup into a thriving six-figure business by 2012. Since then, my mission has been to empower photographers like you, sharing the knowledge and strategies that have helped me help thousands of photographers build their own profitable businesses. I believe that achieving $2,000 $3,000 sales is your fastest route to six-figure businesses.

that any technically proficient photographer can consistently hit four figure sales. And no matter if you want photography to be your full-time passion or a part-time pursuit, profitability is possible. If you're a portrait photographer aspiring to craft a business that aligns perfectly with the life you envision, then you're in exactly the right place. With over 350,000 downloads, welcome to the Freedom Focus Photography Podcast.

Nicole Begley (01:26)
I am going to give you 10 marketing experiments that you could try this week. But first, I have to explain how I view conducting these experiments. I am a scientist. I consider all of us as entrepreneurs to be scientists, and this is what they do. They use the scientific method in order to solve problems or challenges, overcome challenges. And the scientific method goes like this.

Essentially, you you have an issue, you need to make a guess, you need to try it out, gather some data, ask yourself did it work? Did it not work? Okay, if it worked, do more of that. But if it did not work, then go back to step one and repeat over and over again for the rest of your life. You just have to make a guess and try it out with everything in your business. Now I am applying this specifically to marketing.

But this could also apply to pricing. If you're not sure how to price your business or the structure to use, you know, digitals, IPS, packages, a la car, etc., you could, you probably should, just make a guess, try it out, conduct a bunch of experiments, see what works, and then over time you will start to form the pricing that works for you and for your clients.

But there's a really important nuance that you need to know about the scientific method. Do you know the point of the experiment itself? Like, why are you doing it? I think most of us would answer that is, well, we want to get the result. We want to figure out what works and we want to do that. That is the point of the experiment. But I don't, I don't think that's the goal. I, in fact, I want to argue the opposite.

You want it to work because you want to win. But actually, the reason you experiment is for the next experiment. It's so that you can gather information and the next guess that you make, it will be better and it will be closer to getting you results. Every experiment you try is for the next experiment. And here's why this is really important. If you think that your experiment

should work and give you the result that you want right away, you will be disappointed because it that's not how it plays out. And you will always be thinking, well, this should work, but it isn't. And then you just feel frustrated and defeated. But here's the thing nine out of ten of my experiments, they fail. Therefore, I actually expect them to fail. And because of that expectation, I don't feel disappointed.

Every once in a while a little bit defeated, but not really, because the experiment I'm conducting right now, I know is for the next experiment. So I say to myself, and you know what? I think this is even more important. I say to myself, Heather, this remember, you will never run out of experiments. There is no experiment shortage. And here's why I want you to really lean into that. Because the default of position of your brain.

will be to try something and then say that didn't work and then try something else that didn't work. And then you start saying, nothing is working. There's nothing else I could do. You you say to me, Heather, I've tried everything and I know it feels that way, but you haven't. And the reason I know you haven't is because it hasn't worked yet and there's no experiment shortage. So every time I experiment,

And I start to feel kind of down, I just remind myself, I will never run out of experiments. There's always a next experiment. There's always something else that I could be trying. And when you're playing the game, the game of entrepreneurship, you are not playing just to win. You are playing to become a better player. That is what it's like in sports and in entrepreneurship. And you know what? Typically,

The best players, they practice a lot. So if you want to get really good at running your business, then you need to lean into these experiments. View yourself as a scientist experimenting all of the time. It's fun to gather data, to get better, to refine your skills, to know that you are practicing a lot so that your business will get.

Better, faster, easier. You're still gonna have your brain, you're still gonna have challenges, but you'll just get better managing your mind around the perceived failures, the experiments that don't work. Nine out of ten times. I was talking with a client this morning about this concept, and I said, Really, what you're looking for is an optimized challenge in the pursuit of making you better.

Cause if you got everything you wanted right when you wanted it, it would not be good for the future expanded version of you. That version of you needs you to not get what you want right now, today, so that you can improve your skill set so that you are forced to practice. I often say this about million dollar Heather. She does not need me to win all of the time.

At the experiments I am currently conducting. In fact, that version of me, she needs me to struggle, to practice, to experiment so that I can get to that version faster. In other words, if everything worked right out of the gate and I did not improve my skill set, I believe that getting to my million dollar version would actually be extended. It would take

longer because I wouldn't be building the skill set. So I'm going to say this again. That version of me needs me right now to not get what I want so that I can improve my skill set. These are challenges, like we're going to face challenges and obstacles. That's a given and it will be painful.

But if we view it this way, we are optimizing them, which is what I said a minute ago. Optimized challenge in the pursuit of making you better. You were built to solve problems and work through obstacles. I promise you do not want it to be easy. You don't want all of your experiments to work. And you know how I know with absolute certainty.

That you were made to solve problems? Because if you didn't have any, your brain would invent them. Have you ever had a time in your life or your business, albeit brief, where things were working well or there weren't any major challenges? And then all of a sudden your brain started to manufacture drama or issues. You're like, what is going on? Why, why do we self sabotage this way?

And that is because the brain wants to invent problems for you to solve because that's what it was built to do. The pathway to success is a set of interesting problems to solve. Interesting experiments to execute and to solve and to repeat. So if you thought of yourself like a scientist, truly, you said you, you know, like you could.

Metaphorically, put on your lab coat and your safety glasses, maybe even your hard hat to protect your brain. But if you viewed yourself this way and every day when you were working on your business, you just thought, okay, what experiment can I try today? This is gonna be fun. I don't need it to work out for me. In fact, I probably don't want it to, because I need the lessons that go along with the failure. If I know that nine out of ten of them are not going to work the way

I anticipated, then it's just okay. They just don't. You're like, shoot, okay. Well, what did I learn? What's next? Repeat, repeat, repeat. And it doesn't have to be a problem. And you could actually look forward to it. Imagine how your life and business would change if you were excited and future focused all of the time, no matter how many times you're falling on your face, versus feeling awful all the time about nothing working.

One of those methodologies is going to get you to your results faster. And I'll let you guess which one. That being said, I promised that I would include 10 marketing experiments to try. But before I do that, if you haven't already, make sure you check out the visibility workshop where I share a 90-day done for you calendar along with countless experiments that you could try.

There are videos that cover all of those things. And then there are separate coaching videos so you can see what other photographers are trying, you know, their experiments, where they're failing, where they're succeeding, etc. If you just go to flourish.academy on the interwebs, you will see the visibility workshop. You should definitely check it out. Okay, as I share these 10 experiments, I just want you to watch your brain because I can I can predict already.

There are going to be several of these right out of the gate that you're like, yep, nope, that won't work for me. Not gonna do that one, Heather. Sorry, next. And that's okay. You get to decide, but what if it was just an experiment and then you didn't need it to work? interesting thought. Okay, because some of you aren't even going to explore, number one, which is to attend one local networking event and talk to 10 people. Just talk to people.

Tell each one of those people that you're a photographer. Just interact with the human race. Number two, text 10 past clients this week just to check in. Number three, ask your last five clients for a referral directly. Number four, show up at a local farmer's market or community event, bring your camera, take photos. And then, guess what? Just talk to some people. Talk to them and tell them what you do. Number five.

Partner with one complimentary vendor in your niche and offer to photograph something for them that they could use. Number six, reach out to a local real estate agent and offer free session to photograph a listing so that you can meet people. Okay. Listen, that's not one of my favorite ones. I've not seen a ton of results from that. However, there are some people, photographers, that have really made that work for them. So it's a possibility. Number seven.

Introduce yourself to three local vendors in person this week, not virtually. Go to their actual place of business and just say hello and talk to them. Number eight, email your past clients an exclusive first access offer for your next session type before you publicize it. Number nine, ask every inquiry this month how they heard about you.

Ask how about this? Ask every inquiry always how they heard about you and how they found you. And then track every single one of those so that you can start to see patterns. And number 10, create one piece of content that answers the number one question your clients always ask before booking and then post it and talk about it. Of course there are some of these that are not a good fit and won't work for you.

And that's fine, but pick a few that would work or that you could execute and just go experiment with it and keep it very light and fun. I think the attachment is the problem. Like I'm gonna go do this thing. Is it gonna be worth my time? my goodness, what if I meet people and they reject me or they don't book? Or what if they do book? and just like you know, your brain just spirals in about 55,000 different directions.

I would I would just encourage you to just lighten up. I'm just conducting an experiment. I'm gonna see if this works. And I get to decide what I do and when I do it and how often I do it. But I think I think this light hearted approach and attitude is really beneficial. First, because it feels better. And second, I think it's gonna work better. I think you're going to be more inclined to talk to more people and you're going to get better results.

Make sure you check out that visibility workshop. Just go to flourish.academy and you'll find it. I hope that you found this useful. I'll see you in the next episode.