Free Exposure to Grow Your Photography Business with Tracy Beavers

Pat Miller: 00:00

I'm Pat Miller, and this is The Professional Photographer Podcast. Who likes to spend money on ads? Not me, and I'm sure not you. What if you could have a flood of visibility for your business without spending any money? Now if you've been around social media and digital marketing like I have for a long time, I mean, heck, I'm old enough that I was there at the beginning. You've seen the algorithms and other methodologies make it tougher and tougher to organically get in front of your ideal clients. So many people have had to turn to advertising. It's starting to get expensive. And I've heard for some, the results are getting worse and worse. So what if someone could come on this screen and teach you how to get in front of your ideal clients and get visibility for your photography studio for free? That's what we're doing today. Tracy Beavers, friend of the program, expert on visibility without spending a dime, she's with us today to talk about Facebook groups and your Facebook profile. In fact, I'll bet you a dollar that you're using your Facebook profile incorrectly. She's gonna share a strategy that makes you go, "That makes so much sense. I can't believe that I didn't do that already." We'll also talk about your email list, how it's so critically important to your business, and what you do once you build it up. Are you ready for visibility for nothing? I know I am. Let's welcome Tracy Beavers. Tracy, welcome to The Professional Photographer Podcast. How are you today?

Tracy Beavers: 01:43

Thank you so much, Pat. It's great to be with you. I am doing very well. Thanks.

Pat Miller: 01:47

Okay. We get to learn from you today. So not only does everyone get to meet you and know that you're super cool like I do, but we also get a chance to learn from you. If someone hasn't had the chance to learn about how you teach, give them the overview of what you do and what you teach people.

Tracy Beavers: 02:03

Sure. So I am Tracy Beavers. I'm a business and sales coach from Little Rock, Arkansas. And my forte, for my business, has evolved over the years into helping online entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants, and course creators gain massive visibility online and grow their email list so they get that income that they really want. And what I've discovered is that it's beyond just online entrepreneurs because every business needs to have an email list. Every business needs to have visibility. Every business needs to be able to get in touch with their people, their clients, and their prospects. And so, it's been kind of exciting. It's a wild ride. It's just sort of rippled on out.

Pat Miller: 02:43

You ask the average photographer that's watching this, they might say, "Wait a minute, Business visibility without having to advertise? Yeah. Come on, Tracy. That's not really possible, is it?"

Tracy Beavers: 02:52

No. It is. Au contraire mon frere.

Pat Miller: 02:56

So let's start with the big picture. Where are some of the big areas that we can look for visibility that we don't have to pay for? Because I think everybody's really tired of paying for ads.

Tracy Beavers: 03:06

Yeah. Ads are just, I mean, okay. My personal experience with ads: I've run ads twice in my career, both times thousands and thousands. I think probably all total, it was a $10,000 waste. I gained leads, but the leads were super expensive, and they didn't stay on my list. So they ended up not converting. So for some people, ads are a home run.

Tracy Beavers: 03:28

They get inexpensive leads, the leads stick around, and it's a great combo. But there are, in my mind, I'm thinking, why don't we exhaust all of the free organic ways we can grow a business before we start throwing money at something? And so because of the failure of the paid ads for me, I went back to the drawing board of, okay, I'm scrappy, I'm creative, I had an award winning sales career in corporate, I know how to grow businesses, How do I do this in the online space? And so, one of the biggest marketing tools we have is one that a lot of people have a very love-hate relationship with, and that's Facebook. You say the word Facebook and you either get a [makes sounds]. But the reality is, it for me, you know, I like it because I can keep in touch with my college friends and people from my life, and I don't have to get on the phone for three hours and catch up, or mail photographs back and forth in the mail. But, for me, I look at Facebook as a massive marketing tool for my business, and I'm gonna use every nook and cranny of that platform. And I'm going to have strategies in place where I can appear that I am everywhere all the time, but I'm not. And people are–my ideal clients who are attracted to me and my messaging and to my email list. The goal is to get them off the online space and onto something that I own, which is my email list.

Pat Miller: 04:53

That is exciting. And then we have it to use forever. We're gonna talk about email in a second. But start us on Facebook because I think everyone's been there. Some people have turned their back on Facebook. But if we're gonna reinvest or do a better job if we're already there.

Tracy Beavers: 05:07

Right.

Pat Miller: 05:08

Where do we begin with Facebook?

Tracy Beavers: 05:09

The very basic thing that I teach about Facebook before you try to do anything else, before you even think about creating social media content for Facebook or for any platform, I want you to have your social media profile fully dialed in where if somebody meets you in person at a chamber event or something like that around town, or you happen to be in a Facebook group with somebody, because Facebook groups are another strategy I teach. That's a great way to get visibility and attract people to you without ever having to promote anything. But before you do those things, you've gotta make sure that you're what I'm starting to call the business card of Facebook. Because when somebody wants to go find you on social media, they're gonna go look you up. Your Facebook personal profile is what they're gonna find first. And if that thing doesn't say who you are, who you serve, how you serve them, and it doesn't have the entire menu of you, meaning all of the ways people could follow you, connect with you, find you, ask you a question, what have you, you have a major gap, a major leak in your visibility and marketing strategy because nobody's gonna stick around to try to solve the mystery of, okay, I met Tracy Beavers at a a rotary thing and, you know, I've heard she's this amazing photographer and I go look her up and there's no information there. Honestly, it's just not very professional. If you're a serious CEO with a legit business, we've gotta be proud of it, and we've gotta make it easy on people to know exactly who we are. And also, I teach to turn that into a list growth funnel. By the way you use the cover photo. So that's a foundational piece. You've got to have that dialed in first before you start trying to go all in on social media content, go into Facebook groups, or use anything else on that platform.

Pat Miller: 06:53

This is the home base. I wanna ask about the cover photo in a second. But if someone's using Facebook now just to keep in touch with college friends or talk to their grand kids or something like that, making their personal profile a business card.

Tracy Beavers: 07:05

Yeah.

Pat Miller: 07:06

What if they feel kinda weird about that thinking? Wait a minute. This is for my family and friends. I gotta turn this into a business card. How do you talk them through that?

Tracy Beavers: 07:13

Yeah. So there are a couple of different ways you can do it. When I started teaching this method, Facebook allowed one personal profile. Now they will allow a couple of different ones. So you could, if you wanted to, create a separate personal profile for your business. However, when somebody's searching for you, which one are they gonna land on? It gets a little messy. I like to keep things simple. I like to build with ease, and for me, it is one personal profile. That's it. But I understand that. I get that question a lot. And what I come back to is I'm a whole person. I'm a wife, I'm a mom, I'm a dog mom, I'm a sister, I'm a neighbor, I'm a friend, I'm a daughter, I'm an entrepreneur. And those people don't pay my bills. And so I am going to use that platform to its fullest extent to attract my ideal clients. That's my focus. I post pictures about our family. I post pictures about our dog. There are ways that if you want to keep that private, you still can. You can control who sees what when you post it in your feed. But what I'm talking about is letting the world know on that cover photo, your photograph, your intro section underneath your photograph, and then your links to your about and contact and basic information section. Letting the world know exactly what you do. I'll give you a real quick example of this. One of my clients, Tracy Goodwin, has a private practice in Cape Cod. She helps parents of newly diagnosed kids navigate their new diagnosis of ADHD, love their brain, navigate school, all the things. And she and her business partner wanted to come into the online space, and they hired me to help them. And she was resistant to use her personal profile, and so I let that go because I've got other strategies I can teach you. But I think I finally wore her down because she said, okay, fine, I'm tired of you talking about it; I'm going to do it; if it stinks and I hate it, I'm shutting it down in thirty days. I said deal. So we maxed that thing out, Pat. Within one week, she had referrals coming in because people in her life kinda knew what she did, but they did not know what she did. And they certainly didn't know how to truly–unless they had her cell phone number; most of them don't. So she was getting referrals from people who were like, Tracy, I'm so sorry. I had no idea the depth of what you offer, and you know, I've got a parent you need to connect with. So, anyway, I mean, that's the power of it, really.

Pat Miller: 09:32

Yeah. Before we go on to groups, let's talk about cover photos just for a second. You dropped a little tasty nugget, but didn't elaborate. What do you mean use our cover photo? Like, that sounds interesting.

Tracy Beavers: 09:41

Yeah. So the cover photo is in the shape of a billboard. And so let's use this billboard to our advantage. And what I want you to showcase here is something that leads to your email list. So for me, when somebody sees my personal profile, most of the time, unless I'm in the launch of one of my programs, you're gonna see me showcase my free Facebook group because I help online entrepreneurs primarily and they want a Facebook group where they can get support, they can promote any time, they can be encouraged to set coffee chats, and the rules are not so strict they don't feel like they can move around. Plus, I offer list growth and visibility, and they're looking for that as well. So on my cover photo, I'm gonna say something very hooky about come in to join my free Facebook group, what's in it for them to do it, and when they click on that cover photo in the description box that opens up, that's a little known secret–secret sauce here–that's where I can put the hyperlink. I can put the what's in it for them to join my group, and I can put the hyperlink. So in terms of being a photographer, for example, if you are a photographer that photographs families, that's your jam, that's your specialty. So you could showcase something on that cover photo. Top 10 things to consider when hiring a photographer for your family or the top five things you need to remember to bring to the photo shoot for your family. Or you know, the top eight tips to get your kids to cooperate and wear the clothes you want to wear in the photo shoot, right? And so you showcase that there, and if you have a click here, or because that cover photo is just a static graphic. You can put a hyperlink on it, but it's not a hot hyperlink. But when you click on that cover photo, there's a description box that opens up. You can put your information and your hyperlink there. So when somebody lands there and they go, oh, my stars, Tracy's a photographer. I need a family photographer. She's gonna tell me how to wrangle my toddlers into the clothes I want them to wear. I'm grabbing that thing, and I land on your email list. And that's when the relationship truly starts.

Pat Miller: 11:33

We're filling up notebook pages listening to you. This is awesome stuff. Let's move on to Facebook groups because it's another big way to use Facebook. And we are a local photographer, and we're going to find a Facebook group. Where do we find our ideal clients and how do we drive Facebook groups?

Tracy Beavers: 11:50

So I want you to visualize your ideal client. Who are they? What do they want? What are they interested in? Where are you likely to find them? A really easy example is the family photographer again. Moms. Moms usually make the decision in the family photographer. So it is very likely that you have Facebook groups of moms that are local to you. We do here in Little Rock. We have Little Rock Power Moms. We have, even ones where there's female entrepreneurs. A lot of them are moms. We have Central Arkansas Entrepreneurs Connect or something or other. So search Facebook groups for your local area. And if your local area is called something like Downtown North Little Rock is called Argenta. You might wanna search the word Argenta in addition to North Little Rock. So think through what are the names of the geographic areas that are close to you. And then look for keywords like mom, women, female, and see what pops up. Now when it comes to groups, if you're just starting out with this strategy, don't make the same mistake that I did. Be better than me. I am an overachiever. I listed, like, 10 groups I wanted to be in. And by the time the first week of it was over, I about lost my mind, and I thought this was the dumbest thing I've ever done. So pick, like, two to three max, groups to go into and just get the lay of the land. Finding Facebook groups to be in is a lot like trying on clothes. You go into the store, you pick a whole bunch of stuff off the rack, you go in, you try it on, you see how it works, and then you decide if you wanna buy it or not. Same thing with a group. You gotta get in there, you gotta try it on, you gotta move around in it, you gotta get the lay of the land, and then decide if it's the right vibe for you. If it's a group full of Negative Nellies and all they're doing is griping about being a mom and how hard it is, I'm out of there. Not sticking around. And so what you wanna do in these groups is very simple. If you do nothing else besides join the group and lurk, you are gonna have a bird's eye view of your ideal clients. You're gonna know what they're saying. How are they feeling about their family photo shoot? What are the questions they're asking? Anybody know a photographer? Anybody know how I could get my kids to wear the clothes I want them to wear? And that's gonna tell you what messaging is gonna attract those people to you when you can solve that problem for them. So even if you don't do anything other than join, you're gonna have great market research. Then, what I want you to do is interact, and all you have to do is be a warm, kind human being that wants to help other warm, kind human beings. We're not selling anything. We're not promoting anything because a lot of these groups don't allow promotion, and that's okay. You can still get massive visibility that way as long as your Facebook personal profile is dialed in, like we just talked about. That has to happen because if I send you into Facebook groups and you're getting visible, but somebody clicks on your personal profile and they go there, and they have no way to know how to contact you and your About section says no workplaces to show, and there's certainly no place for them to land on your email list, that's a waste of your time. So dial in the personal profile first, then go into these groups and see where you can be of service. And if they allow you to post something, you don't have to be promotional; you could post. Hey, would you like to know the top five ways I get toddlers to behave at a family photo shoot? Boom, boom, boom. What are your best tips for wrangling toddlers at a family photo shoot? You're not promoting anything. You're simply giving value. But you're showcasing your expertise that way without having to showcase your expertise in an obvious way. So I don't have to say I have twenty five years of experience and an award-winning sales career. I don't have to say I have coached hundreds of entrepreneurs over the years and give all my credentials. People can see my expertise by the way I answer the questions. And then they're like, ooh, she seems to know what she's talking about. Then they click on my personal profile. They go there. They slide right down to my email list. Half the people that join my free Facebook group every month, more than half, 75%, I've never met. I've never invited them to the group. They found it because of my visibility strategies and other business groups.

Pat Miller: 15:36

We've tricked out the profile. We found our ideal client groups. We're showing up consistently. We're being a human being. We're giving value. And you rightly pointed out that many of these groups don't want spammers or promoters. You kinda touched on it a little bit, but walk us through the formula of how we can promote without promoting. Because you did it organically, but that's like watching a NASCAR race by like, slow this down for me. How do I take my offer and turn it into something that isn't promotional, yet it's completely promotional.

Tracy Beavers: 16:08

Yeah. So when you are answering the questions, first of all, so somebody says, what do I need to know? What are the questions I need to ask when I'm hiring a family photographer and you are a family photographer? You can simply comment and you could say, "I've been a family photographer now for ten years. Here are the questions that I love for people to ask me." You give them the questions to ask and you say, I hope this was helpful. You can even say something like happy to chat anytime. That you're not promoting anything. But you've said, I'm a photographer for ten years. You could even be a little more bold and say, I'm an award-winning photographer.

Pat Miller: 16:46

And good-looking. I'm good--looking and award-winning.

Tracy Beavers: 16:49

And super nice. I'm a super nice person. Yeah.

Pat Miller: 16:52

Please.

Tracy Beavers: 16:53

But by answering that question, people are gonna see that, and they're gonna go, oh, that person has ten years of experience and has given a very helpful answer and hasn't said, hey, by the way, I have openings this week if you want me to shoot your family. You're not a salesy. You're being a kind human being who's helping another one, and that goes further than anything else that you could try to promote. And so you're demonstrating your expertise in that way.

Pat Miller: 17:20

If someone's watching this thinking, now wait a minute, there isn't a Facebook group that has my ideal client in it. Is starting a Facebook group a good idea, and what does it take as an administrator to run a Facebook group that isn't terrible?

Tracy Beavers: 17:33

Yeah. That's a good question. That's the reason why I started my free Facebook group because I couldn't find one that I liked. And I thought, well, I'll just do it. And it's turned into my best source of leads, sales conversions, and email list growth. So it's really been a wonderful marketing tool for my business. When it comes to a free Facebook group, it makes sense for most businesses. So you have to ask yourself, okay, what are my people looking for? So for a photographer, especially if you are a family photographer that goes with the family from newborn to family retirement photos and things like the whole scope of their life, then inviting them into a free group where you are the expert and they can come in and ask questions and you're there to help them, that's a win. You have essentially invited somebody into your home. It's like inviting –it's like walking into somebody's house and they're going, "Hey, Pat, it's so great to see you. The bathroom's over here. The cocktails are over here. The piano's over here if you wanna play it. Ask me anything. I'm gonna go get you some more cheese dip, you know." And it's this community where–that's what we eat here in the South.

Pat Miller: 18:43

I love it.

Tracy Beavers: 18:44

Yeah, and so it's just this place where what I want to have happen when people are creating their content and they're getting out in the online space is I want to have a way for that ideal client to come into your world and be literally caught up in what my friend Crystal Prophet calls the spider web of you. And one of the ways they can do that is being in your community, swimming in your content and your knowledge. And it does not take that long to manage it, to grow it. It takes intention is the thing. People think it's an enormous task. It's not. It just takes organization and intention just like anything else. When I started building this online business and I started my free Facebook group, I was building alongside my very stressful corporate job and our two kids that played every sport that had a ball. We were so busy, but I still managed it. So if you're thinking about starting your free group, first of all, name it something that SEO will pick up on when people are searching for a group like yours. And then make sure the membership entry questions are set up in a way that people want to give you their email address when they come in. There's a way to do that. That's another secret sauce piece. Then decide how many days a week do I have the time to make content for these people. For me, it was Monday. Thursday, I was gonna go live in my group and give some tips, and then I was gonna do an inspiration post on Friday to send them home for a great weekend. That's all I had time for. As my business has grown and I've hired an assistant, now we're posting in there a couple times a day, seven days a week. But it didn't start that way. So it doesn't have to be difficult.

Pat Miller: 20:15

If you can picture like a waterfall, picture a raging waterfall, that's what we're going to get right now because we're gonna turn our attention to Tracy and say, "Tracy, talk to us about email lists. Why are they so important and why should we have one and why are they valuable to the business?"

Tracy Beavers: 20:31

Yeah. Here comes the waterfall.

Pat Miller: 20:33

Here it comes.

Tracy Beavers: 20:34

You know how soft it is. Yes. So I will get on a soapbox about that. So stop me if you need to.

Pat Miller: 20:42

No. Go.

Tracy Beavers: 20:43

Every single type of business, no matter what it is, needs an email list. Doesn't matter if it's retail, brick and mortar, service-based, product-based, network marketing, online business, whatever it is. They need to have an email list, and they need to have an email list they own. I was talking to a gal the other day who's a financial advisor, and her company is developing a platform where they will have an email service provider in it. And I encouraged her. I said, if it were me, I would have my own email service provider. I would not build an email list on somebody else's platform that they own, and I don't, unless you have a way to quickly grab your contacts if you need to have an exit strategy. So find an email service provider. There are so many that are user friendly. One that is excellent for creatives like photographers is called Flodesk. I don't think they have a free version, but it's not super expensive. The reason why I like it for creatives is because it's aesthetically pleasing, and it's also very easy to use. Tech is not my love language. If I can figure out how to use that platform, anybody can. But we have to have an email list, and what's happened in the social media space in the last few years is an example of why. So TikTok in the last, you know, in the recent months, under fire, pulled off the platform, now it's back up, now nobody knows if it's gonna stick around. I pray that those people building a business on TikTok have gotten all of those clients of theirs and prospective clients onto an email list because their income disappeared the minute that platform shut down. Facebook and Instagram got really sideways about two years ago and went dark for about thirty six hours. And the people that made money during that time were the people that had an email list. One of my mentors made $14,000 sending a couple of emails to her list. I don't even think she really realized the platforms were down. But when the lights came back on, I'm in the Meta leaders network, thousands and thousands of business owners lost a lot of money because they had no way to contact their clients. So get your ideal clients onto a list that you own because the other thing is you want them to remember you. You wanna land in what I call their living room, which is their inbox.They are far more likely to see what you have to say in their inbox versus on social media or in a private message or something like that. I would even argue maybe even a text message because how many times have we looked at a text message meant to respond and then the light turns green and we've gotta go on down the road and we don't ever get back with that person? So that you're landing in their inbox and you're staying top of mind, so that when they go to schedule more photographs for their family, or they're a real estate agent and they need a photographer to come in and help, not stage, but help photograph the property. Well, whatever it is you offer as a photographer, you've gotta be able to turn your ideal clients into your best source of referrals, and that's how you do that by staying in their inbox. And then you've gotta have a way to pull your prospective clients off the online space into your email service provider so then you can start to nurture them. And they'll remember you when it's time to get their photographs.

Pat Miller: 23:50

Now that you know how passionate Tracy is about the email list, if you listen back to the other questions that she's provided, every step has driven to getting people on the list from the header on Facebook to the engagement inside Facebook groups. Is there a growth strategy for the email list that you haven't shared yet?

Tracy Beavers: 24:08

Oh, gosh. I have 10 strategies for email list growth. I mean, everything that I do in my business goes directly to my list. There's that old saying, always be closing. Always be list building. All roads lead to list building. So my social media content, there's a call to action with it. Now a call to action could be engagement. How do you feel about these growth tips I've just given you? Or how do you feel about whatever? That's great for engagement to getting people to comment and like and heart, and the algorithm loves that. But a stronger strategy is to say, you know, tell a funny story about how the toddlers weren't behaving. Can you relate to this? If you'd like to overcome this at your next family photo shoot, grab my free guide to XYZ to wrangling your toddlers and bribing them into doing what you want them to do for an hour. And they click on it, they go there, they opt in, they land on your list. So your social media content needs to build your list. If you're a podcast guest like I am right now, when you say where can everybody find you to connect with you, I'm gonna give them something that gives them an opportunity to potentially land on my list.

Pat Miller: 25:10

Well, where can we connect with you right now?

It's a softball. Do it.

Tracy Beavers: 25:15

It's so funny. So I have an outstanding Facebook group. We've talked about it. It's called Be a Confident Entrepreneur. Get Visible, Grow Your Email List and Your Income. And, they're welcome to join it. Just answer the membership entry question so I know that they're a legitimate Facebook account, and we'll let them in.

Pat Miller: 25:31

Very good. So we now know what to do on Facebook. We're getting obsessive about building the list. On our way out the door here, touch on, we've got the list. How do we find the rhythm that's right for us? Are we sending weekly emails? Are we creating a bunch of different newsletters, birthday emails? What are some of the things that come to mind that we can do with the list once we have it?

Tracy Beavers: 25:53

Yeah. That's a great question, and it really depends on what bandwidth you have as a business owner. So if you're just starting out emailing your list and emailing once a week just feels like too much, that's okay. Whatever people start with, and this goes for even creating social media content. Whatever you start with, you need to pick something you can be consistent with. Because the minute we lose our consistency, that's where the wheels fall off the bus. That's where the growth stops, and we don't want that to happen. So if you can email your list once a week, that's awesome. If that feels like too much, then dial it back to once every two weeks or once a month. But whatever you do, pick something that you can stay with long term. Because the last thing we wanna do is email our list once a month for six months, and then we're exhausted, we're tired, we're sick of it, and we stop for six months, and they don't hear from us, and then you email them again, and they're gonna go, "Who's Tracy Beavers? How do I know her? I didn't sign up for this list." Unsubscribe. And that is not gonna help the growth of your email deliverability, which is another topic for another time. But you don't wanna land in the junk folder. And so one of the ways you prevent that is fun ways of getting your audience to respond to your emails, which another story for another time, but also, being consistent with the send out and not allowing a lot of unsubscribes to happen at one time.

Pat Miller: 27:15

As our last thought, inspire us on the importance of visibility. Why is this such a big deal and how will it help us grow the business? I know you do it every day, all the time, but if someone's gonna follow you down the road of growing visibility for free, like, just paint the picture of this importance and what it does for the business when you're successful.

Tracy Beavers: 27:35

Well, people can't buy or hire anything they can't see. You don't wanna be the best kept secret. You want people to be able to connect with you easily, find you if they're googling you or, you know, what have you. But even from a local level, if you're out networking, that is massive visibility. The follow-up on that is where the key is. But visibility is just so important because, you know, again, people can't buy what they can't see.

Pat Miller: 28:03

Tracy Beavers, thanks for coming on The Professional Photographer Podcast. I appreciate it.

Tracy Beavers: 28:07

Thanks for having me.

Pat Miller: 28:08

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of The Professional Photographer Podcast. I really enjoyed this week's episode. Isn't Tracy the best? I told you she was gonna be awesome. If you enjoyed the show as well, hit like and subscribe, tell a friend, buy a billboard, do whatever it is, but help us grow this thing. Because if you are getting something out of it, think about your super cool friends and what they might be able to get out of it as well. So help us spread the word. And you could also leave a comment on the episode and let us know what Tracy said that made you go, oh, like that Facebook profile tip? Absolute money. So leave us a comment and let us know what you loved about the episode. The other thing we wanna remind you of is if you're not yet a member of Professional Photographers of America, you're just missing it. PPA offers incredible resources like equipment insurance, top-notch education, and a supportive community of photographers ready to help you succeed. It's perfect for photographers who are serious about growing their business in a sustainable and profitable way. At PPA, you belong here. Discover more about membership at ppa.com. That's ppa.com. I'm Pat Miller, Founder of the Small Business Owners Community. Thanks for joining us on this journey. I appreciate you tuning in, and we'll be right back here real soon with another edition of The Professional Photographer Podcast. See you next time.