Discover Your Marketing Personality with Rachael Boer

Pat Miller: 00:00

I'm Pat Miller, and this is The Professional Photographer Podcast. Marketing, let's talk about it. Why? Because you like clients. To be specific, you like your clients' money. I mean, come on. Let's be real. We love their money, and we do love our clients. And if you want more of them, you need to go out and tell your story. But it's possible to tell your story in a way that feels heavy and burdensome like a chore. If your marketing feels that way, you probably are not using your marketing personality in the right way. Did you know that there was such a thing as a marketing personality? Rachel Boer is our guest today, and she's created a system to help you identify who you are as a marketer. And when you know it, you can then go make content effortlessly, and people will know who you are the first time they see your stuff. They'll connect better with you. They'll learn to love your studio. They'll become your client, and they'll give you your money. How about that? Rachel standing by about marketing personalities. We'll talk to her next. Rachel, welcome to The Professional Photographer Podcast. How are you today?

Rachael Boer: 01:13

Thank you. I'm doing great. Thanks. How are you?

Pat Miller: 01:16

I'm doing great. We are this close to going on vacation. We're going to Spain.

Rachael Boer: 01:20

Oh, my gosh. Can I come? That sounds amazing.

Pat Miller: 01:23

We get an extra carry on. We'll stuff you inside there and come with us to Barcelona. It's gonna be unbelievable.

Rachael Boer: 01:29

Sounds great.

Pat Miller: 01:30

Yeah, I've never been. I'm gonna eat all the ham in Spain, but if I keep talking about Spain. I'm gonna lose traction on what we're talking about today because we're gonna do something special. We're gonna do kind of an interactive episode. We're gonna talk about something, our marketing personalities. But before we get there, if someone hasn't met you, tell us who you are and what you do.

Rachael Boer: 01:49

Yeah. Thank you. Okay. So my name is Rachel Boer, and I have been a photographer for about sixteen years now. Started out in the DC area, and now I live in Memphis. But I've done a variety of things. Right now, I'm focusing mostly on family portraits and headshots and branding kind of work. So that's keeping me plenty busy. I also have a passion for marketing, as you'll find out in this episode. So, a couple of years ago, a friend and I started up a marketing business, and we work with small businesses but especially photographers. We love working with photographers because obviously that's kind of a world that I understand. And so it's called MarketNoodle. We have a lot of fun doing 'done for you' content for photographers. So we can write your blogs, write your emails, help you with all those things that you get kinda stuck on. So that's what I do day to day.

Pat Miller: 02:36

Wait a minute. We gotta back up. Done for you marketing content because that's the stuff about marketing that's terrible. Okay. Do this. But now I have to do it? That's a nightmare.

Rachael Boer: 02:45

That's right. And that's literally why I started that business because I was hearing photographers all the time saying, I don't want another course on marketing. I don't wanna learn how to market. I just want somebody to do it for me. Is that a thing? And it wasn't really a thing. I didn't know where to send them, so I started it myself.

Pat Miller: 03:01

Uh-huh. That's awesome. We're gonna learn today about the marketing personality concept. How did you identify it? And once we know what it is, how do we use it to get more clients?

Rachael Boer: 03:11

Right. Was that a real question or rhetorical question?

Pat Miller: 03:14

No. We're starting like the marketing personality. Where did that come from?

Rachael Boer: 03:18

No. I love it. Let's dive in. I think it's such a really misunderstood but really key piece of the puzzle because marketing is a puzzle. Right? Like, people feel frustrated by marketing. They feel confused by marketing. They don't know what to do, and they feel like at every wrong turn, you know, they're gonna make a misstep and ruin their business. And so there's a lot of anxiety around marketing. And as I worked with a lot of photographers over the years, coaching and teaching, I found that people were trying to market in a way that just wasn't them. Rather than leaning into what they're naturally good at and, like, their strengths, they were trying to, like, build this marketing persona and force themselves into a box, and it just wasn't working. So I kinda came up with this idea recently of what's your marketing personality type, almost like a fun little personality quiz. And I've put that together that you can actually go take on my website. And that way, you'll kind of know, alright, which of these boxes do I fit into? And then use that to inform how you approach marketing.

Pat Miller: 04:13

And what's nice is we have that link in the show notes. So if you wanna see what your marketing personality is, you can go take the quiz and then maybe come back to the interview and soak up what we're talking about today. So let's start here. What are the different types? And let's go through each one and their strengths. We'll be positive. We'll do it first with strengths.

Rachael Boer: 04:32

Absolutely. Because these are meant to be really positive. So, the three types that I've identified are the planner, the creator, and the connector. And so you usually fit into one of these three boxes. Now, of course, some of us are sort of a blend. Right? But if you go take the quiz and it takes less than a minute, it's only seven questions. So this is not real scientific, but it'll give you a window sort of into which way you lean. And let me just walk you through the three, and I think people are usually pretty good at self-identifying. I'll go with my favorite because it's me, the connector first. The connector has a strength of being a people person. Right? You build relationships easily. You love networking events. You can walk into a room full of strangers, and by the end of the night, it's a room full of friends. That kind of personality type is such a strength for a photographer because what we do is very personal. It's very intimate. It's very connected with our clients. And so if we can start out with strong relationships right off the bat, it kinda makes the rest of our job so much easier. So the connector is kinda your people person. Then we have the planner, and these are your kinda more type A, like my husband. Right? Everything is an Excel spreadsheet. Everything, you know, the pros and cons list. Right? And so this personality type is detail oriented. They love systems. They love workflows. They love building things and watching it run. And they usually do really well if given a structure and a plan. Sometimes the challenge for them can be they get a little caught up in, well, if it's not perfect, you know, it's not good enough. So that could be a little bit of downfall. But planners make great photographers because they're really organized. They can put those plans into place. And then the third kind, which I think probably is the majority of photographers, I call the creator. And these are people who have a really strong visual identity. Their visual brand is really strong. They have all these ideas floating around in their head. Almost more ideas than they could possibly know what to do with. And they're really good at building things that are visually beautiful, that are captivating, that are attention-getting. But sometimes, they don't know how to then convert that into a steady stream of paying clients and a business that works really well. So, the downfall for that kind of photographer is just systematizing and finding a way to take that beautiful creative right brain of theirs and kind of streamline that into something that's gonna work for them. So planner, creator, and connector are my three.

Pat Miller: 06:55

We've got those three different types. Give us an idea of how they might use a strategy. So what might a connector do? What might a creator do? And what might a planner do?

Rachael Boer: 07:03

Yeah. That's a great question. So we'll go in that order. So, a connector is gonna lean into anything involving people, human beings. They build trust really easily with people. They tend to get a lot of clients through word-of-mouth. And I think some people feel like word-of-mouth isn't a viable marketing strategy. It definitely is. It's not my favorite thing to rely on because it's out of your control, right? What other people say about you when you're not in the room is out of your control. What is in your control is leaning into those relationships, you know, keeping up with your clients sending those personalized reminder emails, calling them just to check up and say, "Hey, how are you doing?", staying top of mind that way, and then getting active in their local community, so things like networking events, partnerships, collaborations, those are all fantastic for a connector. So I would say if you lean towards connector people person, lean into building those relationships five days a week. Get out of your house. Get out there. Build those relationships. Get active in the community. Do what you're good at. Secondly, for the creator, I would say, since they're good at building and creating beautiful things, lean into that. Batch that creative content so that you can reuse that content in a variety of ways. So let's take a blog post. Let's say you write a great blog post, you're happy with it, you've got some beautiful images to go in there. Then use that to then turn that into a reel. Turn it into an email to your list. Turn it into five posts for social media for next week. Take one beautiful thing you've made and just reuse it. And so you're getting more traction out of every piece of content. And you can use tools like Canva and things like that to kinda make templates for yourself to be able to reuse stuff a little bit more easily. Don't forget calls to action. I think if you're focusing on the beauty, you can forget about the business side of things. Like, oh, yeah. People love to see my beautiful images, but I also want them to pick up the phone and call. You know? Just don't forget to kind of build in some of that structure. And then, for the planner, I think lean into your organizational strength. Create a quarterly marketing plan with goals and a content calendar. You know, that's where you shine. So do that. Automate it where you can so you're not spending all day planning. Because what we do sometimes in that personality type is we just plan and plan and plan and plan and plan, but we never actually get up and go do. And so, automate it where you can, free up some time for yourself, but do use that strength of yours to keep yourself on track. And that's something I think a lot of us wish we had a touch more of is that planner personality. So if that's you, embrace it.

Pat Miller: 09:37

Right now, someone's watching this, and they're having an 'ah-ha' moment. One, because they didn't realize there were marketing personalities. And two, they may be a connector that's been told to be a planner or a planner that's been told to be a creator. When you're not living through your natural personality, is that where the frustration and the weight and the burden of marketing comes from?

Rachael Boer: 10:02

100%. That's you hit the nail on the head, Pat. And I think when you are living in your personality type and in your strength, it shows up for your clients as confidence and clarity. So if you're aligned with your natural strength, your marketing is gonna feel real. It's gonna feel authentic. It doesn't sound like you're trying too hard or, like, following a script that doesn't quite fit, and clients can sense that. You know? They're smart. So, for example, the connector's audience is gonna think, like, "Wow. I feel like I already know her. I trust her. You know? Never met her, but I feel like we could be friends." You know? And that is just such a shortcut to those strong, lasting connections. The creator's audience is gonna think, "Wow. This person creates something that's so inspiring and beautiful. I wanna be part of that world." You know? And then the planner, their audience thinks, "Wow. This person is, like, really organized and really professional. I know I'm gonna be taken care of if I work with them." So if we can live in our authentic self, our authentic personality, that really communicates something clear and strong to our clients, and that is the key to getting booked.

Pat Miller: 11:10

It's gotta be empowering, too, to know that you can set down this strategy because it's not for you. That has to make someone feel like they've found a map that they didn't know existed.

Rachael Boer: 11:21

I love that, and I hope it does. I hope that this concept is freeing. You know, I often think about an image of, like, a bird or a bug maybe that's trapped inside your house, and it's it's beating its head into the window over and over and over in the kitchen. And right next to the window, there's an open door. And it's like he doesn't see the open door. This actually happened in my house. We had a bird in here. It was just smashing into the window over and over, and we're like, "Buddy, the door is right there." So sometimes we're just beating our head against the wall trying to do something that isn't us. And, you know, I heard someone say recently, maybe you've heard this, if your child is great at tennis but terrible at math, you should hire a tennis coach, not a math tutor. Let them lean into what they're naturally good at. You know? And I think the same goes for us. So it's very freeing to realize this is me. This is what I'm great at. I'm just gonna do a ton more of it.

Pat Miller: 12:12

Well, the open window is in the show notes, so you can take the quiz to discover your personality. Once we know it, is that something that we can just flip on? Oh, I'm a this. I'm gonna go do this now, or is this a period of transformation?

Rachael Boer: 12:27

That's a great question. I think there definitely is that 'aha' moment that you mentioned earlier when you recognize your style. But I think that building it into your marketing does take a little time because this may be counter to everything you've tried for the last ten years. That's okay. You know, you can start small. You can try one new strategy that really matches your personality type. It doesn't have to be a full overall overnight. It's kind of like adjusting a little bit in ways that make your marketing and your brand feel more like you. It's an ongoing process. It's not gonna be a one-time switch, but I think, you know, marketing is kinda like a snowball. You start to see a little bit of momentum and then that kinda grows into more momentum. Then your confidence grows, which enables you to take the next step. And soon you have something that's really working, but it just requires those initial steps, which can be a little bit scary.

Pat Miller: 13:17

What would you say to someone that doesn't want to come online and be themselves and be authentic and tell people what they think? They're intimidated by it. Maybe they've had friends that had bad experiences. They don't feel like anyone wants to hear what they have to say. What would you say to someone that is in that world?

Rachael Boer: 13:36

Yeah. I think the idea of being authentic that I'm talking about doesn't necessarily mean you have to show your face on screen. You have to talk about all your personal views and opinions. You have to show your family. I mean, I'm not talking about that kind of authenticity where you're baring everything. I'm just talking about leaning into what you're really good at. And if you're a planner, that may not look like showing your face or getting on TikTok and making videos. It might look like building a really great Google Ads campaign because you dive deep into the nuts and bolts of how that works, and you learn how to be an amazing Google Ads specialist. You know? It might mean just learning something that comes naturally and easily to you. It doesn't necessarily mean becoming an influencer. That's not fair.

Pat Miller: 14:16

Yeah. Absolutely makes sense. Definitely not a TikTok dancer right here. Not gonna be doing that.

Rachael Boer: 14:22

I could see it though.

Pat Miller: 14:24

Oh, well, I can bust a move, but just not on TikTok.

Rachael Boer: 14:27

Okay. That's fair.

Pat Miller: 14:29

I wanna hear a success story. Tell us about someone that you worked with that didn't know their marketing personality, found it, and now they're crushing it.

Rachael Boer: 14:37

Yeah. That's a good question. Well, actually, I'll tell you about a recent client that I was coaching because she has kind of a story like this. But I will say that her story is very reminiscent of many people I've worked with in the industry over the last dozen years. She was a creator through and through. She was just one of these people that wanted to be behind the camera and do absolutely nothing else. She wanted to just get in the studio every single day and make beautiful art. That's why she became a photographer. That's why many of us become photographers. And she was finding herself so frustrated with marketing because she thought that marketing meant you had to be a planner. A lot of people think the planner is the only legit way to market. Right? It's gotta be organized, structured. I gotta have spreadsheets. I gotta use my CRM in a certain way, and I've gotta be really good at these details. And so it was very freeing for her when we started talking about no. Let's build a more flexible marketing system that makes more sense for you and that fits with what you're already naturally doing. So she started doing much more spontaneous content for her social media just when she was already creating. So when she walked into the studio, she would grab her phone and just do a quick video clip. "Hey guys, I'm in here today. I'm so excited. I'm gonna be working with a dancer this afternoon. Let me show you how I set up the studio for this session," and she would do just a little behind the scenes video showing her process. And then once the client came in, she would get their permission to film little clips of her session. And at the end, it wouldn't take her very long to quickly edit and upload these videos and her engagement shot through the roof because she was suddenly posting something that was really natural. It felt like her. She was genuinely excited to share it, and that content worked better. So I think, you know, it can give you that freedom to stop dreading marketing and stop feeling like I'm bad at marketing. I hear that a lot. And I think if you're saying I'm bad at marketing, that's a sign that you're probably not marketing in the right way. You're trying to do something that you're not good at. You know? And when we come across something we're not good at as entrepreneurs, we have two options. We can outsource it to someone who is good at it. And a lot of times that is a good solution because you may not wanna spend time learning something that is not in your wheelhouse. Or we can take the time to educate ourselves and to learn. Or I guess, the third option, now that I say it out loud, three options. The third option is to see if that's something we can let go. Do we really have to do that? You know, do we have to be on all these platforms? Do we have to be showing up in these ways? Or can we do something that's a little bit more creative, a little bit more us, a little bit more leans into our strengths? So, yeah, I think her story would be a great example.

Pat Miller: 17:08

We gotta talk about those shoulds. I should be on TikTok. I should be on Instagram. I should still be on Facebook. Oh, I gotta be on Twitter. Oh, I should be on LinkedIn. You're the marketing expert. How narrow can we go? Can we go to one or two channels, three channels, five, email marketing, advertising? Like what's the minimum viable marketing, if that makes any sense?

Rachael Boer: 17:29

Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of marketing experts will tell you, you really wanna have, like, at least seven different streams of marketing strategies all going at once. Right? But I think it's a mistake to make five or six out of those seven social media. It's too much social media. We have somehow gotten our head that marketing equates to social media, and it just– it doesn't. That's not necessarily–those things don't have to go hand in hand. In fact, and I'm hoping this is freeing for some people listening, I have run a very successful business for fifteen years, sixteen years, and I almost don't use social media at all. I hate it. I don't like it. I don't wanna spend my time there. I don't enjoy it. I'm not good at it. And I fought against that for a long time until I went, you know what? I don't like this at this time, so I don't wanna do it. And so I have really built a business on networking, partnerships, collaborations, silent auctions, displays around town. There are so many other things that I can do to market that don't even involve opening my computer. And so that's what I choose to do just because that brings me joy. It makes my job easier and happier. And so, to get back to your question, I think having a lot of strategies is really smart. It's a really good idea. Get that email list going and be sending out emails regularly. It's like printing money. Your email list is so valuable. Those are your warmest leads. But beyond that, do some things off the computer too. I like to ask my coaching clients, hey, if social media went away tomorrow, what would you do to market? Like, there's no Facebook. There's no Instagram. There's no LinkedIn. There's no TikTok. So what are you gonna do? And they go like, "Oh, dang. I don't know." It opens their minds too. There's a whole big world out there. How can I get involved in other ways?

Pat Miller: 19:07

Now it's just us talking here. The rest of YouTube don't listen to this. It's just you and me talking here. People are crushing like social media, even getting a lot of engagement. Like they're really trying hard. But for some people, it doesn't bring them any business. It just brings them a bunch of clicks. I mean, why are we still so obsessed with it?

Rachael Boer: 19:18

100%, and I think we all know by now, it's not real anyway. I mean, social media, there's a fakeness to it. Right? And sometimes the people that are the most successful don't even have a social media platform. They don't use it at all. Other times, the ones that, exactly, they look busy. They look like they're doing a lot. If you really talk to them and dig into the numbers, it doesn't relate to dollars and cents. So, yeah, I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to get a certain number of followers or to hit these stats. And in reality, that's not always what moves the needle. So, I think we could take some pressure off of ourselves regarding social media and explore some other options. There's a lot more fun ways to market in my opinion.

Pat Miller: 20:07

Can we talk for a second about advertising? Do you recommend people do direct mail, Google Ads, Meta? Like, where do you have people spend money when they're asking you about how can I boost my reach by advertising?

Rachael Boer: 20:19

I think one thing I would say is don't put a lot of money into paid advertising until you're sure that your messaging is really, really clear and effective. So if I'm sending out emails to my list and I'm getting zero response, zero engagement; if I'm putting out things into my role and I'm not booking anything, I don't then wanna go take that same message and put a lot of money behind it because it hasn't proven itself yet. So that's a sign to me, I need to do some work behind the scenes, maybe with a coach on my branding, my messaging. Where's the disconnect? Why are people seeing what I'm putting out and not responding because I just don't wanna waste money, and these things can be really expensive. They can be money pits if you're not careful; the paid ads, they suck you in and they say, "Hey, you know, if you put more money in you might reach more people." But if there's something that's not working, don't pay to have it not work even more. You wanna make sure that you've got your messaging down. And messaging really comes back to the heart of what marketing is. It's when people think about my business, what's their impression? What are they thinking about? What do they feel? How do they think it relates to them and their real lives, their pain points, and how can I actually serve and help these clients best? So it's some of those deep foundational questions that we have to go back to.

Pat Miller: 21:33

And it's easier to make them feel something when you're being authentic to who you are with your marketing personality. So you take the quiz in the description. Let's give you the last word on marketing personalities. What haven't we covered that someone needs to know so they can take this concept and run with it?

Rachael Boer: 21:48

Yeah. That's a good question. I think that, for me, everything kinda comes back to mindset. I think a lot of people struggle with a limited mindset around marketing because they've had some failures in the past. Oh, I'm gonna put this out, and nobody's gonna like it. I'm gonna create this thing, and nobody's gonna read it. And it can feel discouraging. And unfortunately, it doesn't take too many of those discouragements before you've convinced yourself that you just can't do this. My youngest child is is two, and he learned to walk not that long ago. And watching that process was just–I mean, it's such a cliche, but it's such a good reminder. He fell down 1,562 times, and he got up every single time, and he tried again. And you've gotta take that sort of perseverance and persistence into this process. And don't assume that just because you've had a failure or two that you're not good at this, that you can't do it. Every failure is an opportunity. It's information. It's an opportunity to reflect and decide, what can I change next time? How can I pivot? How can I maybe lean into this other thing? But we have to be willing to go on and not just give up. I think the last thing I'll leave people with is if you wanna be a successful photographer, you have to be a full-time marketer who sometimes takes beautiful pictures. I think that's how you gotta think about yourself. Nobody likes to hear it.

Pat Miller: 23:12

Rachel Boer with the kill shot at the end. Unbelievable. Thank you for coming on The Professional Photographer Podcast. I appreciate it.

Rachael Boer: 23:19

My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me today.

Pat Miller: 23:21

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of The Professional Photographer Podcast. Don't forget to take the marketing personality quiz. The link is in the show notes. Before you go, do us a favor. Give us a thumbs up and like the show. Maybe share it with a friend that's struggling with their marketing and leave us a comment. When we hear your comments, we know if we're on the right track or not. One more thing: if you're not yet a member of Professional Photographers of America, well, you're kinda 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, publisher of the Small Business Summary Newsletter, and your host. I look forward to seeing you again next time. Take care.