On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, Victoria of Victoria Rayburn Photography and I put on a marketing workshop for photographers called the In Focus Marketing Summit at Second Level Studios. Victoria reached out to me several months ago about possibly partnering together to put on a workshop and I'm so glad that she did! We both had been wanting to serve other photographers in this way and since we both had marketing backgrounds in different aspects, it made sense for us to come together and make one big workshop all about marketing for photographers! We both know that being an amazing photographer is only one part of running a successful photography business. If you don't know how to market your business or have a great client experience, then you can only get so far.
Victoria and I spent months working on this summit! We wanted to make sure all of our material was perfect and that all of our attendees would be able to take away so much valuable information to help grow their businesses. All of our planning paid off because we were able to see 10 other photographers walk away from this summit with marketing steps implemented and already being put into place!
We started off the In Focus Marketing Summit on Thursday with a s'mores, hot cocoa, and wine welcome party! We wanted to start off the summit on a great foot and wanted everyone to be able to meet each other and start becoming friends before all the learning happened. AND, if we're honest, we also really wanted some s'mores and wine! :)
On Friday we started bright and early and dived into a day full of learning! We fueled everyone up with coffee from Java Roaster and breakfast from Great Harvest Bread Company and then it was off to learning. Our attendees learned how to identify their ideal client, learned all about branding, and finished off the morning learning about how to use social media as a photographer. We then took a quick break for some yummy pizza from Azzip Pizza and then dived right back into learning. Victoria taught everyone all about SEO and how to really maximize your SEO so you can climb up those search engine rankings and then I ended the learning for day one explaining exactly how to get your work published. After the day one learning was complete, we went to Chumley's to have a margarita for National Margarita Day and then walked down to Lahr Atrium for a catered dinner from Fowler House Kitchen.
On Saturday we started bright and early as well! Victoria and I really wanted to make sure that all of the attendees started implementing what they learned right away so we blocked off a couple hours in the morning for a working breakfast. We ate some bagels from Einstein Bagels and drank lots of coffee from Java Roaster and helped each attendee with their websites, keywords, and identifying their ideal clients. This was so great because we were able to open up the backends of their websites and help them put things exactly where they needed to go! After some implementation and breakfast, we took some headshots and then dived right into everything about websites! After learning about what to have on your website to help it convert, it was lunch time! Sassy Sweets Catering made us so many yummy tacos, nachos, and cupcakes! Once our tummies were full we dived back into learning with blogging for photographers, client experience, and 15 things that Victoria and I wish we knew when we started out business like taxes, contingency plans, self care, and so much more.
It really was a whirlwind last few days but it was amazing and my heart is full!
Victoria and I had so much fun that we are planning on doing the In Focus Marketing Summit again in 2020! If you missed out this time and want to attend next year, you can sign up for the waitlist at www.infocusmarketingsummit.com!
