We’re digging into one of the most misunderstood tools in a photographer’s marketing kit — the local lead magnet for photographers. If your freebie is attracting followers from across the country (or across the ocean) instead of clients in your city, this episode is the fix.

On this episode:

• Why generic lead magnets fill your list with the wrong people — and how to make yours hyper-local
• Lead magnet ideas by genre: destination, newborn, family, senior, wedding, branding, and pet photography
• How to repurpose your existing blog content into a powerful, city-specific freebie without starting from scratch
• Get the playbook for local lead magnets

Tired of being invisible on Google? Learn the 5 SEO mistakes keeping photographers from getting found (and how to fix them) in Melissa’s free masterclass: https://pictureperfectrankings.com/mistakes

Thinking about a pivot or transition in your photography business? Book a free 15 minute discovery call with Alison to talk through your next move.

Ready to streamline your content? Melissa’s got you covered with her 35+ Blog Post Topics freebie—grab them now.

Links:

• Leave a review in Apple or on Spotify
• Alison’s Local Lead Magnet Playbook
• Find Alison on IG @‌alisonbellphotog
• Find Melissa on IG @‌pictureperfectrankings

Used #getbookedpodcast on socials!

Read more: 92: Local Lead Magnets for Photographers (That Build Your List)

Ep 92 Lead Magnets

Alison: [00:00:00] All right guys. Welcome back. Today’s episode is all about lead magnets because email marketing is important. So with an email list, these are people who are in your orbit who’ve expressed interest in what you do and how you do it. They are a warm audience, and like we mentioned in our mini session episode and a marketing for many sessions.

This is a great place to start. You wanna be nurturing an email list collecting and building an email list all year long for all of your genres. For all of your events. Um, and this is how we’re gonna do it. So you wanna stay top of mind. You wanna position yourself at as the expert. What you can do with email is you can show your consistency.

So whether that’s a weekly email, monthly email, every other week, whatever you choose to do, be consistent. Um, it’s longer form content than just social media. So something like maybe sharing part of a blog post and then. Continue. Um. Share, sharing the link to that blog post so they can keep reading, getting clicks to your website and showing up consistently is just gonna build that like know and trust factor that where they’re gonna wanna work with you at some [00:01:00] point.

Right. So what is a lead magnet? Lead magnet is something that you provide some sort of digital download where you are trading content in some capacity for their email address, for in exchange for them to, to receive. Access to their inbox. Right? Which is kind of a big deal. It’s overwhelming for a lot of people.

A lot of people are guarded about those email addresses because email, it really is quite overwhelming. But at the end of the day, despite all the emails in your inbox, time and time again, the proof is in the pudding. Email marketing works. It really does.

Melissa Arlena: So we’ve kind of come up with a little bit of like a core formula. Um, for your lead magnet, you want to be like solving a specific problem or offering a specific resource for your specific city or region.

Alison: So important.

Melissa Arlena: key. That’s the key guys, is I see. Too many lead magnets that are too generic. Um, we had a, I had a client one time [00:02:00] in the blogging club, and she was frustrated because her email list was getting filled up with people from other countries. And she was like, she was a, I wanna say a newborn photographer in like Phoenix. And I remember she had just gotten a, a sign up on her email list for her lead magnet from somebody in England, and she’s like. They’re obviously not gonna book her in Phoenix, Arizona. So she was like, what’s my problem? And I said, well, what’s your lead magnet?

And it was, um, you know, what’s packing your hospital bag? Which is a very popular one. I know a lot of people do it. The problem is it’s very generic. It’s one

Alison: Everybody needs it.

Melissa Arlena: in the world.

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa Arlena: wants it. So while yes, it’s a problem and it’s a specific problem, it’s not specific to your city, your region kind of thing.

So it’s a great one. Like I would send that to a client maybe after they booked as like, Hey, by the way, here’s this little thing. Um, maybe I would even do it as a blog post because like Allison loves to get traffic and clicks, so maybe

Alison: Yep.

Melissa Arlena: good one to get traffic and clicks. But it’s not one that I would use to trade for an email list.

And for some of you, I know Allison and I are on flow desks. So we get

Alison: Yep.

Melissa Arlena: [00:03:00] emails we want. Although I think that changed with the new update, didn’t it? I think.

Alison: It may have. Did they grandfather us?

Melissa Arlena: Yeah, we’re grandfathered in. I believe so. I think so. But I think most email providers charge you by the email address.

Alison: Yes, they do.

Melissa Arlena: got an email list that’s full of people who are never gonna be your clients, that’s a problem.

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa Arlena: That’s why I really wanna, you know, tell you, get specific, don’t be too generic on your stuff. And um, and Allison and I were going back and forth on this, on what’s a blog post versus what’s a lead magnet. So I think as we get into some of these, we’ll talk about that. To me, a blog post can become a lead magnet. If it like, or several blog posts, that kind of thing. That’s what I like to do. If you guys have written a bunch of blog posts about things in your city, you could combine those, take the highlights of things and put that into a lead magnet. Um, versus, uh, you know, just some kind of, sometimes some generic posts and stuff like how to prepare for a newborn session. Again, two

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa Arlena: [00:04:00] that’s a blog post, not a lead magnet. So you can still write about, like I said, the hospital bag. But that’s a blog post, not a lead magnet. Um, so let’s start off with some destination ones.

Alison: Yep.

Melissa Arlena: kind of the queen on that.

Alison: Yeah, this is, so this is my cup of tea right here. So as a destination photographer, I’m currently in Hawaii, but I did this in Virginia Beach too guys. So I still have Virginia Beach blog posts that are going off the off the rails. Um, but you really wanna focus on the local angle. You are the guide.

And honestly, this applies to all of the genres of photography, but particularly for a destination photographer. Um, think. Travel guide. What do they need to know about where to eat, where to play, where, where are the safe beaches? So the things that I’ve written about are the best beaches for snorkeling, for beginners.

I eat kids the best places to go. Boogie boarding things to do with teenagers in Hawaii. Um, how to eat cheap and why Kiki. Spoil alert, you cannot shopping in Kailua, where to eat in Kailua. All these things are also blog posts, but it’s all combined into one download, [00:05:00] which is my travel guide. So I, I have on my website, I was like, you can Google until your eyes bleed if you really want to, or you can download my guide from a mom, so,

Melissa Arlena: I mean, well, that’s the other thing too, is Allison has these as blog posts,

Alison: mm-hmm.

Melissa Arlena: yes, people can go to her website and they could find these individually if they wanted, but she’s saving them time by package. Them all up in one convenient lead magnet. And then I would tell her, you put a graphic for that lead magnet on every single one of those blog posts.

’cause if they found the, you know, shopping in whatever, they’re probably interested in the other stuff. And

Alison: Yep.

Melissa Arlena: could have that lead magnet on all of ’em. And who cares if it’s already on your blog, like they’re

Alison: Yep.

Melissa Arlena: for it. Eight different articles on this stuff.

Alison: Yeah, and it, it, I do, I have a, an image, a recurring block with an image with the mockup of the download and the form for downloading the guide. So, boom, there it is.

Melissa Arlena: So going with that, like. I, I think with Allison, she’s really lucky in that, like the travel guide is really interesting and I think if you’re in [00:06:00] a big city, you can probably do that. I mean, I

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Melissa Arlena: as a big city, but I do think it is like a destination where people come for stuff. So if I were to reframe my thoughts of like, how could I create a Charlottesville travel guide, the thought then is like, how’s coming into town? Who doesn’t, doesn’t normally live here? And then

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa Arlena: gonna be a different guide than the people who do live here sometimes for things. So like for, um, right now, like for maternity and stuff like that.

Like, maybe somebody would be coming here for, well I know South Florida they used to go for like a destination maternity session. So maybe I’m gonna create this travel guide for that particular mom who’s coming in, wants to know the places. To go the date night places, stuff like that. But then I might have a different guide for a new mom who is looking for midwives or doulas or pediatricians

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Melissa Arlena: where to shop for maternity clothes.

Like, so those are gonna be two different things.

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa Arlena: I really like now that the way we’re going with this of like a travel guide for your city, if it’s a destination

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa Arlena: and a local resource, one for the moms who are local.

Alison: Hey, best mocktails, add that to the list places to get the best [00:07:00] mocktails. Okay? That’s a date night option, and add it to your resource list.

Melissa Arlena: Yeah. Um, newborn rolls right into that too with like, you know, a new parent resource guide. So what are the pediatricians, postpartum support groups, lactation, consultants, all of this kind of stuff, and keep in mind. All of these start off to me as a blog post, like

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Melissa Arlena: to me, the best lead magnets are where you’re not having to create from scratch.

You’re able to take what you’ve already created. You guys know I love letting you reuse blog posts for

Alison: Yeah. Yeah.

Melissa Arlena: but take all of that and combine it. And again, if you’ve written, you know, 10 blog posts and they’re a thousand words each, I’m not saying you’re writing a 10,000 word lead magnet. That’s not at all what I mean.

You are gonna go and you’re just gonna grab a few highlights. And then in your lead magnet, you can link back to those blog posts so that if they wanna

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Melissa Arlena: you know, maybe you’ve got like, Hey, here’s the top three restaurants. If you’re looking for more details about them, plus another eight or seven or whatever, click over here to the blog post, you know, and then you’re driving traffic [00:08:00] again back over to your blog.

Alison: And

Melissa Arlena: so I think that works for

Alison: yeah, and don’t forget to update these over time. My travel, I’m just thinking about this, but my travel download freebie lead magnet is at least two years old at this point, and I have several blogs that needed to be added to it. So. Running note to self. Note to self. Okay, so similar for family photographers, what are the seasons for photo sessions in your city?

You know, um, Charleston has azalea season at Hampton Park. They do not have a cherry blossom season. Uh, but Virginia Beach has cherry blossoms and no, well, some azalea, but azalea aren’t a big deal. I’ve also seen some other places, um, have tulip seasons, right? Like that’s kind of a fun take on mini sessions.

Melissa Arlena: Blue Bonnets.

Alison: Yeah, exactly. So that’s very specific to your location, one of the thing. And then similar to the newborn and maternity, your city mom’s resource list. So take what you know, like, especially like I, I told one of my mentees this one time, her family was gluten free. I was like, girl, use what, [00:09:00] you know, to make a a, a blog post and a resource list.

Like where can you go get gluten-free desserts? Where can you go that has gluten-free, what have yous, cookies, whatever, like. Take your knowledge, what you’re an expert in and package that up for, for your people. Maybe that’s a blog post that ultimately comes a travel guide or a resource list. Um, one thing you don’t wanna do, I don’t know if you’ve realized what we’ve said, don’t, um, we are not giving you ideas that, um, other photographers want.

Right. We are giving you ideas and lead magnet resources that your clients want, so keep that in mind too, ’cause it’s real easy, especially for family photos to best photo locations in Charleston, South Carolina. Well,

Melissa Arlena: you know who Google’s that

Alison: me, me, I do that.

Melissa Arlena: unless I have a friend

Alison: I.

Melissa Arlena: that I was, she has one of those locations and I was like, I know you have the, or one of those blog posts. I was like, I know you have it, because I was looking at it last week and I told her, I was like, other photographers look at that stuff.

And for her it works out because [00:10:00] she does some education and her target is like other photographers. So I was like, well then that’s the perfect lead magnet for you. But that

Alison: Yep.

Melissa Arlena: the perfect lead magnet for clients and

Alison: Yep. So I re.

Melissa Arlena: session locations, I don’t, I don’t do ’em.

Alison: Yeah, there was a blog post, so this is, we moved from Japan to Quantico. I had been overseas for three and a half years, and in that time, every public park went from free and open from, for photography to permitting, like it was this whole wild west. I had just walked into. I felt like I came back to the US going, what the heck has happened?

And so somebody was telling me, I bought this permitting process at all the national parks, which. DC capital region. There’s a ton of national parks. Um, and I was completely overwhelmed. And guess what? They were sharing as a resource for permitting. Some photographers blog post about the permitting process.

We were not her ideal client, but some photographer had done a deep dive on all these permitting processes and photographers were sharing this one [00:11:00] particular blog post as a, here’s, here’s your primer on. On National Park Permittings, um, and it was very helpful,

Melissa Arlena: onto your list, then you can definitely write some lead magnets for that. If you have some plans to like sell them presets or whatever, editing surfaces.

Alison: keep in mind your audience.

Melissa Arlena: Separate.

Alison: Yeah,

Melissa Arlena: Yeah.

Alison: in mind your audience. So, um, okay, if there’s any pet photographers out there, um, your city, dog, beach and park guide for pet sessions, right? So there’s, everybody knows if you’ve got a dog, there’s all kinds of rules, and then there’s like the law and then how people operate within that, right?

Like there’s rules of the road and then there’s like rules of the road. Same thing with pets, like permit requirements, parking leash, quiet times off, leash hours, um, all that stuff. Happy hours.

Melissa Arlena: hours.

Alison: There you go. All that stuff. Um, so that would be a really good side, um, guide, shoot, you know what just came to mind?

Like breweries, dog friendly breweries and wine wineries. Like where you could be, have ’em all leash or something. Like, that’d [00:12:00] be a fun one too. Um.

Melissa Arlena: in mind with all of these lead magnet stuff, guys, you’re supposed to put your photos in them, by the way. Like, and you know, if it’s a, if you know, like with the dogs at breweries, you don’t necessarily have to do a session with a a, a dog at a brewery. You can still just show cute pictures of

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa Arlena: when it’s the stuff for families, you still just show you’re showing off your artwork. Like that’s kind of the idea of like, as they’re, it’s kind of think about a magazine, you’re going

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Melissa Arlena: And your eye gets caught by some of the beautiful graphics and ads and stuff that are in that magazine article, except this time it’s your magazine and it’s all your stuff.

So think

Alison: Yeah, there you go. That’s a beautiful way to think about it.

Melissa Arlena: Senior portraits, um, senior portraits, like I, you know, the different colleges and stuff are gonna have different requirements on when things are due and things like that. And when, um, when you need to have pictures done by, and like I could, as a parent, I probably am not gonna necessarily know all of the yearbook deadline requirements for my local high school.

Alison: Oh my God, you’ll not. [00:13:00] Mm-hmm.

Melissa Arlena: Senior portrait photographer puts it out. ’cause I’m like, I don’t know. What am I supposed to book these? Like, what’s going on? And it’s for my school. Like that’s gonna catch my

Alison: It’s gonna be huge. Yeah. ’cause if you, especially as you know, 10th grade parent here, um, the high school sends out a weekly newsletter, but you know how often I read that? Maybe every other month I read it one time I barely ordered a yearbook for my 10th grader on time. And it was only because he kept badgering me tea.

Melissa Arlena: Minute notice.

Alison: Exactly, and so high schoolers, as much as they’re high schools, as much as they’re trying to reach to parents, there’s a lot, there’s a big chasm between what your high schooler can do and is needs to know and what they’re sharing with you, right? So go direct, all you senior portrait photographers. Go direct to the parents.

Um, bypass the school. Give them the school information, connect the dots there for them. Make it easy. Make it easy.

Melissa Arlena: And then, um, I would say for like weddings, um, a preferred vendor

Alison: Well, we skipped, we skipped the,

Melissa Arlena: Oh,[00:14:00]

Alison: the senior portrait style guide. That was a good one. So like this, I know in Virginia Beach there were several boutiques that targeted teens and college students. So they had the miniskirts, they had the, the baby doll dresses. Stuff that, you know, I didn’t want. To wear at all.

But if I were a senior photographer, I would absolutely wanna feature their clothes, um, send my my clients to them. So work with, work with those people, create a guide for where they can, um, where they can shop and where those clothes are gonna look good in your city. Right? So like a whole style guide. Um, and you can even conclude hair and makeup, shoes, accessory, things like that.

Um,

Melissa Arlena: especially, oh, and referrals to like other hair and make

Alison: mm-hmm.

Melissa Arlena: and makeup artists that you

Alison: Yeah,

Melissa Arlena: and stuff.

Alison: that’d be good. So branding, branding, photographers and headshots. So this one, um, best locations for branding photos. Like this could be a blog post, but also like you’re also thinking about casting that vision and inspiring people who may not want those photos [00:15:00] or may not be on the market just yet, but getting in front of them.

But you’re also your city’s business owner’s guide. To brand photography. So you can include things like local networking groups, chamber events, the culture for LinkedIn. I know there were in Virginia Beach, there were tons of, um, LinkedIn groups that met in person. Um, so where are those opportunities to, to meet up?

What are the personalities of some of those different chambers, different counties, different city level, um, BNI groups, um, how to guest in some of these things, Toastmasters. Um, those are all really great resources for business owners, regardless of their industry. Uh, and then co-working spots In your city, where can people get together to work?

Get outta the house, get outta the office? Um, free wifi.

Melissa Arlena: You could even do like the cutest coffee shops that

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Melissa Arlena: where someone, sometimes I go work in my kitchen ’cause I get tired of my office.

Alison: Yeah. Same.

Melissa Arlena: on like, Hey, here’s the local places around where you could go and like get a fun drink and like [00:16:00] work for a couple hours

Alison: Have a different view.

Melissa Arlena: as

Alison: Yeah,

Melissa Arlena: a sole, sole person working, you know, sometimes you just wanna get out and be around people and so if there’s like a little

Alison: for sure.

Melissa Arlena: like that can be a fun one, I’d trade my email for that just ’cause I wanna get outta the office more.

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa Arlena: Local wineries, the thing too, what wineries can I go work from? Okay, so back to weddings.

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa Arlena: my thing has always been like a preferred vendor list.

Alison: Mm-hmm.

Melissa Arlena: just again, doing those blog posts where you’re interviewing florist, venues, planners, caterers, all of that stuff that you love, like these can be huge for referrals and stuff of trading and sharing with them, and then packaging it all together into a beautiful lake. Preferred vendor list for you, or I like to just kind of call it like my favorite vendors, that type of thing.

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa Arlena: and then having that where, where brides can download it. Like, so my, my city or my state favorite wedding [00:17:00] vendors. Um, and then brides who are looking in that area are like, oh, okay, well she’s got a whole thing of, you know, all of these different vendors.

Uh, and then another one I really like is, um, a timeline, like a wedding day timeline by season for your city, because. My timeline here in Virginia is gonna be very different than Allison’s timeline in Hawaii for a wedding. Like, and then it’s gonna depend too, the timeline in December is different than the timeline in, you know, August.

And even like the fall and spring, like we’re about to spring forward again, like that’s gonna change things up. So being able to have like timelines and a bride gets like, Hey, here’s the spring, here’s the summer, here’s the fall, here’s the winter for this particular city. Like that’s one that I do like because again. Because it’s specific to the city and it’s specific to a problem for her. Like she may not know what her timeline needs to be. Um, or maybe she’s searching for it or something. Um, but again, these can all be blog posts. And then you again, I’m going to say it again. Package ’em all up and turn ’em into a lead magnet. Oh, [00:18:00] and pun ’em. Pin ’em on Pinterest. Guys, that’s something we haven’t

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa Arlena: All of this stuff is really great. Also, pinning it on Pinterest. So somebody who’s local to you sees my city plus my problem. So if somebody’s getting married in Virginia and she sees, oh, Charlottesville’s, you know my favorite Charlottesville wedding vendors, she’s gonna be like, oh, well I’m getting married near Charlottesville.

Lemme click on that and take a look like it’s, it’s calling out to your audience. You know your direct audience. Like, I see

Alison: Yeah.

Melissa Arlena: this is your city. This is your problem. I’ve got a guide for you.

Alison: That’s perfect. All right. So regardless of what you choose to do for your genre of photography, keep in mind the highest converting local lead magnets are going to be local. They’re gonna be very specific to your area. They’re gonna have resources and vendors specific to your area where you become a connector, not just a photographer.

Um, that’s going to keep people coming back and back, back to over and over again. Um, seasonal guides that tie specifically to your area. Um. Your city fall, your city spring, what have you. Um, [00:19:00] and then travel guides for destinations. Um, package, like Melissa said, packaging all the content and blog posts that you have created into one massive resource.

Not necessarily every word of every blog post, but links back to those blog posts from your, um, lead magnet, get you more clicks. So, um, if you come up with any other ideas, hit us up, let us know on Instagram. Um, we’re always interested to know more. Um, see the notes, uh, show notes for links to some of this stuff.

Um, how, how you can reach out to us.