003: Sam Docker – Nailing your Branding & Being Yourself Consistently

April 16, 2020

“You can’t be everything to everyone. Choose what is important to you and go with that.”

SAM DOCKER

Hey everyone! It’s Sally here, from Studio Ninja. Today’s episode is an exciting one for me – we are being joined by Sam Docker – we are really excited to have him on the show. Sam shot my wedding in December 2019, so I’m really excited to interview him and catch up!

Check out some of the biggest points from Sam’s interview below:

Are there any pieces of software that you found that you used throughout your processes that you think really help you out?

Yeah, there’s definitely a few key bits of software that I use. I mean, Photo Mechanic is my go-to for culling. I know Lightroom’s pretty quick now at culling, but I’ve been using Photo Mechanic for six years now and it’s so intuitive and just simple to use that that’s my go-to. Then obviously Lightroom for editing. I’ve always used Keys to edit my image so I use Pfixer Keys. Used to use VSCO but that got discontinued. So I have Pfixer Keys which is great. I’ve just started using Tailwind actually for scheduling. So, I’ve used a couple of other apps before, but literally in the last three weeks started using Tailwind, and I’ve been really impressed by that. It’s again, just sitting down to make sure you plan it and you auto post it.Then I suppose we’re on a Studio Ninja podcast, so I should really mention how Studio Ninja’s been.

I remember, I think Chris emailed me about a year and a half ago to say, “I’ve got this program. Would you be interested?” And I just kind of pushed it off to the side because I was using something else. I was like, “You know what? This one works for me. I can’t really give all… I have to change everything and look at it.” It wasn’t until I think me and you had started talking and you told me what you did, then we had a little bit of a hang out and you showed me through a few things. I thought, you know what? There’s a few features on that that look pretty good. I think the ones that stood out for me, it was just the automation side of it.My other software is great at keeping data and holding that data, but I still had to go in and manually send invoices or send out the wedding form or send out the contract, whereas when I looked at Studio Ninja, the big appeal to me for using it was just that it would send the invoices for me when I wanted to send it.Yeah, and just to know that that was being done at the time that I wanted it done. So rather than being like, “Oh, I’ve got three weeks before this wedding. Oh, I haven’t sent a final invoice.” Or, “I need to chase that up now.” Whereas with Ninja, that went out 45 days before the wedding. They’ve got the link. They’ve got the backs details. It just streamlines it all a little bit more. And the way it looks to the client, I think, is a big thing.

It’s under that one tab, they’ve got the contract, they’ve got the invoice and they’ve got the form. All under that one link, job done. There’s no messing. So that’s been a real help. I’ve been massively impressed. It’s definitely been a positive addition to the business.

I know you’ve worked with some very, very big names in the industry – Sony, Panasonic, Olympus, just to name a few. So talk me through how you got involved with working with such big names?

I honestly believe it’s because of my videos. So I use my YouTube as a means of reaching out to these brands. Now when I say using my YouTube I don’t mean using the numbers, I mean using the product that I’ve created, the behind the scenes videos and using them as a marketing tool really, to approach them and say, “This is what I’ve created recently, do you want to maybe do a collaboration?”

So a lot of the people you’ve mentioned, brands-wise are people that I have actively gone to myself. I’ve stepped out of comfort zone and I have actually reached out to them, and have asked, “Do you want to collaborate? Do you want to do something?” And I like it think, again, if you show passion and if you show some of your portfolio it’s a great example – but it’s even better if you also have Behind The Scenes video’s as well.

So there’s a good example when I approached PIXAPRO, which is the lighting company I’m an ambassador for. I’ve been affiliated with them for a few years now. We had a conversation a couple of years ago, and I said to the CEO, “Just out of interest, would you have taken a chance on me if you hadn’t seen a behind the scenes video?” And he said, “Probably not.”, So i asked, “So why is that?” And he said, “Well we could see from the video how you treated the models, how you treated the team around you, how you looked after the gear. It told a story as well, so we really like that and we liked that we could potentially use that as a means of marketing our own gear.” 

That’s how I’ve been able to reach out to these brands and offer not only photographs but also video as well. And that certainly does help. If you can offer video as well as photos then it’s much more beneficial for them, as they’re getting more of a return of deliverables. 

What are your top marketing/SEO related tips?

Yeah, I think SEO is a tricky ground. I think the first thing that I would say to about is that there is no magic SEO formula. There is no gold dust that you can sprinkle over it. It takes just honest, consistent work from you as a photographer and a business to produce a good level of SEO. I also don’t believe there’s a way to cheat the system, like Google isn’t stupid. There is no shortcuts. There is no quick fix. If somebody phones you up and says, “I can get you to page one by next week,” I would… genuinely you just put the phone down and laugh them off. That isn’t possible.

So first – don’t try and cheat the system, or don’t try to cheat Google. And then really it becomes just about, I suppose, writing engaging content and using relevant key words that are applicable to what it is you’re writing or posting about. So if you’re writing about a wedding that you shot at a venue, it’s totally fine to put the venue name in the title or what have you, but don’t just keep jabbering on about the venue name just to purely get the venue into your key word as many times. You know, drop it in, talk about it, and talk about the venue and the couple and the wedding and make it an engaging article. If you’re writing it for Google, you are making your first mistake. You should be writing it for the end user.

In terms of your website, Yoast SEO plugin is a really good tool for those that are going to blog. You know, if you’re going to use blogging as a strategy and as a tool, again, you’ve got to try and just be consistent with it. If that means you blog once a week or once a month, great. But don’t blog three or four weddings one week, and then not do anything for six months. You’ve got to try and just keep drip feeding those signals to Google, and they’ve got to see that your site’s been updated. But Yoast SEO is a great little plugin just for… I suppose it’s like a traffic light system. Just making sure that you’ve got the key word in there, you’ve got the right level of content and a few links et cetera, and the title’s correct.

Then the next one is really, I think I touched on this a little bit at the start of the question, but targeting blog posts and suppliers and just encouraging them… I remember when I first got into this, people would be a bit protective about their images and being like, “Oh, should I charge them? I’m going to invoice that supplier. If they want to use my images they need to pay me.” No, just give them the images. Give them the images. Be nice. Say, “Look, here’s the images.” I try and get my suppliers’ images out within the first week if I can. I try and give them just a few images from the preview post and say, “Look, here you are, guys. Here’s your images. Feel free to use them. If you just give me a shout out that’d be great.” And generally, nine out of 10 suppliers will credit you in their Instagram post, or if they blog it, they’ll link back to you. And it’s like, “There you go. Perfect.” That’s worth the image sharing for me.

Then I suppose the final SEO one would be when you’re building your sites is to write your homepage to target your location, and to remember that Google is location-centric. It does use your location as part of its algorithm, so trying to say that you’re, I don’t know, maybe a destination wedding photographer as a lot of people want to try to be, you need to remember that you might be based in, I don’t know, somewhere in Wales. You’re based in a location that Google knows you are based in, so you need to focus that keyword on your homepage to be that location. You need to rank well for your location above all else really. And don’t try and just sort of overcomplicate it.

Thank you!

Thanks again to you all for joining us and a huge thanks to Sam for coming on and sharing everything about his business! It’s been so refreshing to hear such an honest, down to earth approach to the wedding industry.

If you have any suggestions, comments or questions about this episode, please be sure to leave them below in the comment section of this post, and if you liked the episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post!

That’s it for me this week, I hope you all enjoyed this episode.

See you soon,

Sally