Marketing Tips Insider | The Power of Snapchat

Welcome to the 2nd edition of Marketing Tips Insider! This is the series Where I will be sharing tips, ideas, experiences to help inspire your own marketing efforts!This month I'm going to give you a marketing spin on Snapchat. It's that love-to-hate or hate-to-love little app that has wormed it's way into our industry---at least the senior side of our business! I use Snapchat for every single senior session and have grown it into a mad marketing tool! Read on for some of the things I have found to be a huge success for my business that you might be able to pull in as well with your own spin.First, if you aren't familiar with how to use Snapchat, Vickie and I did a "Snapchat for Beginners" over on the SSG YouTube channel here: SNAPCHAT FOR BEGINNERSIf you aren't using Snapchat on a regular basis, I  encourage you to consider pulling it into your business as an amazing tool to actually grow your exposure and your reach in your market! Not only is it fun (once your start getting the hang of it), but it's actually a huge business builder in the senior market. Here are a few ideas to up your game in the senior market with Snapchat:THE POWER OF EXCITEMENT: During my consultation, I make sure my senior follows me on snapchat. Both senior and mom know that part of the experience of the day will be an "exclusive behind the scenes story" of the day through my Snapchat story. I do this for 2 reasons: first, my seniors are already following me and are excited to know that this is a planned, fun part of the day. It gives me an opportunity to prepare her to tell her friends to follow me to see the story. Second, it allows me prepare mom for this aspect of the day so that she knows that every time I pull my cell phone out I'm not texting or doing something distracting, rather, I'm capturing the fun behind the scenes moments. This gets mom on board and excited too.THE POWER OF EXPOSURE: At some point during an upcoming senior session, I "prepare" or "announce" the special day. I alternate where I do this. For example, sometimes I announce it on Instagram (in which case I see a spike in followers on Snapchat that day) or sometimes I announce it on Snapchat. Either way, this builds the excitement for both senior and her friends. By asking my senior to make sure her friends follow me on Snapchat, I'm gaining exposure for not only Snapchat but also Instagram because I use Snapchat to point my followers to other social media channels. TIP: I also ask my senior to post my "announcement" on her Instagram as well as her own Snaptchat story.THE POWER OF SURPRISE: Anyone can screen capture images and stills from a Snapchat story. And most of my seniors do. But they don't have the ability to download an entire story including video! I download each story and save it to dropbox. At my ordering appointment, this becomes a bonus in the digital collection! It's not something they can purchase, rather, it's purely an "extra" that they get on the flash drive as a memory. It includes the entire story, beginning to end, including all of the video features I captured.  This truly becomes an added surprise bonus feature that creates additional desire for an upgrade at the sale.Snapchat is an amazing little tool that can add an additional element to the experience of your senior session! The fact that most seniors are already on Snapchat makes it one of the most powerful marketing tools out there, not to mention---it's fun!