Michelle Marchant on the Marketing Plan Behind Consistent Bookings

Michelle Marchant used to be flat out for two months, then drop off to nothing. Leads were never her problem. She had them coming in, she just did not know what to do with them once they landed. Now she has eleven bookings sitting in her calendar for August and September, a three week holiday booked over the top of them, and no stress about either.

In this episode, Ina sits down with Michelle Marchant of Captured Hearts Photography in the Dandenong Ranges, Melbourne. Michelle has been in business for about ten years and has worked with Ina one on one. She shares exactly what changed when she stopped running her marketing on the fly and built a proper pet photography marketing plan, a follow up process for her leads, and full pricing transparency before the session. This is a real look at how consistent bookings actually get built, numbers included.

Key takeawaysLeads were never the bottleneck. Michelle already had a good filtering process and knew which marketing worked. What she did not have was anything that happened after a lead came in. A three email nurture sequence and a consultation script closed that gap.

One question she was not asking in the consult changed the whole conversation. What is your why. Why do you want this, why did you enter the competition. It opens up a real conversation, and it hands her ideas for what to capture, which lifts the sale.

Past coaches had told her not to disclose pricing before a session, and it never sat right with her. "I felt like I was handing over a surprise." She now sends the full pricing list once a client books, gives it earlier on request, and her pre session questionnaire asks whether they have looked at it with the link right there.

Between transparent pricing and a reworked price list with more collections, her average sale moved from around $1,500 to $1,800 up to about $2,200 across the last six months. Clients who tell her they are just going to take the minimum package regularly land between $2,000 and $3,000.

A $250 Facebook ad run over one week for Mother's Day brought in about 80 leads and 10 bookings. That is $25 a booking. May went from her usual four to six sessions up to eleven, and the campaign worked so well she did not need to run the autumn campaign she had planned.

Michelle does not rely on one campaign to book out six months. She runs several across the year, targeting different people, bringing in a few bookings from each. "A campaign can do so well one time. You try it again and it's th