Clay Dazing boosts social engagement 4x with Photoroom

The challenge: As a solo entrepreneur and new mom, Maria Hetrick struggled to balance her growing business, Clay Dazing, with the demands of everyday life. Creating high-quality product photography was time-consuming and labor-intensive, involving hours of staging, sourcing props, and editing. In a saturated market, Maria needed imagery that could stand out and emotionally connect with her audience, all while saving her valuable time.

Our solution: By allowing her to create professional, high-quality images directly on her phone, Photoroom eliminated the need for extensive staging and editing. Features like customizable backgrounds and templates helped Maria maintain a cohesive aesthetic across collections while delivering stunning visuals that resonate with her audience.

Results: Photoroom has become an integral part of Maria’s creative workflow, helping her drive sales and build stronger connections with her customers, all while maintaining a better work-life balance.

With Photoroom, Clay Dazing has achieved remarkable growth:

• 4x higher engagement on Photoroom-created images compared to others

• Reached 55% new audiences organically, including non-followers

• Saved significant time and effort, enabling Maria to focus on designing her unique, joyful creations

What started as a pandemic pastime has blossomed into a full-fledged business dedicated to spreading joy. Meet Maria Hetrick, the creative mastermind behind Clay Dazing, a vibrant brand of polymer clay earrings that are as playful as they are unique.

Maria’s journey began in 2019, when she discovered a polymer clay earring kit from DewDropInc on Etsy while searching for a hands-on hobby to relieve stress. Fueled by her love of experimenting with styles and a desire to create something meaningful, she turned her early creations into a business in 2020. Today, Clay Dazing is all about sharing “little bursts of joy”—rainbows, playful designs, and bright colors that bring smiles not just to Maria’s customers but to Maria herself.

“When I think about my business, it’s all about spreading happiness. I like to say, ‘from ear to ear’—because literally, I just think they’re so cute and fun. I’ve even had customers tell me they feel happier when they wear my earrings, and that’s really special.”
-Maria Hetrick, Founder, Clay Dazing

Since launching her business, Maria has combined her marketing prowess with the impact of community building to drive considerable growth online, almost entirely organically. In fact, Maria hasn’t put out a sponsored post for Clay Dazing on social media since 2021. She sells (primarily) online and in-person at a variety of popups. She also has her earrings in stock at local Nashville stores like GloveBox Kids, and has both in-store and online collaborations with Black Box Ice Cream, Callie Danielle, and other artists and shops.

In 2023, shortly after becoming a mom for the first time, Maria found herself juggling the chaos of motherhood with the demands of running a business (she actually runs two, Clay Dazing and a marketing agency called Blue Note Creative). She knew she was going to need to adopt new tools to help her manage it all.

That’s when she discovered what felt like a gift for her business—Photoroom! Before she knew it, Maria had effectively eliminated a large majority of her product photography workflow with far better results than she had been able to produce on her own with tons of time and effort.

This is her journey.

Discovering Photoroom for effortless creativity

As the 2023 holiday season approached and Maria set out to prepare for the launch of both her fall earring collection and her festive earring collection, she and her husband began exploring tools that could simplify her workflow.

“I’ve used AI tools like ChatGPT for work, and they’ve been super helpful, so I thought there must be an AI tool designed specifically for photo editing."
-Maria Hetrick, Founder, Clay Dazing

After some research, she discovered Photoroom—and it was exactly what she was looking for.

“I was excited right away. When you download Photoroom, it previews what you can do with the app, and it just seemed like everything I needed as a creator in business. While other tools that claim to save time often end up doing the complete opposite, this immediately felt different.”
-Maria Hetrick, Founder, Clay Dazing

Photoroom transformed Maria’s entire approach to product photography for Clay Dazing. Gone were the days of meticulously staging shots with perfect lighting, carefully chosen props, and hours upon hours of tedious editing. With Photoroom, Maria could now create professional, high-quality product photos entirely on her phone—complete with customizable backgrounds, templates, and lighting adjustments.

“It really blows my mind how advanced Photoroom’s technology is. The images look completely real, not overly staged, and fit seamlessly into my brand aesthetic. I can create custom backgrounds and templates that match perfectly, and it saves me so much time. Hands down, amazing.”
-Maria Hetrick, Founder, Clay Dazing

Powering new product launches and marketing campaigns for Clay Dazing

Maria’s creative process truly shines when it comes to her seasonal launches, where she uses Photoroom to elevate her product photography and create a cohesive, emotion-driven aesthetic that resonates with her audience.

“When I launch a collection, I love to create a flatlay that showcases all the earrings together. For my recent fall collection, I started with a simple white background and then used Photoroom to design a custom fall-inspired backdrop.”
-Maria Hetrick, Founder, Clay Dazing

Using Photoroom’s AI Backgrounds tool, Maria created a subtle yet stunning autumn background featuring delicate leaves, perfectly capturing the cozy, seasonal vibe she wanted for her collection. The result was a set of beautiful product photos that she showcased on her website and Instagram, creating a visual story that immediately drew in her audience.

“That fall aesthetic really encouraged people to buy from the collection. It created an emotional connection. Photoroom helped deliver that feeling—beyond just showing a product, it helped people see themselves in it, feel the season, and experience the vibe I wanted to create.”
-Maria Hetrick, Founder, Clay Dazing

The impact of Photoroom’s AI-powered tools went beyond aesthetics. It allowed Maria to create high-quality, professional imagery without spending hours on staging or sourcing props.

“I just love this shot [the fall flatlay]. I couldn’t have staged that myself—it’s the kind of thing that would’ve taken so much time and effort before. With Photoroom, it’s effortless.”
-Maria Hetrick , Founder, Clay Dazing

Clay Dazing boosts engagement by 4x and reaches 55% new audiences with Photoroom product imagery

For Maria, Photoroom isn’t just a tool; it’s an integral part of her creative workflow, helping her transform ideas into visuals that inspire and delight her customers, and drive sales—even in a tough economy and a highly saturated market, where standout imagery and creativity make all the difference.

“Photoroom has helped Clay Dazing a lot in terms of engagement and then leading customers to the path of purchase. I definitely saw a peak in engagement on my organic social growth and then web traffic when I started sharing imagery created in Photoroom.”
-Maria Hetrick, Founder, Clay Dazing

While other non-Photoroom images tend to reach only about 500 people, Maria has found that a Photoroom-created photo tends to reach more than four times that (2,000+ impressions), and do it all organically.

“The fall collection photos definitely got a lot more engagement than a lot of the stuff that’s not Photoroom, because it really triggered that emotional behavior. One specific photo reached 55% of non-followers, and that’s all organic which is great. Especially these days with Instagram and how crazy the algorithm is.”
-Maria Hetrick, Founder, Clay Dazing

Looking ahead: Clay Dazing’s growth, Maria’s vision, and how Photoroom continues to inspire success

When she looks back on her journey with Clay Dazing, Maria is most proud of how far she’s come since she started in 2020; not just with the success of the business but in the development of her craft. When she started making polymer earrings, she felt like the result looked toddler-made, but today her creations are polished, professional, and cherished by many, including Maria who loves to wear her own pieces. She also feels great about how many early customers became long-term supporters of her brand.

Looking ahead, Maria looks forward to expanding her in-person and in-store sales, and connecting with more earring lovers around the country. While her website will always reign supreme when it comes to showcasing and selling her collections, Maria is excited to continue to pair her ecommerce efforts with more grassroots outreach.

And Photoroom will definitely continue to play a pivotal role in Clay Dazing’s ongoing growth and success, particularly when it comes to expanding marketing efforts.

“I’m thinking about running ads again, and I’d love to use the flatlay photo from my fall collection as well as this year’s holiday collection as part of a campaign. That fall image has already driven significant organic engagement, so it makes sense to see how much further we can go with paid ads and a new seasonal campaign around the holidays.”
-Maria Hetrick, Founder, Clay Dazing

With Photoroom’s ability to create visually captivating product photos that resonate with her audience, Maria is excited to explore how these images can help drive traffic to her website and grow her business. “If these photos are already engaging people organically, imagine what they can do with a little push.”

If you’re a solopreneur (or really any business owner) considering Photoroom, Maria encourages you to reclaim your time and “just do it!”

“Photoroom is absolutely, 100% worth the money. I promise you will see your business grow, because you’re going to have so much more time to work on creating and operations. You’ll even be saving money, because you don’t have to incur so many production costs for your product imagery.”
-Maria Hetrick, Founder, Clay Dazing

For Maria, Photoroom has been more than just an app; it’s been a lifesaver in balancing her roles as a mom, entrepreneur, and creator. With the ability to craft stunning imagery effortlessly, she can focus on what truly matters: spreading joy through her playful, vibrant designs.

Try Photoroom yourself today. Available on Android, iOS, or the Web.