You know that email could be a powerful marketing tool for your photography business, but you’re not quite sure how to use it or where to start. All that is about to change. We’ll walk you through six highly effective ways you can use email marketing to increase clients and bookings, share some of our favorite email templates for showcasing your photography, and then we’ll cover what you need to launch your email marketing strategy.
Did you know that automated emails can help you provide white glove service for photography clients without you having to lift a finger? Automated emails are real-time, one-to-one emails that are sent when a client or customer takes a specific action. That means you can schedule emails for specific moments in the customer journey, like when a contract is signed or a deposit is made, ensuring your clients receive valuable emails at the exact moment they need them. It will have them saying, “Wow, our photographer is so incredible,” before you’ve even snapped a photo. And the best part is that once you create your automated email campaigns, it just happens…like email marketing magic.
Increase bookings for photography sessions with a nurture campaign— aka an email campaign designed to lead a prospective client through the sales funnel—that uses seasonality to create a sense of urgency. Nurture campaigns for wedding photography in fall and winter (based on subscribers who attended wedding shows) can ensure you’re headed into spring and summer booked and busy. Likewise, you can create a sense of urgency in the fall with a nurture campaign driving to family photo sessions so that clients are “holiday card ready” come December.
Content marketing is a digital marketing approach that involves creating and sharing valuable content. For a photography business, this could look like creating a series of nurture emails for engaged clients who have booked an informational meeting with wedding planning tips—from your favorite wedding vendors to what to look for in a venue (for the best photos). These information-rich emails will drive engagement and demonstrate your expertise, making a potential customer more likely to book you as their photographer.
Customer data can help you send personalized emails and find the optimal time to reach out to past clients. If a client books a newborn shoot, you can use the child’s birthday as a time to send an email about a one-year photo session. You can use similar data to encourage family sessions for clients on landmark anniversaries. Or, you can focus on customer relationship management, sending simple, congratulatory emails on birthdays and anniversaries. Sometimes, a simple message that keeps you top of mind is the most effective marketing strategy.
Promotional emails can help you boost sales—either in slow months or if you want to pour gasoline on the fire of your busiest season. Offering discounts and promotions on photo prints and albums can help create urgency and drive sales. This is one of the instances where you might want to send a mass email to your entire subscriber list.
A monthly or quarterly newsletter can help you showcase your work and build your photography brand. Highlight some of your favorite photos from recent bookings. Share your thoughts and help current and potential clients get to know the photographer behind the lens. Email newsletters can help your subscribers get to know your style and your personality. Even when you’re not making a direct sales pitch, you’re selling the vibe.
Now that you know the why, let’s talk about the how. While it requires a fair amount of work, the steps to create an email marketing program are actually pretty simple. We’ll cover what to expect from each step and link to more in-depth guides. That way, if you want to dive into a certain email topic, you have easy access to the resources you need.
Email marketing starts with a strong roster of email addresses. If you have an inquiry form on your photography website, you can include a checkbox on your form with language about opting in/out of language. If you make opting in the default (aka, potential email subscribers have to take action not to receive emails), your email list will be bigger, but your subscribers will likely be less engaged. So, it’s something to consider since subscriber engagement is an important metric that can affect how internet service providers (ISPs) treat your marketing emails.
You can also encourage social media followers to sign up for your email list by offering special incentives—either early access to booking dates, special peaks behind the scenes, additional photos, or “expert tips” for getting the best photos. Running a contest or sweepstakes where you offer a free photography session as the prize can also be a highly effective strategy for building your email subscriber list.
One word of caution: If you’re building an email list from scratch, it can be really tempting to buy a list. Don’t do it. You’ll pay the price with with poor engagement, damaged sender reputation, risks of deny lists, or even email service provider (ESP) shutdown. Start small, and build your list over time. You’ll see better results if you do.
Ready to sink your teeth into the ins and outs of building an email list the right way? Check out the complete guide.
Instead of keeping your email subscribers all mushed together, segment your list based on your subscriber data, like demographics, client insights, subscriber engagement level, booking activity, or the types of email that you send (newsletter, promotional). Email segmentation can help you ensure you send the right messages at the right time. An email about “Pro tips for wedding photography” won’t matter to previous wedding photography clients, but a reminder to book family photo sessions ahead of the holiday rush probably will. And your engaged clients (or prospective clients)? They definitely care about how they can get the best wedding photos.
The perfect email marketing template will showcase your photography while still leaving enough room for your marketing messaging. Here are a few of our favorite free… and beautiful email templates for photographers.
This beautiful template could easily become the base for a photography newsletter. Highlight some of your favorite recent sessions–-or some of your favorite moments from a single session. The way this email template is laid out with feature images and body copy in each section perfectly lends itself to a peek behind the curtain.
This lovely template would be perfect as for the welcome email you send once someone signs up to receive emails. The large hero image offers a photography-focused layout, and the optional smaller elements give you space to include a value-add (like some of your favorite photography tips).
This email template is perfect for when you’re running a sale or special offer on prints or photo sessions. Urgency? Check. Photography-focused email layout? Check. Space for secondary messaging? Check.
Once you have your email templates picked out, it’s time to get to work creating the emails you’ll send. We recommend creating an email calendar what helps you find the optimal marketing cadence for your emails. Once your emails have been created and proofed, it’s time for the send. Test different days and times until you find the sweet spot when your email audience is most engaged.
Once you create your first email campaign, it’s time to track metrics like deliverability rate, inbox placement rate (aka how often your emails go to the recipient’s inbox vs. spam), open rate, and click-through rate. When you’re just starting email marketing, your metrics give you a baseline of where you’re starting. Then, as you learn, test, and develop more informed email strategies, you’ll be able to play with optimizing email performance in different ways—like running A/B tests on your subject lines—until you find the perfect recipe for your photography business.
Email marketing software can be the difference between email marketing being a chore you dread doing and email marketing becoming your favorite photography marketing channel. If you enjoy doing it, you’ll create better emails. Win win.
Look for an email provider that offers a beginner-friendly setup, automation workflows, list segmentation, email newsletter templates, and landing page builders. Twilio SendGrid provides all the design and deliverability tools you need.
