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Book More Photography Clients Podcast | Photography Business, Photography Leads, Marketing
Here’s Why Email Marketing Is the Missing Piece in Your Strategy
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Today we are going to talk about email marketing for photographers. I believe that you absolutely should be utilizing email marketing in your business, especially if you are having a hard time booking clients from just using social media. I am going to chat about why this is important, why I personally use and love flodesk and I'm giving you a free gift a whole year of email templates when you sign up using my link. So let's dive in. Welcome to the Book More Clients Photography Podcast. You can stop spending hours on Google and YouTube because you just found your number one resource for growing a profitable and sustainable photography business. Hi, I'm Brooke Jefferson. I'm a believer wife, mama to two and Oklahoma family photographer. I left the classroom in 2018 to pursue my photography career full time. Now I'm here to help you do the same. In this podcast we're covering the most asked about topics including pricing, marketing, client experience, and all things systems and workflows. You won't find any fluff or BS here. Just tried and true strategy. Are you ready? Grab your kids some snacks and charge those camera batteries. It's time to jump in. As we all know by now, and we have heard this before, social media is borrowed space. If you haven't heard that before, it essentially just means that we are operating our marketing and advertising of our business on somebody else's platform. We don't actually own Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. Whatever social media platform you're using that doesn't actually belong to you. It belongs to the creator of that platform or the company that owns that platform. And so your email marketing is different because it gives you a sense of ownership. It is something that is 100% completely yours. Even if an email marketing company decides one day to basically shut down its hosting site, you can take everything with you and you can move to a different platform. With social media, once they take it down, you're typically not given access to come back in and take all of those social media followers with you that stays on that individual platform. The other thing about email marketing that I really want you to lean in and hear me on is that people do use their inbox. You might be someone that says I never check my email, but I really want you to think about this. When you go shopping, they don't ask for your social media handle. They ask for your email address to contact you when you are filling out important paperwork. They don't ask for your social media handle. They are asking for your email address. So while you may not be a person that checks your email inbox on a daily basis, you probably do check your email more often than you think, more often than you would think. Most people are probably checking their email. People are using this in their everyday life for work, for access reasons, they're using it for shopping reasons. And so I'm telling you, people are checking their inbox way, way more than they are trying to scroll social media to buy something or sign up for something. They're usually on social media to literally just scroll, right mindless scrolling, see what their friends are up to, check on their family members. Whereas when people are in their inbox, they are typically scrolling to see if something appeals to them, if there's something important that they need to open. And so your email could be in your client's inbox and you could get a booking from that. I have been using email marketing in my photography business since 2018, which feels like forever ago. And email, thank God, has come such a long way. But I have seen it work in my own business. I have seen the results from email marketing, I have seen the profit come in from using email. And so this is why I want to twist your arm so badly and tell you that if you're not currently using email marketing in your photography business, you are leaving money on the table. And it is simple as that. What I like to tell my students and clients when they go through my program or when we are doing one on one coaching and we're talking about email marketing, I always remind them that not every single email you send will necessarily result in a booking. However, it keeps you top of mind until one day they open your email, maybe for the fifth time, maybe for the 50th time. And that is when they are reminded that they do want to book a session and then they follow through and they do it. And when that day happens, you will get so, so excited because you will realize, okay, wait a second, this totally paid off. I'm paying X amount a month for this platform and I'm booking X amount hundreds of dollars a month in client sales. And so that's the mindset I want you to be in. When you think about email marketing, you might be in a place where email marketing seems overwhelming, or maybe you don't know what to talk about, or maybe you just, you just don't know how to get started. All of that is okay, and I have been there too. The good news is I can totally equip you with everything that you need to get started in email marketing and I'm going to give you some free tips right now. To really help you kick things off in your own inbox and with your own software. First and foremost for email marketing, you have to choose an actual software. You cannot use your Gmail inbox and send mass emails to people. That is not email marketing. That's not what we're talking about. I'm talking about getting with an actual software like a flow desk or like a mailchimp or something that is specifically designed to be an email marketing platform. I know you might have a CRM and they might offer email marketing and that is a great place to start, but that is not a place I want you to stay in forever. And I'll get on that soapbox another time. And so you've got your software, and I'll tell you about my software here in just a minute, but let's say you've got your software now you're ready to start building your list and you are ready to start sending emails. The first place I want you to start when building your list is going back to your past clients and asking them if they want to join your email list. It can be as simple as saying, hey, so? And so I am creating an email list for all of my past and present photography clients. This will keep you in the loop with upcoming sessions, mini sessions, blah blah, blah. I want you to join and this will allow you to have first dibs in the future. Let me know if you would like to join and I will send you the link. And then you're going to send them a sign up form where they just put in their first name, maybe their first name and last name and their email address. And then they click a button that says join my email list or join the VIP list or whatever you want for that button to be. And then they will now be on your email list. And so this gives you a group of people that you can start corresponding with, that's such a professional word, but literally gives you people that you can start sending emails to to watch how this happens. When you're ready to bring people on your email list that haven't booked you before, it can be just as easy. Start with your social media following, start getting them to get on your email list where then now you essentially own their contact information. So just in case Instagram, you know, fails one day, you can still contact people through your email list. And one of the easiest ways to do this is to show up in your stories and just have that story that pops up once a week, every single week. I promise, every single week you want to do this. I Didn't say every day. I said every week. You want to have a story that pops up or maybe even a post where the cta, that call to action at the bottom is inviting people to join your email list and then include your little link or include a CTA to where they can DM you like the word email list and then you can send them the form. That is how you are going to start growing your email list with $0 and you're going to start having people that want to hear from you and they want to stay connected with your business. This works for every single niche across the board. Whether you are trying to book couples for your weddings or you are trying to book newborn sessions, or you are trying to book family sessions. All of that. Okay, this is the simplest. I've done this since 2018 and I now have almost 900 people from my local photography business. Now we're up into the thousands with photography contacts, but I'm specifically giving you examples with an email list. So let's talk some numbers. Let me, let me flash you with some numbers so you can see the impact of having an email list. So I currently have 927 people that are in my local photography business contact list. That is who I am sending emails to. Okay. The last thing I used for my email list as far as a promotion goes was my Christmas mini release. So these happen. My Christmas minis were held on November 2nd and I filled seven spots which is exactly what I wanted. I wanted seven spots. I filled all seven. So what I did this year is I had a three part email series that went out and promoted my Christmas minis. And so let me give you some stats on the numbers here. Okay, so it's sent out to that list. I had a 46% open rate which is very, very good in email world. OK. Typically anything between 20 to 30% is average. Anything above 30 is excellent. And so I had a 46% open rate and then I had, I had six individual clicks on that email and out of those six people, two people booked immediately. Okay, so two out of seven spots were booked with one email. Then I had another email that went out. Oh, and also just to give y' all some reference, I know you ask all the times. This is kind you're getting. You're just getting a workshop right now is what you're getting. I get asked all the time, how soon are we supposed to be promoting mini sessions? And I do have podcast episodes on this, so feel free to go back or search mini sessions, book more Clients, photography, podcasts, and they should all pop up for you. So the. My very first email that I sent out was on October 1st. So this was exactly one month, I think it was five weeks before the date of my Christmas minis. The second email was sent two days later on October 3rd. And this was more describing kind of what it was going to look like, you know, really giving them a vision of what they would look like if they showed up to this. So I had a 42.9% open rate. Pretty dang good for that second email. And again, I had another six clicks. Out of these six clicks, I booked another two spots. So we are already over 50% booked for the Christmas Mini after this went out. And I really should have done some digging here because I want to bring something back to your attention. Remember when I said when people, they may not open your email, or they might open it, but they might not book from it immediately. But you know, you keep showing up on their email list and they somehow you're basically in their subconscious being top of mind. Out of every person that booked me, only one person is not on my email list. So I want you to think about that. If I want to, I could go dig and I could see if everybody that booked my Christmas Minis, I could go look and see. How many of these emails did they open and look at before they. Maybe they texted me or maybe they reached out on Facebook. Either way, they found my booking link and they booked it regardless. So keep that in the back of your mind. Okay, so we're four out of seven booked. I ended up booking after the second email, I ended up booking, I believe, one more spot. So I have. I had two left, essentially. My sister took one of them. And then finally I had the very last email that went out and this was kind of more so fighting an objection that I hear a lot. And so email number three, my last and final Christmas mini. Their last chance to book was sent out on October 9th, and I booked the final spot from this email. So this is the power of email marketing. And again, let me give you those stats real quick just so you can have all three stats. So email three. Again, we're looking at a 42 open rate. This time I had 14 clicks, you guys. And what they're clicking on is the booking link. It's taking them straight to that Christmas mini booking calendar. 14 clicks. That is insane. And so obviously, I'm sure some people clicked it and it ended up saying there are no time slots. And so it's probably showed a Few people that I was completely booked out and it was. And so that could have happened. No one told me that specifically, but that could have happened. Now let me tell you why I love Flow Desk. This is not the first time or the second time that I have talked about them on this podcast. And that is because I truly am obsessed with flodesk. I really am. And to be honest with you, they have one feature that I really, really, really want them to imp bad. And it hasn't happened yet. I know it's in the works, but it hasn't happened yet. This is the only feature that I would love for them to have, but it's not enough to get me to walk away and that is to be able to split test subject lines. That's when I can send the same email, but I can change the subject line and it will send half of that subject line to the list and the other half get the other one. What it does is it'll test a portion of those email subscribers, whichever subject line is working the best, then it switches them all to that one. So basically it works in your favor. It tells me, okay, what is my audience more prone to opening? Is it a question, is it a keyword, is it an emoji? You know what I mean? And so that's the only feature that they don't have currently that I wish that they did. But here's why I love them. Anyway, it is a platform that is built for creatives. It was built by photographers and that is so important because they realized that there was a gap in the market for people like us who have a visual service and the regular text and old school email. It just wasn't working. And so they created a platform that has beautiful and easy to use templates, drag and drop design and easy automation. It's very simple. It is not confusing, it is not super overwhelming. It is very user friendly and that is very important to me. And I know that's very important to you. I also love their transparent pricing. You don't have to like secretly do a demo or reach out to them or get penalized for certain things. I love, love, love their pricing model. Their analytics are top notch. There is an entire tab you guys inside of Flodesk that is an analytics tab. And you can break it down by subscribers, you can break it down by emails, by forms, your workflows, your checkouts. It is absolutely amazing. I just, I love everything about it like I truly do. I will forever use Flow Desk regardless if you choose to use my link or not. I will continue to use it. I have happily pa since 2018. It is not something I get for free. I've literally paid a monthly price since the day I joined Flodesk. And sometimes when you use my link, yes I get a kickback, yes it absolutely helps. But even if you didn't I would still choose Flodesk. It's the one software that I am not going to part from so I love it. I've tried other ones. I hate them. I even got my marketing job to sign up and use Flow Desk. We love it and we get so many compliments and so what I have for you is if you use my Flow Desk link which is Brooke jefferson.com/email marketing that will automatically forward you over to Flodesk you can sign up that will have my code. If for some reason you don't see my code it is Brooke50. So Brooke in all caps B R O O K E50 so if you type that in there you are going to see your discount pop up. And I if you use my link after you heard this, all you have to do is after you check out and take a screenshot of you putting in my code and also take a screenshot of the confirmation of payment and then you're going to email it to me. Brooke brookejefferson.com if you forget, here's the really cool thing. I can see every single person that uses my link their email shows it shows to me on the back end after your first payment goes through. I can't see your payment details so I'm not saying that. But all I can see is your email. It doesn't even tell me your name, it just tells me your email. So what I will do is this podcast airs in November of 2025. If you use my link anytime after November 2025 like from this point on, then anytime I see your email pop up on the back end, I will send you this free gift. I'm giving you a one year's worth of email templates. So to help you get started, this is what I'm giving you as a year's worth of email templates completely free. When you use my Flodesk link you're going to get 12 done for you emails, one for each month that you can tweak and you can send it in minutes. You're also going to get that template so you don't even have to copy and paste it. I'm making these emails for you and you're going to be able to insert that template into your flodesk account and just tweak it for what you want it to look like and bam. You are off to the races. You have all 12 months worth of 2026 templates or whatever year you decide to use this. So that's my gift to you. Just as an extra. Thank you for using my Flow Desk link. I'm so excited for you to start implementing email marketing into your marketing strategy. And you have to come back and tell me when you get your first booking from your emails. I'll catch you on the next episode.