You hear it time and time again: Email marketing is powerful, but email marketing for photographers can really take you to that next level. The only problem is that even though you’re a talented photographer, you might not necessarily feel like a savvy email content creator.

Does this mean you need to give up on email altogether? Not at all!

Email marketing for photographers is best when there is some strategy behind it, but it’s not as intimidating as you might think either!

So, if you’re looking to take advantage of email marketing, we have three simple tips you can use if you want to be more comfortable (and more effective) without overthinking it.

Email Marketing for Photographers

Before we jump into the tips you need to know, let’s go over a few basics of email marketing for photographers — how you can collect email addresses and how you can send out emails once you’re ready. 

A Way to Collect Emails

The first in email marketing for photographers is to collect emails – or get people to willingly sign up for your emails. Signing people up to receive emails from you without their permission isn’t the best practice — and even if you found some loophole around it, you don’t want to send emails to people who don’t want to hear from you.

The good news is there are plenty of people who do want to hear from you, and they’re the ones you should focus on. You can collect emails using a simple form built into your website.

Most businesses encourage people to sign up by teasing a big announcement, counting down to a product launch, or offering a freebie. This ensures that the people signing up for your emails are people who are interested in what you have to offer

Side note, we have a guide on how to create valuable lead magnets to attract customers. You can check it out if you need help getting started.

A Way to Email the Contacts You’ve Collected

Sending out emails via your regular email platform, such as Gmail or Yahoo, isn’t practical compared with all the capabilities you have through a platform built for email marketing, such as ConvertKit or Flodesk.

Not only do these platforms make it easy to build sign-up forms you can embed into your website for collecting those emails as we just described, but they’ll also let you:

• Store those contacts
• Categorize them based on segments you want to keep separate (i.e. portrait clients vs wedding clients)
• Create your emails with customizable templates
• Send them out at the most effective times
• Analyze your results to see whether the email helped you achieve your goals.

Think of it this way: You decide to send an email out to everyone who has expressed interest in your photography business but has not yet hired you.

You send an email out to offer a special discount rate for first-time customers. It goes out at a time when your users are most likely to check their inboxes.

You can then see how many people opened the email and how many people clicked through the link to your website. All of this is much more effective than sending out a basic Gmail message with all your subscribers BCCed on it.

So, now that you have a better idea of how you’re going to get started with email marketing, it’s worth taking a look at 3 important tips every photographer should keep in mind:

Email Marketing for Photographers Tip 1: Have an Inquiry Response Sequence

The first thing you should set up? An inquiry response sequence. You don’t want a curious potential customer to sign up for your newsletter and then hear nothing but a single email asking to schedule a call from you for days or weeks.

An inquiry response sequence is can a couple of emails or sometimes a series of emails making an initial connection with them.

This response doesn’t have to be long or complicated. In fact, it probably shouldn’t be! Unless you have something important to say, you don’t want to give them too much they have to read. All you need are a few simple emails to:

• Tell them what they want to know! They just inquired, so give them the information they requested in the first place. It’s not a bad idea to give them a little more info about you, your business or anything else that they might connect with.
• Tell them the next steps they need to take if they want to work with you. Don’t be scared to talk to them as if they are already a client. Assume they love your work and want to move forward – after all, they did just inquire!
• Send a few follow-up emails. This could be more examples of recent work you did for a client or a story of a client they might relate to or emotionally connect to.

Email Marketing for Photographers Tip 2: Email More Often

Many photographers tell themselves, “Oh, my subscribers don’t want to hear from me, so I don’t want to bother them.” But the truth is actually the opposite as these are people who subscribed because they want to hear from you. You want to deliver on that by providing value and/or content on a consistent basis.

Notice the two important words there: value and consistency. You don’t want to send a bunch of fluff emails just to stay visible, nor do you want to bombard them with a bunch of emails during a short period of time only to disappear for a few months.

Instead, determine a realistic number of emails you can send them. Maybe that’s once a week or 2 times per month. As long as you are regularly sending out emails and those emails have something interesting to say, you don’t have to worry about overthinking it.

If your subscribers decide that you’re sending too many emails, they can always unsubscribe. This might sound like the last thing you want to have happen, but unsubscribes are an inevitability. You’re better off staying in touch with people who want to hear from you than you are trying to maintain a subscription list of people who aren’t interested.

Email Marketing for Photographers Tip 3: Personalize Your Emails

Remember how we mentioned the benefits of an email marketing platform? One feature you want to take advantage of is the way it lets you personalize your emails. When people receive a personalized email, they are much more likely to receive it favorably and take action.

What does it mean to personalize an email? When you personalize an email, you:

• Use the email platform to insert your recipient’s name in the subject line and email body, which gets their attention and makes them feel as if they’re being addressed directly.
• Segment your email list based on a subscriber’s interests or previous interactions, so they’re receiving emails that are specific to them without too much irrelevant content.

By personalizing the emails you send out, you’re increasing the value of each interaction you have with your clients, decreasing the likelihood they unsubscribe, and building stronger relationships overall.

Start Taking Advantage of Email Marketing for Photographers

Email marketing for photographers might take a little bit more effort than other forms of digital marketing, but it is often the most targeted and effective. For photographers, email marketing lets you stay connected with your clients, offer more services, and drive more bookings. These tips will empower you to take advantage of email marketing and use it most effectively.

If you want more help in the area of marketing for photographers, check out this article about how to improve your SEO.

When you build your website with Showit, you’ll be working with a platform that makes it easy to integrate with your email marketing app of choice. Don’t forget that we offer a two-week, no-strings-attached trial so you can experience it for yourself. Sign up now to start!