After disconnecting on the beach or in the mountains this summer and coinciding with the beginning of September, it’s time to start planning the 2023 Christmas campaign. If you are new to this type of temporary reportage, it may seem a bit rushed but from the experience of veteran photographers who do this type of reportage with children, we can tell you that if you don’t start to give shape to your Christmas 2023 photoshoots that you want to offer this year, you will be quite short of time.

To prepare a Christmas 2023 campaign that really works, it is important that you take the time to plan and prepare the decorations, create the necessary publicity to make these reports profitable and several other tips that we will give you in this article.

What are you waiting for to organise your Christmas 2023 campaign today?

A guide to 10 tips for organising your Christmas campaign 2023

For children’s photographers, the 2023 Christmas campaign can be one of the strongest sources of income at the end of the year, which is why it is important that nothing is left to chance in these types of reports.

When it comes to preparing for your Christmas 2023 photo shoot, it is important that you take pen and paper and start giving shape to each of the 10 recommendations that you will find in this small guide that we have created for you. Let’s take a look at each of them.

1# Plan the theme of this Christmas campaign 2023

As you begin to shape this year’s Christmas sessions, it is important that you create an original set, different from the rest and the more elaborate your resources allow you to be, the more clients you will attract to your studio.

Make sure that, within the Christmas theme, this year’s decorations have quite different tones and details than last year’s. This way you will attract more customers and build loyalty every year. This way you will attract more customers and build customer loyalty every year.

Here are some ideas:

• Christmas Village: you can simulate a small avenue with several little houses, small lanterns and, of course, snow.
• Starry sky: use a dark background and add small points of light to simulate the stars. You can add a Christmas tree, reindeer, etc. to this scene.
• Santa’s house: this type of decoration is always popular with the little ones. Simulate the façade of Santa’s house and place a small letterbox so that children can leave their letters there.
• Living room with fireplace: another option that is also very popular, especially with parents, is to recreate a living room like in the Christmas movies, with its large fireplace and the stockings hanging around it.
• Decorated with Christmas sweets: you can use a background with Christmas tones and add gingerbread biscuits, large candy canes, candyfloss, Christmas cupcakes, etc. to the decoration.
• Etc.

2# Create Christmas decorations for your studio

Once you have a clear idea of the theme for this year’s Christmas reports, you will have to get down to work with the decorations.

You can look for a Christmas style background to avoid creating part of the decorations by hand, or you can choose to create wooden structures, for example the front of Santa’s house, which you can then use in other years by changing the rest of the decorations.

Christmas trees are a must for this kind of sessions, so if you don’t have one yet, you will have to get one to have it in your studio. Every year you can vary the decoration of the tree, so the decoration will be different every season.

Here are some of the materials you will need to create your Christmas scene:

• Wallpapers with a Christmas motif.
• Christmas tree, Father Christmas.
• Decoration for the tree.
• Lights.
• Artificial snow.
• Christmas garlands and decorations.
• Candy canes, marshmallows, etc.
• Fireplace, armchairs, chairs, tables, etc.
• Sleigh, reindeer, letterbox, etc.
• Pine twigs, pine cones, chestnuts, holly leaves, etc.
• Toys and small gift boxes.
• Christmas-related items that the children can use in the sessions.
• Etc.

3# Think about how you want the dynamic of the 2023 Christmas photo shoot to be

Once you’ve shaped your Christmas decorations, the next step is to decide what you want the shoot to look like.

If you don’t want to complicate the decoration of the studio this year, you can propose 2 types of decorations to the families, using the backdrops that are sold nowadays with Christmas scenographies, in this way your range of possibilities will be multiplied by 2.

You can offer a simple session, for example in a set with a Christmas fireplace where the decoration will be more elaborate. And you can also offer the option of enjoying 2 sets, one with the fireplace where the little ones will wear their best clothes and another one simulating a starry night where the children will put on their pyjamas to have some nice dreams.

Whatever the case may be, it is important that you think very carefully about how many options you want to offer the families, whether to include photos with the parents, costume changes, etc. so that when it comes to organising the time for each photo shoot you have a clear idea of all the options.

4# Do you dare to do a Christmas photo shoot on location?

Another option that is very interesting is to organise an extra Christmas session in early autumn (apart from your studio sessions) in the outdoors in your town. For this type of Christmas photo shoot 2023 it is important to control the weather very well so that the little ones enjoy the photo shoot.

You can go to an area with pine trees near your clients’ garden or a square in the surrounding area, add artificial snow, some more decorative elements and tell the parents so that the children wear warm clothes or Christmas-style clothes to simulate a winter afternoon.

You can also create a magical atmosphere by taking advantage of the sunset and adding lanterns to the scene, a cup of hot chocolate or a small Christmas tree for the children to decorate during the photo shoot.

For the little ones in the house, place a red and white checkered tablecloth, a blueberry or strawberry cake and let them play and experiment with the cake.

5# Collect material both for the session and for the final products

When decorating the studio you can choose to hang some Christmas photos from previous years. You can print some images in more special formats and larger sizes so that clients can get into the mood as soon as they enter your studio.

And to surprise your customers even more, every little detail is too little, so as well as being able to offer them different products to personalise with their photos, it is also important that you take care of how you deliver them. You can wrap them in brown wrapping paper, include a pretty red ribbon and give the little ones a candy cane.

Both the decoration of the studio and the delivery of the final product will make the clients leave much more satisfied with your work and you will have many more chances that they will come back to you for future seasons.

6# Organise the Christmas products you are going to give to your customers in 2023

As we mentioned in the previous section, it is important that you think about what kind of products you are going to deliver once the photo shoot is over.

In these cases, the easiest way is to deliver the photos in digital format and that’s it, but if you want to create several packs and increase the profits in your Christmas 2023 campaign, you can offer your customers several options, such as for example:

• Printing of images in professional formats.
• Creation of Christmas cards.
• Balls to decorate the tree with one of the images of the report inside.
• Mini Christmas photo album.
• Calendar with the 12 best photos of the session.
• Personalised gifts for the family: mugs, cushions, magnets, key rings, etc.
• Etc.

7# Do a test photo shoot with your new set

To make your new Christmas decoration much more widely known, once you have created it, talk to a friend with young children or search the internet for interested parents for a first photo session for a small fee.

It is important that for this first photo shoot all the details are perfect, so ask the parents to have the children dressed in Christmas clothes, add elements to the decoration that they can play with and after the session you can ask them to leave you a first evaluation talking about your new Christmas decorations for this year.

All the photos you take in this session will help you to advertise your Christmas 2023 campaign much better on the web, networks, advertisements, in the studio itself, etc.

8# Prepare all information on the web, networks, etc.

Once you have everything ready: the set, the dynamics of the session, the final products well defined and several photographs with this year’s set, it is important that you start preparing all the information. Because if you skip this step, the diffusion of your reports will be much smaller and the time you will have to spend explaining these reports will take many hours of work.

These are the steps you can take before launching your Christmas campaign this year:

• Prepare a services page on your website with all the information.
• Create an image gallery with the best photos of the test session. You can also add photos from other years but what will really interest families are the ones from this year’s decoration.
• Create a blog post introducing your new campaign, explaining what it will look like and showing part of the test story.
• Plan how the ads (text, photos and link) you launch on social networks and Google will be used to promote your Christmas reports.

>> 7 tips to get your photography business ready for summer

9# Think about how you are going to advertise the 2023 Christmas photo shoot

Once you have all the information ready, it is also important to think about how you are going to plan your outreach campaign. To do this, create a timetable to indicate:

• Dates on which you are going to create the campaign itself: sets, planning, test photoshoot, briefing, etc.
• Duration of the Christmas 2023 photo shoot period. It is important that you calculate the deadlines for having these photoshoots available, especially if you offer printed products and do not want to get your fingers caught in the cookie jar.
• Day on which you will have the information visible on the website, blog article and scheduled advertising campaigns.
• Calendar of announcements that you are going to launch. For example, you can create 2 small campaigns, one at the beginning of the season announcing that these sessions are already available and another one at the beginning of November announcing that you have few places available.
• Etc.

10# When the time comes, launch your Christmas 2023 campaign in every possible way

Once you have everything well prepared and defined, choose a day to launch your campaign and advertise it in all possible digital and traditional media, for example:

• Website.
• Blog.
• Social networking.
• Partner pages, such as businesses in your neighbourhood.
• In your own photo studio.
• Commercial spots on a local radio station.
• Paper advertisement to be distributed to neighbours and local businesses.
• Etc.

Prepare now for Christmas 2023 campaign and close the year with a lucrative revenue stream

As you can see, there is a lot of work to organise before launching your 2023 Christmas campaign. Take advantage of these slower weeks to shape these sessions that will bring you great benefits at the end of the year.

Before we say goodbye we would like to leave you here the interview of the photographer Gema Romero from Ilusiones Art Photography:

>> Gema Romero: ‘I love what Arcadina looks like’

And to end this little Christmas guide, we would like to ask you a question: have you already started planning your Christmas 2023 photo shoots? We’d love to hear from you in the comments.

Headache for your photography business? Take an Arcadina

Headache for your photography business? Take an Arcadina

Fulfil your dream of becoming a professional photographer with the help of our business solutions. Now you can create a website and business for free for 14 days with no commitment of permanence.

Thanks to Arcadina’s business solutions for photographers, your business headaches will disappear.

If you have any queries, our Customer Service Team is always ready to help you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We listen to you.