Email marketing for photographers: all the techniques to get them to open your mailings

1 Dec 2022

Email marketing for photographers is one more tool in business marketing that, if you know how to use it, can help you increase your revenue in every campaign you organise.

Whether you work in your photography studio on different assignments or you have a single specialisation, the mailing for photographers will help you to keep your subscribers informed of all the news and offers you can launch on the market. Mailing for photographers will help you to keep your subscribers informed of all the news and offers you can launch on the market.

Another advantage of email marketing for photographers is that it can help you create a bond of trust with your followers with every email you send them.

Build loyalty with your email marketing campaigns for photographers and get them to book more photo shoots for you.

What is email marketing for photographers?

Email marketing for photographers is a technique within digital marketing that is based on encouraging communication with the user through email. To use this marketing tool, it is important that you create a list of subscribers well organised and separated by type of report where you can keep them informed about the launch of new sessions, exclusive offers, company developments or any other news you want to communicate to your customers.

It is a way to create a direct channel between you and your users where you can tailor content for each customer group. This way, you can get much more positive feedback. And therefore, you can get more sales from your photo stories.

If you think about it, most people check their email at least once a day, which means that email is still one of the best ways to reach customers, even more so than social media in many cases.

Because of the reach that this medium has, it is very important that you understand how mailing for photographers works and use it as a basic tool in your photography business.

Learn the importance of email marketing for photographers

We know that there are still many colleagues who are still unaware of the benefits of email marketing for photographers, and the truth is that they are missing out on a very useful, effective and economical communication channel.

Because if we compare the investment of resources needed to generate sales between mailing and social media, there is a big difference.

The conversion power of mailing for photographers is 3 times higher than that of social media.

The only “but” we can put to this strategy is that for email marketing for photographers to work, you need to have a database of clients or people interested in your work as a photographer.

Emailing will allow you to reach many more people interested in your services through a series of emails. Nowadays there are many tools to personalise messages and adapt them according to the needs of your client by carrying out a series of segmentations.

If you haven’t considered using email marketing for photographers as a complement to your digital marketing strategy until now, it’s time to get started and learn more about this effective strategy.

Why do you need email marketing for photographers?

Cost-effective. There are other more traditional marketing actions, such as radio spots or print ads, which are significantly more expensive than emailing.

Compatible with mobile phones. Everyone nowadays carries a mobile phone and 2 out of 3 emails are opened on this device. Mailings for photographers are fully compatible with mobile phones if the images or videos are optimised. Be sure to take care of the text or links to your photography website, so that they are compatible with these devices and have a responsive design.

It can be automated. This is its main advantage over other marketing strategies. Emails can be automated and you will save a lot of time. There are many tools for mass emailing where you just have to create the campaign and schedule it. It’s as easy as that.

It is customisable. Thanks to the free and paid programmes that you will find on the market right now, email marketing for photographers is a medium that offers the possibility to personalise mass emailing, for example, by adding fields such as the user name.

You can measure results. Many email marketing tools will allow you to see which users open your emails, if they have clicked on any links, etc. You can even perform A/B tests, which consist of sending two different emails and checking which one works better.

Recommendations for creating an effective mailing strategy for photographers

Segmentation and personalisation. Segmentation is key to effective mailing for photographers. It consists of sending your email campaign to a group of people who have one or more specific criteria. Having your customers well segmented will allow you to send them a personalised message that will not seem like an advertisement.

There are 2 essential elements when personalising an email: the name and the content. It is important that you know what your customers are interested in, how they have reached your subscriber list and make updates to delete contacts who no longer need your services.

Differentiate the message you are going to send between those who are customers and those who are not yet customers. The former already trusts you and the latter is interested but hardly knows you.

Valuable content. If users subscribe to your mailing list, it means they are interested in your content and you cannot disappoint them. Create emails that add value. Try to establish a more and more established relationship by offering information of interest to them so that the email does not seem like simple advertising.

Use a professional email. If you are going to implement an email marketing strategy for photographers, forget about using the typical personal email like @gmail.com, @outlook.com, etc. It is important that you have a more professional email like info@yourcompanyname or info@professionalname with your own domain. This will give credibility, trust and reliability to your clients.

Reward your mailing list. You can also take advantage of this emailing technique to notify certain customers of promotions or discounts. It is a very effective tactic that will keep them happy. It is important that this type of content is well segmented according to the type of customer and/or user.

Mailing control tools for photographers

One of the biggest advantages of using email marketing for photographers as a communication strategy with customers is that you will find a series of free tools and others with an affordable price that will facilitate the processes of segmentation and personalisation of the message. If you have a digital business, with Arcadina you will be able to export the email list of your contacts whenever you want to carry out your email marketing campaigns.

Here are some of the tools that you can find on the market today and that will help you to carry out your email marketing campaigns for photographers:

• Mailchimp
• MailRelay
• AcumbaMail

In Arcadina, in any of our Business plans, you have the possibility to create your own email templates and send personalised messages to your clients through the panel.

Follow-up mailing for photographers

Once you have started your email marketing strategy and started sending emails to the contacts in your database. It is important that you measure and pay attention to the results obtained by tracking your campaigns.

You can monitor the CTR (% of subscribers who click on a link in relation to the total number of emails sent) and the open rate of your emails.

As you create campaigns, you will realise what type of message and content works best for one type of user or another.

How to create a mailing campaign for photographers that really works?

If, for example, you are a children’s photographer offering maternity, newborn and family photos. One way to get pregnant mums to keep booking your sessions is by planning several email marketing campaigns for photographers where you can explain to your clients the different photo shoots you offer for the different stages of their baby’s life.

The same applies, for example, to wedding shoots. Although at first glance it may seem that email marketing is less effective for this type of session, the truth is that this marketing technique can help you to get your clients to book some kind of extra session before or after their wedding. Here are some ideas:

• Bride and groom report.
• Engagement session.
• Pre-wedding.
• Post-wedding.
• Photo session for the first anniversary.
• First Valentine’s Day as husband and wife.

>> Marketing tips for wedding photographers

Email marketing for photographers makes it easier to sell a photo shoot to an existing client than to one who has not yet booked you.

When organising a mailing for photographers, there are certain aspects that you should be very clear about. Let’s take a look at some of them.

1 # Plan your email marketing campaigns for photographers in advance

One of the first things you need to do in your email marketing campaigns for photographers in order for your newsletter to do its job (to strengthen the trust of your readers and gradually get more photo shoots), is to draw up a planning calendar with the theme and date of your most important emails.

The first thing you need to do once you have decided to create a subscriber list is to plan a large part of your emails. This way, each month you will have a clear idea of the emails your subscribers will receive. To do this, it is ideal that you spend some time planning:

• Frequency of emails: the first thing you have to decide is how often you want to send an email to your subscribers. The ideal is to get to that intermediate point where readers do not feel that you are invading their inbox and do not feel that they forget that they are subscribed to your list.

• Themes: once you have decided on the frequency of your mailings, you can divide them into themes and decide which topics will be covered in each of them.

• Planning: as part of this planning, it is also important that you organise the time you are going to spend writing and sending these emails to your subscribers. This way, you will ensure that when the time comes, you will have free time to perform these tasks.

• Several lists of subscribers: as we said at the beginning, if you offer different photo shoots with a different ideal client profile. Ideally, you should create several subscriber lists. This way, you will ensure that the emails you send are more targeted and the open rate will be higher.

2 # Offer a gift to your subscribers that really pays off

Another marketing technique that is closely related to emailing is to offer a good gift so that your visitors decide to leave their contact details (name and email) and subscribe to your newsletter.

This information, which at first glance may seem unimportant, even large companies are fighting for it nowadays. Think that with these 2 simple pieces of information (email and name) you will be able to reach hundreds of people at the same time with the same email.

So, to make your subscriber list grow a little bit bigger every day, it’s important to spend some time deciding what gift to offer them in return.

Here are some ideas:

• A 10% discount voucher for your next photo shoot.
• A printed photo.
• 1 additional companion for the next family session.

These are just a few ideas but, if you spend a little time, you will come up with many more.

At this point, it is interesting to explain to your subscribers that, from time to time, you can launch some kind of exclusive discount, just for them, and that you will send it to them through this channel. This is a good mailing strategy for photographers so that they don’t unsubscribe as soon as they receive their gift.

3 # Take care of the text in your emails so they don’t end up in the spam folder

When you start to write an email to your subscriber list, take into account a series of prior considerations so that the big email platforms such as Hotmail or Gmail do not send your email directly to the spam folder.

Give much more weight to text in your email and leave links and photos in the background to make your email marketing campaigns for photographers work.

Studies show that the more photos and links an email has, the more likely it is to end up in the dreaded spam folder.

But it is also a reality that a text-only email can be much less appealing to your readers. Therefore, it is important to find a good combination of text, photos and external links. The idea is that, on the one hand, it doesn’t end up in an advertising mailbox, and on the other hand, it is interesting for your readers to read.

4 # Combine advertising content with ideas and tips in your emails

Within email marketing for photographers you can have several types of emails planned:

• Informational emails about new temporary sessions, discounts and news. Whenever you start a new campaign, one way to inform your subscribers before the rest of your audience is with a mailing for photographers.

• Emails explaining a special report that you want to highlight and that you have previously uploaded to the blog. If you have created a compilation post with, for example, the latest communion sessions or you have been able to do a wedding abroad, you can announce it to your subscribers through an email.

• Emails where you give some kind of advice or recommendation to your clients. In these emails you are not directly “selling” your sessions to them, as you should not be talking about them. In the long run they will help you to make your readers take you into account when hiring a photographer. Some ideas could be: talk about the patterns of the children’s clothes they wear to a photo shoot, what toys and treats they can bring to a pet shoot, or the most beautiful locations for a couple’s session.

We also advise you to create a small sales funnel for new subscribers to your list.

A funnel is a series of emails that are sent automatically when a user signs up to your subscriber list.

This sales funnel could be as follows:

• Email where you thank them for subscribing to your newsletter.
• As promised, the next step will be to offer you your gift.
• To segment your subscribers you can tell them that you want to get to know them better by asking them what kind of sessions they would like to receive more information about.

5 # Learn how to segment your email marketing campaigns for photographers

Especially if you offer several types of photo shoots, learning how to segment is essential for your email open rate (% of emails that are opened by your subscribers) to go through the roof.

“Divide and conquer”, so the more specific you are when sending your emails, the more likely it is that your subscribers will open them. More importantly, they will read them.

That is why it is important to create as many subscriber lists as you have ideal clients. This way, you will be able to decide in each email you send if it is interesting to send it to your entire list or to a small part of your followers.

5+1 # The subject line will be of vital importance in your mailing campaigns

Another element that you will have to take care of in your email marketing campaigns for photographers is the subject line of your emails. Here are some recommendations that you can follow:

• Specific: the subject line should make it clear what the email is about.
• Concise: try not to be too long, between 20 and 30 characters is best.
• Emoticons: without abusing them, they will be a good element to attract attention.
• Questions? And numbers: these elements will make the subject of your headline much more eye-catching.

With Arcadina you can also create email marketing campaigns

So that you can start your email marketing campaigns for photographers right away, on your photography website, you will also be able to create a subscription form for your newsletter. It’s as easy as following the steps explained in the following article.

>> Arcadina Help: how to create Forms

You can then add these emails to the marketing system you are using. You can also add a subscription form from a marketing service provider such as Mailchimp, Active Campaign or Mail Relay to a page on your website or business.

With Arcadina you will be able to create all the forms you need. Here we leave you an article that talks about this topic.

>> New: new forms available on your Arcadina website

From now on, your email marketing campaigns for photographers will be a success

There is no excuse, if you want your email marketing campaigns for photographers follow all the tips we have given you today in this article on email marketing for photographers.

Today we are going to share with you the interview with Eli Mora.

>> Eli Mora, sports photographer: “my clients value their private spaces”

Did you know that one way to build customer loyalty is with the help of email marketing campaigns for photographers? If you are interested in learning more about email marketing techniques, leave us a comment and we will consider it for future articles.

Arcadina goes with you

Creativity goes with you, offering you the best service goes with us

Fulfil your dreams and develop your professional career with us. We offer you to create a photography website for free for 14 days so that you can try our platform without any commitment of permanence.

Arcadina is much more than a website, it is business solutions for photographers.

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.