It’s hard to believe that we are talking about planning for your fall family portraits already but now is the best time to plan ahead. A great marketing campaign doesn’t come together in just a week. A good rule of thumb is to start planning about 8 weeks in advance to maximize your potential.
Here’s how to ensure you have a successful fall family photography campaign –
- Plan Your Promotion
a. This can be a mini-campaign in and of itself. Promote that you are looking for 4 families to create fresh samples and showcase your work for your website and promotional pieces.
b. Get those sample family images photographed. That means you need to get the word out that you are looking for fresh family images.
c. Get your website updated. Customize & personalize your content to inspire your visitors. That can be done thru images, words, links to your blog and of course – a copy of your promotion.
d. Testimonials. Make sure to tap into the power of testimonials in all the media you use. Nothing sells you better than other people’s referrals.
e. Plan your promotion right down to the date & time when something should begin happening. Once something is on the calendar the odds of it getting executed greatly increase.
f. Email blast. Hopefully you’ve collected email addresses from your customers and have maintained some communication with them over the year. Now is a great time to plan an email promotion around that.
g. Personal invites. Take time to write a handwritten note in a branded studio greeting card to your VIP clients. Insert a gift card for the value of a session or whatever you want to use to reward them. You can do the same with some of your “not quite VIP clients” who are still worthy of an incentive even if you don’t have quite the same VIP relationships.
h. Network with other businesses Part 1 – Who can help you? Network with other businesses to help spread the word about your special. And for the places where you have a display up, be sure and have some promotional lift cards that people can take.
i. Network with other businesses Part 2 – All the businesses you network with have their VIP customers too. Create a branded card for them that they can personalize and send to their VIP clients that says they’ve arranged to have a complimentary session for being a VIP client. You may have to help them with the words so be prepared to give them a sample of what you write. This makes it easy for them and easy is how things get done.
j. Network with other businesses Part 3 -Have the Network businesses give you their VIP contacts so you can follow up with their customers. Explain what you would like to do so they are comfortable with it. For instance – a simple email reminder ensures their customers aren’t going to get pressured to come in for a session.
2. Execute your promotion on time. Remember when we said write it down? Now all you have to do is follow your plan!
3. Campaign actively during the promotion –
⎷ Make sure you tell all who call you that you have a special going on.
⎷ Have community displays in your target marketplace.
⎷ Check in with your Network Buddies to maximize awareness of your campaign.
⎷ Work your VIP client list. Send 5 handwritten invitations or emails daily.
⎷ Blog about your family special or the theme connected with it.
⎷ Use social media to promote what is happening at the studio today.
⎷ Update your social media sites at least every other day.
⎷ Personally invite your VIP clients to a complimentary session.
⎷ Update your website with fresh images, videos, and content.
By planning early you will not only maximize your potential for more sessions and higher sales, you’ll also have more confidence and less stress. You can repeat this process for every campaign you would like to do. Just plan ahead 8 weeks prior to when you want to start generating sessions.
