Intro by Skip Cohen
Bryan Caporicci and I have been friends for a long time. That friendship grew out of respect for the way he looks at the market. As a wedding photographer, he never slows down on finding ways to support his clients better. But the pandemic has changed all the rules, and what might have been perfect yesterday won’t work today.
So, since Bryan is never willing to sit still, as both a wedding photographer and the founder/CEO of Sprout Studio, he set out to offer some great suggestions to one of the most critical challenges every artist is facing now – reaching clients with effective promotions.
And while this post might seem like an infomercial for Sprout Studio, you can’t ignore the fact that Bryan’s given every wedding photographer ten great ideas to help you get business back on track.
The pandemic isn’t going away, but that doesn’t mean your business has to disappear!
This was a long article, so I’ve split it into two parts. Tune in for the next post and check out the seven strategies that go into writing an effective email campaign.
By Bryan Caporicci
THESE ARE CHALLENGING TIMES, NO DOUBT.
Your weddings are rescheduled, events are canceling, and portrait bookings have completely dried up. But as a small business owner, your livelihood depends on the money you earn with your camera.
So – what do you do?
There are a lot of ways you can still make money; you just need to think outside the box. Businesses around the world are pivoting – and you should, too! The silver lining is that some of these new strategies are going to stick and become the new normal. That’s why you can’t expect to get results doing what you used to do. You need to get creative.
For example, you could …
- Offer all past shoots with a gallery a print sale or “virtual” IPS experience for wall portrait design.
- Offer all past wedding clients an album promotion.
- Offer all past gallery visitors a print sale.
- Offer all past portrait clients the opportunity to invest in a family portrait plan – I’ve personally used this in my business to generate a quick $10k multiple times.
- Offer all past shoots a coupon for a future purchase (i.e. session, prints, products, etc.).
- Offer past newborn clients a great promotion if they pre-purchase a 1-year session.
- Offer past maternity clients a complementary FaceTime session if they pre-purchase a session (newborn, 6-month, etc.) with you.
- Offer help (networking, trade, future business opportunities) to all past business and commercial clients.
- Offer an online photography class to all past family portrait clients.
- Offer a portrait book promotion to all past family portrait clients.
I’ve been a professional wedding and portrait photographer for almost 15 years now. I’m also the CEO and Founder of Sprout Studio. We help professional photographers, like you, run successful businesses and we have an all-in-one studio management suite that makes it easy.
See – in light of everything happening in the world, we wanted to do something to help. So back when this all started, mid-March, we decided to pivot our entire team and build email marketing into Sprout Studio. We built it in record time.
Our motivation was simple – we wanted to help photographers connect with their clients, stay top-of-mind, help and guide their communities, generate more revenue and market in all-new ways.
