As a photography business owner you may ask yourself, “is email marketing something I really need to care about?” The short answer – YES! In today’s blog, I’m explaining to you why email marketing for photographers is so important! I’ll also give you some simple steps for getting started with email marketing in order to grow your photography business.
Email marketing has been around for a long time, but that doesn’t mean it’s outdated or something to ignore in your photography business.
How to Get Started With an Email List
First up, you’ll need a tool for marketing to your clients that is going to make all of this ten times easier (and make sure you’re staying legal and legit in the process!) My favorite email marketing tool to recommend is called Flodesk. Flodesk allows you to stay top-of-mind with your clients through email, and the best part is they charge 1 flat rate for their software instead of more and more as your list grows.
Give Flodesk a Try HERE and get 50% off your plan.
Should Photographers Care About Email Marketing?
The short answer is YES! After all, my mission as a photographer and mentor is to help you seamlessly step into the role of Photoboss, so that you can market and brand yourself while getting paid to do what you love. And an important piece of the puzzle is email marketing!
But how does email help you marketing better?
When You Use Email to Market – You Build An Audience That Is Yours To Keep
The first key component of email marketing is that an email list is the only list of audience members that you truly own. Think about your Instagram followers, your Pinterest followers, maybe even your Youtube subscribers. You do not have a guaranteed way to get in touch with these people. Nor do you own your profiles on any of these social platforms!
When you build an email list, you are not at the mercy of any algorithm changes or updates in a platform. Your list of email subscribers are yours to hold onto and to communicate with in a way that is empowering and personalized.
With Algorithm Changes It’s Harder To Market On Social Media
Consumers on social are bombarded with marketing messages all day every day. Add to that the constantly changes in algorithms and reaching your audience isn’t always a guarantee. So, in a way it has actually gotten harder to market to your ideal clients on your social media platforms. It is harder to stand out in all of the messaging that says “buy this” “download this” or “invest in this”. When you utilize email marketing, you are able to:
- Send a message to your clients in a place that they probably check multiple times a day
- Get in front of them in a more personalized, long-form way
- Stay in their inbox where they can return to your message again and again
- Built a relationship and communication with audience members in the long term
- Skip the noise of social media and have your marketing message heard
How Do I Get Started?
Here are some of my favorite softwares and tools that you can start using today to email market to your audience!
My Top Email Tool Recommendation: Flodesk
Flodesk is my top recommended email marketing software. It is so affordable, and unlike other softwares, the price does not go up as your email list grows.
It is also extremely user friendly! You do not have to be good at coding or be a tech wiz to create beautiful emails. You can use automations in Flodesk, send Freebies, create sequences, and so much more. As an affiliate, I have a 50% off link with Flodesk HERE.
Other Options:
Convertkit is also another software that is available to you for email marketing! However, the price for Convertkit does increase as your subscriber list grows, so keep that in mind.
Another Software option is Mailchimp. I actually started on Mailchimp because it was free for an email list under 1000. But, as soon as you want to create an automation or email to a large audience, you have to pay. This is ultimately why I recommend using Flodesk from the get-go!
What’s Next?
So, once you get set up with your email marketing provider, you are going to want to strategize! How are you going to get people to subscribe? What are you going to send to your audience once they are subscribed? How will you keep them engaged?
Join me here in part 2 for the next steps in email marketing for photographers.
Connect with Joy:
Instagram: instagram.com/joyymichelle
Youtube: youtube.com/channel/UC-Ou6jRKxcjMrVMxWxLO_fQ
Facebook: facebook.com/joymichellephotography
Coach with Joy: joymichelle.co/coaching
If you decide to use any of the links above and buy through them, I’ll receive a small commission back. All of those affiliate income commissions really add up over time and help generate revenue to help support this podcast.
