Photographers’ Secret Weapon for Growing a Business

Many photographers want to grow their business by doing what they do best: shooting, editing and working with their clients. But all too often, the reality of managing the administrative side of their business takes over. Shooting gets replaced with sending more and more brochures, invoices and proposals. Because of this, top photographers’ secret weapon for growing a business has nothing to do with how many Instagram followers they have or how sharp their photography skills are (though these things certainly don’t hurt). The most impactful tool is one that helps them save countless hours and expand their reach: email automation.

Automate every stage of your photography business

From inquiry to onboarding to post-client emails, automation can help.

Inquiry process

HoneyBook’s email automation tools make it easy to instantly respond to every inquiry that submits a contact form on your website. Not hearing back? HoneyBook can follow up with non-responders, too, sending emails with blog posts, links to your portfolio, or client reviews to demonstrate your value and expertise. Just set it once and forget it, letting automation do the work of  convincing inquiries to book your services for you.

Success story: Photographer Andy Lydick tripled his bookings by automating his email inquiry process with HoneyBook. Check out the three steps to automation that he shared.

Advertising

Running ad campaigns? If you’re generating email leads, automation can help you send emails to this ideal audience that’s demonstrated an interest in what you have to offer. HoneyBook can send an email nurture series, educating your leads on your brand and services over a period of time to get them to book with its client workflow automation software.

“My absolute number one favorite HoneyBook feature is creating workflows. This is a game changer for me and has allowed me to be completely hands off with most of my business, but at the same time still keep a personal connection with all of our clients, potential clients and leads – especially in marketing. I recently completed a Facebook ad campaign that sent a group of 10 emails to around 250+ leads in a three-week span. Do the math…that’s over 2,500 emails! Imagine not having a workflow to complete that for me. I would still be typing emails as we speak!”

Jeff Watkins, Photographer
KolorPHX Photographic CO

Questionnaires

Automation can also send out questionnaires on any date you decide. Business strategist Lauren Dragon-Cook recommends using questionnaires to get the couples you shoot to write your blog posts for you.

“If you are a wedding photographer, you typically get two blog posts per client assuming you do engagement photos for them, right? Instead of trying to find out all the crazy little details like how the couple met or when they first kissed, send them a form to fill out asking all the questions you would normally need to know. Then, you have all the information you need to draft up your post. The majority of the time I will format my posts to be like a Q+A series so all I have to do on my end is literally copy and paste their answers and throw a handful of photos into the mix. What would have taken you possibly hours to write just took you all of maybe 20 minutes.

Want to know the best part of this all? You can legitimately not even have to click a button or think about sending a questionnaire to your next client as long as you have a CRM program.”

Lauren Dragon-Cook, Business Strategist
LDC & CO

Post-client email series

Automatically send follow-up emails after your project wraps to thank your clients, let them know how much you enjoyed working with them and ask for a review. HoneyBook can help with strategic follow-up in the future as well. You can set it up so that a note goes out on an anniversary date to surprise past clients. For example, you could pick a couple’s one-year wedding anniversary to check in and see what needs (or referrals) they might have and remind them of your business.

Conclusion

Automation can help you expand your reach, book more business and, most importantly, save time. Photographer India Earl saved seven hours a day using HoneyBook automation! Whether you’re spinning your wheels sending emails in the beginning, middle or end of your business process, automation can help.

“For a long time I was working a full time job just answering emails and doing invoicing and spreadsheets. I would seriously work from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. just doing that stuff. And then when I would have extra time, then I would edit. I just realized that’s so messed up. That’s not what I’m made to do, and I need something to help me. So when I found HoneyBook, it was really cool. I learned how you can automate everything, and that was the biggest game changer for me because I was spending so much time writing out every single email and clicking send on every single online contract. It was so disorganized. Once I was able to get all my emails, all my contracts, all my templates, all my invoicing – all my information – in one place that was so cool. I realized I had saved so much time. Instead of working eight hours a day doing all that crap, I was working one hour a day. I was able to focus on my editing, shooting and planning things out that I was really excited about rather than just doing all the nitty gritty business stuff. It took care of all that for me. It’s such a business/sanity lifesaver.”

India Earl, Photographer