Book More Clients Photography Podcast - How to Start a Photography Business, Marketing Strategy, How Photographers Make Money

Ep. 24 | How I Gained Over 100 Email Subscribers In One Day

September 05, 2019 Brooke Jefferson Episode 24
Book More Clients Photography Podcast - How to Start a Photography Business, Marketing Strategy, How Photographers Make Money
Ep. 24 | How I Gained Over 100 Email Subscribers In One Day
Show Notes Transcript

Are you using email marketing for your photography business? I asked this question to a group of photographers and I got a wide array of responses. Ranging from complete silence to "oh yeah, I got a bunch one time but haven't done anything with it." In today's episode, I want to walk you through how I grew my email list over 100 subscribers in just one day and why email marketing is super important to your photography business!

Tune into the episode to learn how I did it!

My secret weapon: https://flodesk.com/c/3C8R9X

Loving this podcast? Come join us in the NEW Photographer Community on Facebook.

Join us on Instagram




Check out the photography templates on Etsy.

Looking to learn how to run a profitable photography business? Join the From Broke to Booked Blueprint program.

Would love to have you in our Photographer Facebook group!

speaker 0:   0:00
welcome to frame your way. Photography podcast. I'm your host work Jefferson. I'm a wife, Mama to two and full time photographer, and I created this podcast with the aspiring photographer in mind to bring you inspiring stories, strategies to help from zero to multiple figures and tricks. One step closer to work. Life harmony. Are you ready to bring your way to your dream career? Let's dive in. How many of you are using email marketing in your photography business? I recently asked this question to a group of photographers and got a handful of different answers ranging from complete silence, too. Well, I collected a bunch one time, but I haven't done anything with them. On today's episode, I wanna walk you through how I grew my email list, over 100 subscribers in one day and why email marketing needs to be a focus in your business. So let's dive into the show. The past few weeks, I have been making a real effort to show up in every area that I can in my photography business, from scheduling out Social media post to finding new ways to market to cleaning up the back end of my business. I have been productive. One of the areas I have been focusing on more seriously is email marketing. I see the value of it and I want it. So I put together an awesome idea and wanted to see what would happen. I was completely shocked by the results. A few days ago, I decided a host a Facebook page giveaway. Well, actually, I decided to host a giveaway on my Facebook page. This is something that I have done before. When I first started my photography business in 2014 I used giveaways to build my audience, and following my giveaways would sound something like Wanna win a free session like comment and share this post for your chance to win? A lot has changed since 2014 and that no longer works, especially because Facebook has changed their policy and frowns upon the language of the old way of doing contests. Welcome to 2019 when organic traffic is slim and paid to play, tactics are at an all time high. It may seem like Facebook is against businesses, but I promise you they aren't. That's how they make their money, too. They just genuinely want their users toe have the best experience you have to keep in mind. Social media acts are competing against one another as well. Okay, enough of that history lecture. Let me tell you what I did differently. This time I decided to advertise a freefall family session giveaway. Instead of using entries directly on Facebook, I created a landing page where people had to enter their first name and email to be entered into the giveaway. What is the landing page? You might be wondering. It's a one page website that you customize on the Web to give more information on what you are providing. An includes a form for people to give their name and email address for something to get in exchange. I created my landing page in under five minutes using a brand new email marketing platform that I am obsessed with. I was using male chimp but had quite a few issues with deliver ability, which makes perfect sense on a free platform. I transferred over to convert Kit last year and have used it ever since, but I have not been nurturing my subscribers. In fact, I bet they have only heard for me. Less than five times in the last two years, I have built an email list that's embarrassing to admit, but you should know the truth. A couple weeks ago, I was introduced to a brand new email marketing platform that was designed, specifically four creatives like photographers to have gorgeous branded emails and that also has a high deliver ability rate. I'm linking this awesome new platform called Flow Desk. In the description. Just click on the link, check it out and find out how you can save 50% off for life. Yep, for life, it's not one of those 50% off your first month. It's not 50% off your first year. It's 50% off for life where I am paying $19 a month, compared to the $29 a month that I was paying with Convert Kit. Seriously, I'm obsessed. But back to the giveaway. I also changed my language of the giveaway, avoiding words that a new Facebook tends to flag. My giveaway post was an animated image that I created in Canada for free on the actual graphic. I used a family photo that I took and used a fancy fun to write. Give away so that Facebook wouldn't flag that word for the description of my post it red to kick off September and give off fall vibes. I am giving one family an entire family experience on me. The session includes an hour of my time and talent planning your wardrobe and delivering a beautiful gallery of images for you to use for your walls holiday cards and to share with friends and family Inter here. And then I inserted the flow desk landing page link and then I put comment below with the number of members in your immediate family. So I want to break this down real quick just to explain why I wrote it the way that I did. So you definitely don't want to use the words give away or free or anything like that. If you can avoid it because anything that's like a money word or a monetary value type word, Facebook will trigger that, and they'll know that you're ultimately trying to do a direct sale or, you know, you're you're basically looking to make money or something. Even though it's free, they still just don't they just frowned upon it So I was very careful to think of other ways that I could basically say, Hey, you could win this for free. So instead of using the word free, I put, I am giving one family an entire family experience on me. So on me obviously translates to They're not gonna pay for the session. Then I put you know what? They're going to get what they can expect. I gave the one click options where they could enter and then to increase engagement on the Post. I obviously asked them to comment below. In that way, it would still circulate in people's news feeds. So I was extremely strategic and how I worded everything. I used the engagement formula plus the email marketing formula, and it turned out to be the best giveaway to date. Now I'm sure you're wondering how I'm going to select a winner. I'm going to enter the email addresses in a random picker form. You can find one on Google, and then it will select an email address. I also asked for their first names to narrow down who the winner Waas. If for some reason I still can't figure out who that email address belongs to. I can copy and paste the email address in Place It in Facebook. Search far, and as long as that's the one that they signed up was to create their account. It will pop up the user that that email address belongs to cool, right? If you desire to build your email list or increase your bookings, you may want to consider doing your own giveaway. However, as a creative, I'm going to kindly ask you not to copy what I did. Word for word. It's pretty much plagiarizing stealing, and I know we're all capable of producing our own content, so I highly encourage you to definitely use my strategy. But be super mindful of what you write in the description, and I'm sure you're wondering what the exact numbers were. So I posted my giveaway at about 7:30 p.m. On the night that I shared it, and when I woke up the very next morning, I had over 100 emails. I think it was like 100 and eight people that had opted into the giveaway, and as of today, I have 100 and 35 subscribers from the giveaway, so I Honestly, I was expecting 50. My goal was 50 and I ended up almost tripling that number, which is so exciting. And I also want to encourage you to don't get all these email addresses and then send them an email saying who the winner is and then never talked to them again. I have already been working behind the scenes on the next couple of months e mails that I will send out once a week or once every other week. So I did tell them after they opted in, once they pressed, you know, enter than I sent them an email follow up that said You've been entered a win so that they got confirmation that their entry was counted. But also I wanted Thio make sure that they were starting to learn to look for my email and open it up when they saw it. So I have to e mails that will go out this week. One was their confirmation email. Another one will be the end of the week when I announce who the winner is, and then from there I will touch base with them once a week or once every other week, so that I'm not overdoing it, but they're seeing my name enough to be top of mind. So I cannot wait to hear your successes on this giveaway. Come on over to my instagram and tell me how it worked for you Or feel free to ask me some more questions. I'm at Brooke Jen, a photography. Have a fantastic day and I'll see you on the next episode.