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Children's Photography

How Using Email Effectively Can Help Grow Your Portrait Photography Business

November 19, 2015 1 Comment

We, as photographers, might tell our clients’ stories through pictures, but written and verbal communications are also essential to the work we do. Without top-notch verbal communication skills, we couldn’t put our clients at ease to capture them at their best. Those initial emails with a prospective client or the prompt follow-up email to a repeat customer can build and sustain a thriving business.

Connecticut-based photographer, Anna Sawin, has been helping other photographers compose effective emails since her days as a public relations officer, and she took time with us to explain how email can be used to efficiently grow a photography business. 

Who are you and what do you do? 

After years of writing speeches and letters for executives in higher education and the pharmaceutical world, I now spend my days photographing families and weddings on the New England shoreline.

But with my background in communications, I had become the unofficial go-to letter writer for my photographer friends and their sticky client situations. Penning these kinds of letters on a regular basis told me there was a need for my first product, the Wedding Photographer’s Inbox Solution. Adding those email templates to my own collection of photographer’s marketing materials, workflows, questionnaires and client correspondence grew into the launch of Pencil & Lens. 

After launching products aimed at wedding photographers, the portrait photographers got in touch. They wanted their inbox solution too! It was my great pleasure to release the Portrait Photographer’s Inbox Solution, Volume 1 this fall. It’s a digital download collection of more than 30 email templates for the portrait photographer, from first inquiry to file delivery. I plan to follow up with Volume 2 and 3 in the winter months, dealing with some of the stickier client questions we all face as portrait photographers, from pricing to reshoots to RAW files and more. 

Lush-Albums-Pencil-and-Lens-Portrait-Photographers-Graphic

Why do you think using email effectively can help grow your portrait photography business?

As a business owner, your success and reputation is influenced by the style, quality and grace of your client communication. None of us became photographers so we could answer an endless stream of emails from clients, relatives of clients and wedding vendors, but…they keep coming. And they all need a prompt, courteous and well-written response. Future clients will judge our words before they’ve met us, and in some cases, before they’ve seen a single image.

And if you only photograph pets and you get an inquiry for wedding photography? Well, if you’ve answered them quickly and courteously, they might just remember you and your exceptional customer service when it comes time for their puppy portraits.

You’ve all had the experience of a client saying “Great job today!” before they’ve seen a single frame, right? Because you wowed them with your professionalism, your on-the-spot problem solving and your ability to make it easy and comfortable for them, right? You might not even have had a memory card in your camera, but they’re ready to write you a positive review because of how you made them feel about you and your business. Writing professional email messages is the same thing. Since so much of our communication with clients happens via the written word, well-written words are one the best tools a portrait photographer can use to promote and grow their business.

Can you give us an example of a snippet or a story where email saved a client relationship?

A classic example of how an email can help save a client relationship might be the “more for less” client. You know the one. Perhaps you offer 15-minute mini-sessions designed for that one awesome holiday card photo, and your language clearly speaks to this kind of session as best for kiddos over 2. But then once mom has booked the appointment, she casually mentions she’ll also be looking for “just a few” newborn shots during this outdoor mini-session in November, oh, and the family dog is coming as well.

An email response to her here will do three things:

  1. Manage her expectations about what you can reasonably accomplish in the current terms of the session;
  2. Advise her on her choices to resolve her ambitious goals (i.e., schedule a separate session for the newborn, book a double mini-session or a full session to accommodate the extra requests) and;
  3. Remind her firmly and graciously that you are the expert. In other words, you aren’t willing to wing it, you know how this will turn out if you let her show up with unrealistic expectations, and you are kindly advising her on what will and will not work. 

Can you give an example of a tough situation faced by a portrait photographer that may be answered by having an email template? 

Sure—a really common one that comes up with repeat customers is when you’ve raised your prices. Having a graceful way to say it can make things go far more smoothly with your future relationship with this client.

Another scenario would be about dissatisfaction—perhaps the client doesn’t like how he or she looks, or how the children look in the photos. Addressing and validating their concerns with both email correspondence and verbal communication can go a long way towards solving the problem.

Thank you, Anna, for these very insightful and thoughtful points!

If you’re ready to answer all those emails clogging your inbox or you need to reach out to a prospective client, check out Anna’s email templates for download on her Pencil & Lens website.  

And feel free to contact us for your album needs, we love to communicate by email as well! 🙂  

 

Filed Under: Photography Business Tagged With: Children's Photography, Client Communication, email, family photography, Pencil & Lens, photography business, photography business tips, portrait photographers, portrait photography, wedding photography

The Family Posing Playbook for Photographers by Tamara Lackey

October 22, 2015 Leave a Comment

Not everyone was born to be in front of the camera. In fact, we are willing to bet a majority of your clients are a bit uncomfortable when the lens is trained on them, especially if it’s their first time sitting for a family session.

As the photographer, it’s up to you to put your clients at ease so that instead of slightly uncomfortable frozen faces, you get shots with bright eyes, big smiles, and people who are relaxing in their natural habitats. Directing your clients well and helping them into the right poses will result in wonderful portraits pretty much every single time.

You’re dealing with all sorts of different personalities at the same time when it comes to photographing families. Maybe you’ve got one rambunctious kid, one shy kid, a too-serious mom, and a nervous dad—all in one session. That can be a recipe for disaster or a perfect opportunity for some fun and lighthearted moments, but it all depends on you—the photographer—and your level of comfort with any situation that may arise.

Tamara Lackey and our team at Tamara Lackey Studios recently published the Family Posing Playbook for Photographers that you can purchase for download and use as a learning tool to increase your skill and confidence when you are out shooting family sessions. This playbook also includes a separate and condensed Quick Reference Guide that you can take with you when you’re on location.

Photo by Stacey Stricklin, shot at the San Francisco Portrait Photographer’s Workshop
Photo by Stacey Stricklin, shot at the San Francisco Portrait Photographer’s Workshop

In the guide, we provide detailed posing instructions from experiences that Tamara has encountered in real life. She articulates what wasn’t working and what she did about it.

An excerpt from her introduction to the guide gets more in-depth:

When I first wrote The Posing Playbook … for Kids Who Don’t Do Posing, I tried to incorporate all of the main things to consider when posing children. There are often a few factors to consider: location, lighting, styling, interaction, mood, expression and, of course posing. The most prominent issue with that last factor, posing, being rather interesting as most kids don’t really do posing.

Guess what: families don’t really do posing, either. But even as people aren’t often professional models, they are often amenable to being moved this way and that. So, how do you adjust them to showcase them as flatteringly as possible and keep their expression fresh so you can showcase them as attractively and as naturally as possible—while also keeping the shot well-framed, well-lit and showing off what matters the most: who they genuinely are at heart, and how they belong to each other?

This book, like my original one for just kids, is all about creating a reference book of past “wins”—challenges I’d faced and how I was able to resolve them to produce attractive and natural-looking poses using a variety of techniques, which I share in detail, along with before and afters, metadata, what lighting I used, and any interpersonal techniques I utilized to shift the mood or refresh expressions. I also share any interactions I may employ in certain situations—and any other helpful technical information that could come into play in that scenario or any others like them. This comes complete with bullet points to quickly reference the main considerations of each pose.

The other common feedback I received over time from The Posing Playbook … for Kids Who Don’t Do Posing was that people tended to read it as a regular book first, starting at the beginning and reading clear to the finish, then they would reference it afterwards as an on-the-go by mobile app, gaining inspiration for poses and references suggestions of things that could help. I realized that since I did the same thing, referenced poses while in the midst of a shoot, that it’d be helpful to collect all the posing suggestions as a separate mini reference guide for this new book, complete with helpful bullet points but not the detailed text, which could always be referenced later in more detail in the main Family Posing Playbook.

The guide also includes:

  • Befores and afters

  • Metadata

  • Lighting configurations

  • Interpersonal techniques

  • Metering

  • Interactions

We hope you bring the Family Posing Playbook, or at least the new Quick Reference Guide, with you on your next shoot so that you can feel confident you will have a successful session, then be able to turn those images into a beautiful family album.

And, just like your Lush Albums purchases, 10 percent of the proceeds of the posing playbook go to Beautiful Together, a nonprofit Tamara created that works to help improve the quality of life for children waiting for families.  

Download the Family Posing Playbook today, and be on your way to creating more beautiful albums

Filed Under: Tamara Lackey Tagged With: Children's Photography, Children's Posing Playbook, family photography, Family Posing Playbook, Lush Albums, Posing Playbook, tamara lackey, Tamara Lackey Photography

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