How To Do Email Marketing As A Photographer – 7 Tips

Email marketing is the most effective form of online marketing there is. But how can you use it to grow your photography business?

Today we are going to discuss how to start, grow, and monetize your email list as a photographer. 

#1 Build a Value Ladder Sales Funnel

Okay, so before we get into the nitty-gritty of email marketing, let’s zoom out for a moment and look at the big picture.

How do you intend to convert potential customers into leads, leads into paying customers, and paying customers into repeat customers?

We believe that the most effective way to do all that is a system called the Value Ladder sales funnel.

It was created by our co-founder Russel Brunson who then used it to take ClickFunnels from zero to $10M+ in annual revenue in just one year (it’s at $100M+ now!). 

This sales funnel has four stages:

• Bait. You offer the potential customer your lead magnet in exchange for their email address.
• Frontend. You offer the potential customer your least expensive and least valuable product or service.
• Middle. You offer the customer a more expensive and more valuable product or service.
• Backend. You offer the customer your most expensive and most valuable product or service.

Ideally, you also offer a continuity program of some sort, meaning, a subscription product that generates recurring revenue. 

We also recommend adding downsells, upsells, and cross-sells to these core offers in order to maximize your revenue. 

The reason why this sales funnel works so well is that it allows you to:

1. Start the relationship with that person by offering free value.
2. Nurture that relationship by continuing to provide free value via email.
3. Build trust by providing progressively more paid value at each stage.

Here’s how Russel explains it:

We recommend building a Value Ladder sales funnel for your photography business if you want to make the most out of email marketing. 

If you aren’t sure where to begin, consider joining our free 5 Day Challenge where Russel walks you through building your first sales funnel step-by-step. 

Join our 5 Day Challenge today. It’s completely free!

#2 Build a Lead Generation Funnnel

So how can you build an email list?

Remember the Bait stage of the Value Ladder funnel?

It’s also known as the lead generation funnel. Building one and then driving traffic to it is the fastest way to grow your email list.

Here’s a quick overview of the process:

1. You create a lead magnet.
2. You create a landing page for that lead magnet.
3. You start driving traffic to that landing page.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these three components:

Lead Magnet

A lead magnet is a freebie that you offer to the potential customer in exchange for their email address. 

It can be anything that they can either download to their device or access online:

• A guide.
• An ebook.
• A video lesson.
• A video course.
• An email course.

…etc.

What’s important is that:

1. Your lead magnet offers a solution to a problem that the potential customer is struggling with.
2. That problem is either the same one or related to the one that your frontend offer addresses.

Say, if you are a wedding photographer, you could create an ebook or a video where you explain what the potential customer can do to ensure great wedding photos.

Providing helpful information like that helps you establish yourself as an expert and build trust.

Landing Page

Now that you have a lead magnet, it’s time to create a landing page for it. 

You can think of it as a sales page for your free offer – except instead of asking the potential customer for money, you are asking them for their email address!

We recommend starting with a squeeze page that has these three key elements:

• A headline that conveys what your free offer is all about.
• An opt-in form where the potential customer can type in their email address.
• A call-to-action button that encourages the potential customer to get your lead magnet.

Here’s a simple yet effective squeeze page that we are using for our “The Funnel Hacker’s Cookbook” lead magnet:

By the way, you don’t need to design your squeeze page from scratch – you can simply use one of the proven, high-converting squeeze page templates that come with our software.

Traffic

Once you have your lead magnet landing page all set up, you need to figure out how to drive traffic to it.

We believe that paid advertising is the best way to do that because paid traffic is predictable, measurable, and scalable.

All major social media platforms allow you to run ads:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Pinterest
• YouTube
• TikTok

Instagram is probably the best bet for a photography business because it’s an image-driven platform. 

Set up a small daily budget and begin running ads. Only start scaling your campaign once you figure out how to run ads profitably.

#3 Create a 6-Email Indoctrination Sequence

So you got the potential customer’s email address. What now?

The most common mistake people make here is immediately hitting their new subscriber with a sales pitch. 

We recommend sending them this 6-email indoctrination sequence instead:

• Email #1: Who Are You? Introduce yourself to the new subscriber.
• Email #2: Where Did You Come From? Share your origin story – how did you become a photographer?
• Email #3: What Do You Do? Explain what type of photography you specialize in.
• Email #4: How Did You Gain This Expertise? Explain what makes you qualified to offer these photography services. Mention relevant credentials, experience, awards, etc.
• Email #5: Who Do You Do This For? Explain who are your dream customers + share a case study on how you helped such a person get great photos.
• Email #6: How Can You Do It For Me? This is where you pitch your frontend offer to your new subscriber.

This indoctrination sequence is designed to gradually build trust – by the time you send that last email, your new subscriber should see you as a trustworthy expert. 

#4 Make an Effort With Your Subject Lines!

There’s a famous quote attributed to David Ogilvy, one of the best copywriters that ever lived:

“On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”

Presumably, he was talking about print ad headlines, but the same principle applies to email subject lines – they are the most important part of your emails. Why?

Because if your subject line doesn’t catch the potential customer’s attention, then the body copy doesn’t matter – they are not going to read it anyway!

That’s why you should really make an effort with your subject lines. What can you say to immediately grab the potential customer’s attention?

Here are some ideas:

• Benefit-driven subject line – This is the most straightforward subject line – simply state what you are offering (e.g. a discount, a special deal, a holiday sale, etc.). You can also add an element of scarcity to your subject line by mentioning when the offer expires.
• Pattern-interrupt subject line – This is a subject line that makes the potential customer go “What the…” and open the email just to see what it’s all about. It can be a controversial statement, a bizarre statement, a funny statement, etc. However, if you decide to use this approach, you need to make sure that your subject line is on-brand. You don’t want to come across as unprofessional or offend your subscribers!
• Request subject line – This subject line either features a question (e.g. “What do you think about this?”) or implies that there’s a request within the email (e.g. “I really need your help with this…”).

#5 Use the “Hook, Story, Offer” Copywriting Framework

We believe that the best copywriting framework for email marketing is what is known as  “Hook, Story, Offer”: 

• Hook – Capture the potential customer’s attention with your subject line.
• Story – Tell them an engaging story that is relevant to them.
• Offer – Transition from your story into your sales pitch and end the email with a call to action.

Here’s how Russel explains it:

That’s what we use in our own emails. And it works!

#6 End Each Email With a Clear Call to Action

Each email that you send should end with a call to action. What do you want the potential customer to do next?

Say, in the 6-email indoctrination sequence that we have discussed previously, you should end emails 1-5 by asking the new subscriber a question and encouraging them to hit the reply button and answer it.

Ideally, you want to then reply to each of these responses to make your new subscribers feel noticed and appreciated.

Of course, as your email list grows, you may eventually reach a point where responding to every email becomes impossible, but you should do it for as long as you can. 

Only your sixth and final email should have a call to action where you encourage the potential customer to hire you. 

#7 Start a Photography Newsletter

But how can you stay in touch with the new subscriber once you are done with the indoctrination sequence?

The best way to do that is to have a newsletter that you send out regularly – that allows you to continue building trust by providing free value.

The easiest format is a link roundup – simply send out a monthly newsletter where you share links that the potential customer might find interesting (e.g. articles, videos, podcasts, etc.).

Nowadays, everyone is an amateur photographer due to the prevalence of smartphones and the role social media plays in our lives, so people tend to be interested in learning how to take better photos. 

This means that the theme of your newsletter can be something along the lines of “everyday photography tips” as opposed to content related to your particular area of expertise (e.g. wedding photography) which might be too specialized. 

Keep in mind that the purpose of the newsletter is to stay top of mind with potential and existing customers so that the next time they need a photographer, they would immediately think of you. 

Case Study: This Photographer Made $125,000 Selling His Own Photographs

Craig Guignon didn’t set out to be a photographer – he got into photography by accident while working in his godmother’s interior design business. 

Their clients would sometimes want to display photographs of local landmarks in their homes, but finding such photos for smaller cities and towns was challenging. 

So if they couldn’t find any suitable images for sale, Craig would simply go out there and take photos himself. 

Eventually, after getting a lot of positive feedback from their clients, he decided to try selling these photos online. 

Meanwhile, Chris’ godmother, who was in the last months of her life, gave him a copy of Russel’s “DotCom Secrets” book.

Here’s what she told him:

“Russel Brunson has figured it out. Follow him. It will give you the result that you are looking for.”

So Craig followed her advice, read the book, and started implementing its lessons using ClickFunnels software.

And that changed everything. 

“I have discovered knowledge that has brought me from being a failing artist to having made $125,000 in the last 8 months purely from selling my own art”.

This is the power of the Value Ladder sales funnel – it can help you grow your photography business faster than you ever thought possible!

Want Russel To Show You How To Build Your First Sales Funnel?

Let’s keep it real:

Building a sales funnel from scratch can seem like a daunting task.

That’s why we created our 5 Day Challenge where Russel walks you through it step-by-step.

You will learn how to:

• Generate unlimited leads.
• Create your first lead magnet.
• Build your first sales funnel.
• Create a simple 6-email follow-up sequence.
• And launch your funnel!

…in just five days.

So don’t hesitate.

Join our 5 Day Challenge today. It’s completely free!