When you sell out mini sessions, it’s a great opportunity to serve your clients with lower-priced, quicker sessions and give your business an amazing boost in revenue. Using e-mail marketing in your photography business is always a great idea, but especially when it comes time to book up these rare mini-session dates throughout the year.

As a photographer for over a decade, it wasn’t until the last few years that I started a small but mighty e-mail list that helped me to book full days of mini sessions (and even high-ticket boudoir sessions).

The secret? Building a list of people who are actually interested in the details of your sessions and want to be alerted as soon as dates and times come available.

So what do most photographers do?
Most photographers rely on a few social media posts to book all of their mini session dates/times. They post and pray that the right people will see at the right time. If this is how you’ve been marketing your mini sessions in the past and are ready for a more streamlined way to book them out, I’m going to share a simple strategy that you can rinse & repeat every season (and your list will continue to grow!)

If you don’t already have an e-mail marketing platform, FLODESK is perfect for photographers and what I’ve used for years, now. You can get half off with my affiliate link.

Let’s get started.

You’ll need to do two things after you sign up for Flodesk: upload your logo and input your business information…

Then create your first sign-up form.

Tip: use the full page form option so that you can easily share the link for people to sign up! Here’s what that looks like within FLODESK:

An example of the copywriting for your form would be:

“JOIN THE SPRING WAITLIST”

“Spring mini sessions will be released on March 15th to the VIP waitlist, first! Get a jump on choosing the best date and time for you before booking is opened to the public on social media! You’ll be the first to know an entire hour before my Facebook followers, so keep a look out on March 15th!“

Building your List

This waitlist form link is what you’ll be sharing on social media the weeks leading up to releasing your booking link. It’s important that you’re giving people the date that you’ll be sending out the actual booking e-mail. Giving them a cutoff date to get on the list makes them more likely to sign up to your waitlist – and continuing to share the link with your booking release date will keep it fresh in their minds as they scroll past on social media.

After creating your sign-up form for the mini session waitlist, you’ll start sharing the link across social media: in Instagram stories, in your link in bio, on your business Facebook page, and on your personal Facebook page. Plan to share this link multiple times between now and your booking link release date. Use similar copywriting to what you’ll have on your waitlist form (example above).

(Hard truth: DO NOT SHARE THIS LINK ONCE AND EXPECT TO BUILD A LIST OF HUNDREDS OF POTENTIAL MINI SESSION CLIENTS. For weeks leading up to your release date, you should make this a priority to share often.)

Send a Reminder E-mail:

This e-mail will be sent three days before you open up dates for booking. It’s to remind them that they joined the VIP/waitlist and that you’ll be releasing the booking link at 0:00 on this 0/00. If they know the date/time you’ll send the booking e-mail they’ll be expecting it and recognize it in their inbox, quicker.

Use this free Flodesk template for your reminder e-mail, just customize it to fit your brand and information: REMINDER E-MAIL TEMPLATE

Send your Booking E-mail:

Use this free Flodesk template for your booking link e-mail, just customize it to fit your brand and information: MINI SESSION BOOKING E-MAIL

A quick example schedule to market your mini sessions:

The weeks before releasing your booking link: Create Social Media Posts with the Flodesk Sign up Form
Three days before releasing your booking link to your e-mail subscribers: Flodesk Reminder E-mail
Morning of releasing your booking link to your e-mail subscribers: Flodesk Booking E-mail

Consider scheduling another e-mail not long after your Booking e-mail with a different subject and something like ’10 more minutes to grab yours’ so that they are aware there’s a countdown before you release the dates to the public.

Then, go ahead and release your remaining dates to social media. You’ll still have e-mail subscriber bookings trickle in later, but you’ve got a much higher chance at booking all of your spots if you’re sending to both your waitlist *and* sharing on social media! Just be sure that you’re giving your waitlist ample time to grab the spots they want, first! That can be hours or 1-2 days!

Need more help with Flodesk and e-mail marketing in general?
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