When it comes to booking mini-sessions, your email list is going to be SUPER helpful for you! If you don't have an email list, it's definitely time to start one! Here is one of my favorite email marketing tips that will get your email list started!

Social media is great, but we don't own our social media. Tomorrow Facebook could decide to change something and your posts could never show up in a newsfeed again. (Hopefully not, but you get my point!) With an email list, YOU truly own it! You can choose to land in their inbox whenever you want and you can trust that they'll actually get your emails.

I've tried a lot of email systems, but my FAVORITE by far is Flodesk! It's basically the Canva of email systems. Not only is it absolutely stunning, but it is VERY easy to use. Click and drag kind of easy. Definitely check it out! (Use this link to get 50% off the first year!)

 

Now let's talk giveaways…

One of the easiest and fastest email marketing tips that can grow your email list is running a giveaway! With mini-sessions season in full swing, it would be super easy to give away one mini-session spot.

Last year around this time, I had a Red Truck Christmas Mini spot I wasn't able to fill. So the week-of I ran a 24-hour giveaway in a local mom Facebook group. (The winner would receive the free spot with 5 images included.) I ended up getting 400 new local moms on my email list in those 24 HOURS!! Plus the girl who won the giveaway ended up purchasing her full gallery (thank you up-selling! Read “How to Up-Sell Mini-Sessions WITHOUT IPS”) so I made $200 on a spot I couldn't fill! Not too shabby!

AND since then, a bunch of those moms have gone on to book other minis with me. Definitely a win!

 

But HOW?!

The key here is to require people to fill out a form providing their email AND comment on your post in order to enter.

Lots of giveaways I see on Facebook have people follow them, comment, and tag people to enter. That's great for getting more followers, but in the end it rarely results in gaining new customers. (Remember, that's the end goal!)

By requiring them to fill out a form with their email, you're capturing them for life. No wondering if they'll see your posts. You can drop into their inbox whenever you want!

I created my opt-in form using Flodesk. Here's what it looked like:

I chose to embed it onto my website so I could have a little more control over the elements on the page, but you can create a landing page form through Flodesk instead to make it super easy. It has its own link that you can send people to without needing to ever use your website.

Anyone who filled out this form was put into a Segment so I could easily find them all. From there, I had an automated email that sent to them basically telling them to be on the lookout for my email announcing the winner. (This gets people in the habit of opening your emails!)

When it was time to announce the winner, I emailed everyone in that Segment and told them who the winner was. I also included a discount for anyone who wanted to book a mini-session that season with me. In all transparency, I didn't book any of them for my fall minis that year. BUT in the year following (this year), I booked tons of them for this year's fall minis! Sometimes these email marketing tips are more of a “long-game” strategy, but SO worth it in the end!!

 

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I'm thinking about doing a Flodesk video tutorial series…who would be up for it? Let me know if that would be helpful for you!

If you haven't checked out my free mini-sessions class all about timing, pricing, and marketing your minis, be sure to watch it HERE!

You may also like…

“3 Tips for Advertising Your Mini-Sessions”

“4 Key Emails to Send Mini-Sessions Clients”

“How to Handle a Busy Toddler During Mini-Sessions”

“How to Book Mini-Sessions (With No Client Base)”