Black Friday Ideas for Photographers

Summary

In this episode, Christa explores the potential benefits of running a Black Friday sale for photographers, even for luxury brands. She debunks the myth that promotions devalue high-end services and emphasizes that strategic offers can serve as a significant cash injection and attract new clients. Christa highlights the importance of personalizing marketing efforts, such as using text messages over email blasts, to effectively engage potential clients. She provides practical ideas for Black Friday promotions, including online gallery sales, new client offers, gift card sales, and wall art or album discounts. Christa stresses the need for urgency in promotions and encourages photographers to experiment with different strategies to find what resonates best with their audience.

Takeaways

• • Promotions for Luxury Brands:Running a Black Friday sale can benefit even luxury brands without devaluing their services.
  • Cash Injection:Strategic promotions can provide a significant cash boost and attract new clients.
  • Personalized Marketing:Use personalized communication, like text messages, to engage clients more effectively than mass email blasts.
  • Variety of Offers:Consider different promotional ideas such as online gallery sales, new client offers, gift card sales, and wall art or album discounts.
  • Urgency in Promotions:Create a sense of urgency with deadlines to encourage immediate action from clients.
  • Experimentation:Try different promotional strategies to see what resonates best with your audience.
  • Consistent Engagement:Regularly engage with clients through multiple channels to stand out during the busy Black Friday period.
  • Client-Centric Approach:Tailor offers to meet the specific needs and interests of your clients for better results.

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Transcript

Christa (00:00.59)
So this episode is going to be all about Black Friday. Should you run a Black Friday sale? What should that look like? Let's jump into it. So I wanted to start off by, first of all, debunking the belief that luxury brands and high service providers can't offer promotions. And think of yourself as a consumer. Even when I'm watching certain brands and items that are very costly and luxury, I still am waiting a little bit for them to have some type of incentive, some type of promotion.

So brands still do things like that, even luxury ones. So let's put that theory aside. If like, no, it's going to devalue my brand too much. I understand that, right? If we're pushing too many offers all across and everyone knows like don't buy from her whenever, just wait for the promotion. I get that.

But there are some reasons where doing a Black Friday offer could be beneficial. And I'm going to break those down for you. And then you can decide if you want to do one or not. I have done them. And I have not done them. And it really just depends on a few things. So let's go ahead and talk through it. But I want to start off by saying this can be a great cash injection. I'm talking thousands of dollars. I had a student last year message me that. She did two grand just from implementing some of this. And so why this can be a really great thing is there's always lurkers.

There's always people following you. There's always people watching what you're doing. Someone clicked follow on your profile thinking, hey, I want to need family photos in the future. I just don't want to forget Krista. And so there's always people like that who often just need a push or reason to reach out now, right? Like the why now. And so it can be a great way to convert people that have been on the fence. Same if there's been some recent clients that didn't quite book you, but you know, if there was something a little you could have done for them or thrown in or discounted, they could come in.

And for me with my system, then I can totally upsell much further and it's completely worth it. So keep that in mind. If you have many people just kind of riding the fence, they're riding that line and you need a little bit of something. think it definitely, definitely could be worth it. The other reason it could be worth it is even if they don't buy now, it could just bring some more attention to your brand. It could turn some heads. People are more curious about you and what you do, even if they're not buying the offer, they could be a client down the road. So

Christa (02:10.23)
In that regard, you could think of it as planting seeds and nudging. I've seen this so many times in photography. I've seen it so many times in coaching. I've done workshops where people come and then buy like months and months and months later because that push was the nudge they needed. Same in photography. There's people that have been following me for a while and they knew me through this person. And then once I put like a really strong offer out there that spoke to them, they reached out and I had never heard from them before. Okay. So.

The thing that we want to do is you do need to stand out. Black Friday is loud. This is the time businesses are spending more than ever on advertising, on marketing, and on ad spend. So if we just post a couple times, send a couple email blasts, run like a low paying ad, you might not see a lot of traction. And that makes sense. There's nothing wrong with you. That's normal. So what I would encourage doing is whatever your offer is, get as personal as you can with your clients. And I think the best way to do that is to text them.

So I one time was coaching a student and I'm not gonna say their name if they're listening to this, just know I love you so much. And I remember at the end of Uncapped, they had reached out saying like, hey, we didn't really get as much traction as we thought. And I popped on a call with them and I was like, hey, tell me more of what went on here. So I was really surprised. They had a really strong brand. I really knew this would work for them. And they were sharing, well, I just did some email blasts and no one bit. And I was like, well, no kidding. Like I'm not gonna read a five paragraph email either.

about a new offer and then jump on it. That's just, I don't have time for that, especially when your ideal client is busy moms. So we walked through some changes to make. They reached out later saying this had been just so wonderful, completely changed the game for them and their business. And they were making so much more. Okay. But a huge part of that is not marketing just in a way that's to the masses, that's easy for us and getting very, very personal. Okay. And so you probably have your clients' numbers from the past. Text them, reach out. What do I say?

I'll cover some offer ideas in the future, but I need to start with this. So if you message me and say, Krista, I sent out email blasts and no one responded. Like, no kidding. I'm getting so many email blasts right now. Right? How many emails do you have sitting there? But a personal text like, Hey Krista, I was thinking about you. We have this offer. I think it'd be amazing for your family. I know you had loved X, Y, and Z and this month only it's, you know, X amount on sale. Like I'm going to turn my head to that. And then you follow up with me because I maybe got it when I was at a red light and didn't respond. Then I'm going to read that follow up, right? Versus an email.

Christa (04:34.402)
The other thing you can do is mention these during your reveal sessions. So if you already have clients in the sales room with you or on your virtual call, this can be a great way to upsell even further of just, I know you love this wall portrait. I think it'd look great in your home. If you want to go ahead and lock it in, it's actually on sale four black Friday, Friday right now. So that's really great for those of you who are already doing full service and already have clients in the sales room or you're doing design consults with them about it. And then make sure you're following up personally. So

If you had a client really interested in a wall portrait, show them a mock-up of it, if it was an album, design a couple spreads and say, hey, I know you really loved this or hey, I love being part of your wedding day. I'm getting ahead of myself. I love being part of your wedding day. I designed a few spreads for you, would love to help complete your album if you haven't done it yet and we're running a Black Friday sale. What do you think? Do you want to go over the details? So let me go over some practical sale ideas for photographers. There's going to be basically like four main categories.

And I'm going to start with your online gallery sales. If you've been following me for a while, you know that I don't depend on this for my income. When I was doing multi six figures in photography, it was not from my online gallery sales. However, this can be a great way to turn some heads and it's completely passive. So if my profit margins aren't where I normally want them to be, if someone's buying from me in the sales room, that's okay because it's completely passive. It's being fulfilled.

So I would encourage having things marked up in a way where you can do like 50 % off your online gallery. And you might say, Krista, that's insane. Okay, here's the deal. If I get an email, something's 20 % off, unless I was literally about to pull the trigger, that's not going to really be the reason that I buy. 30%, maybe 40, 50%, that's turning my head of like, okay, actually, I didn't get prints from my wedding day or my niece's wedding, right? Like if you make sure you collect the emails of those who access your online galleries.

so that anyone who's accessed it, send the gallery to grandma, to their aunts, to their family, to the in-laws, like all of them put their emails in. And most online galleries allow you to just, they have campaigns already set up. You can just like pick your discount and click go. But look at your margins, make sure you can support that. I'll never forget one time that I got, you know, this is terrible. I got a notification from my online gallery.

Christa (06:41.986)
that someone had bought an album and money had been withdrawn from my account because I didn't keep a pulse on my margins in there and ran a sale. Okay, so we don't want to do that. And now I don't even remember if I offer albums in the gallery anymore. I like to handle those now, but Christmas cards are a really great thing to add. So just do a markup where you can do a sale and still profit some and make that really easy for your clients. Okay, so then the next thing we can do besides the online gallery with, getting some Christmas items,

is we can have a new client offer. So this is really great if people have been writing the fence about reaching out to you, and they want to do a session with you. Keep in mind, some of you guys are in places where they might not want their session till the spring, maybe things are already dormant or dead or whatever. Or it's like, I coach a student Wisconsin, it's like you can get frostbite next week. Like, so that may look a little bit different. So make sure you share the ramifications of when they could have the session and make that really clear. And what you could do is either a front end bonus and see like, hey, for five people,

We're bringing our session fee to X, Y, and Z, or we're waiving the session fee. You can still take money upfront and just credit it back to them at the reveal. Or you could do something on the backend and say, hey, for anyone who books a session now, you'll get $100 towards your wall portrait, a free printed folio, something really special. You'll get, I don't know, an extra session for free later that year. So two for the price of one. So that's just a few ideas that you can roll with.

To get people in the front end will be more effective. Lowering that barrier of entry will be more effective. But if someone is already about to book with you and they know it's you and they're already like kind of all in with you, the ladder on the back end can be a really, really great move. Okay, so the next thing that you can do is a gift card or gift certificate sale. And so what I did when I had this, every time I did this, I'd have a couple of bites and it was really fun. This is a great way, again, it's all about your positioning.

This is a great gift for someone's parent, the gift of photos, right? Like that's literally the perfect gift for mom. So that's how you would shape it on social media or hey, if you know you're already going to book me, this is a great way to get more for less. So I had three tiers. One of them was a gift card that discounted the session fee where I said it's a $200 gift card. Now it's just 100. Okay, so that covers your session fee. I had another one that was 500. Now it's just 400. That will cover your base bundle. I had another one was 1000. Now it's just 800.

Christa (09:05.228)
Okay, and I had those set up and then I even said hey if you want to go ahead and do this I will mail you like a really cute little gift card in a nice custom box with a bow so that you actually have something for that loved one to open under the tree I don't know about you guys that goes so far at least for me I'm very visual then just showing someone like on their phone like Which we've done that guys, know for family gatherings when you like forget to buy your uncle a gift and so you've on your phone and just like

text them an Amazon gift card and like you click send right when you're all gathered around and you're like, your gift is on your phone, right? Instead of that, I actually will wrap it up for my clients and make it like really a really fun, special experience right from the get go. So that's also something really great that you can do and try. Okay, so then the last one is offering wall art and album sales through you. So I do operate as a full service studio, meaning I offer albums, I offer wall art, which is, I love it.

All of my clients get access to it. I believe that's the best way to enjoy your photos. And so this is not through my gallery. I actually am the one fulfilling these orders and I know my profit margins and guide my clients through it. So what you can do is offer that discount where it's through your studio. It's not something they can offer. You can have an online gallery and if you're wondering, well, what's the difference if they can buy an album there versus through you, then just turn your albums off in your online gallery if you don't want them there or just have it where it's very clearly a different product. Okay. And what you can do is reach out to past clients.

If you've been full service this year who were like right on the fence to buying some wall portraits or an album, reach back out and just say, hey, I know you would love this. I kept it on file. Here's a screenshot again. We're running a discount this month and you can guide them through it. The other thing that you could do if you've been a wedding photographer, reach out to your past couples and ask if they've gotten a wedding album. Remember we're texting them. Ask if they've gotten a wedding album and if you can fulfill that for them.

What you can also do is pre-sell wedding albums. So I did this one year where I reached out to my brides that year and said, hey, I'm running a sale on my wedding albums right now if you want to go ahead and pre-purchase them. But keep in mind that it's all about positioning. It's not about yourself. Hey, I'd love to get on the call so I can share details. No, hey, I would love to get on a call to hear what type of album you'd be looking for, how much of your wedding day you'd want it to cover, what kind of

Christa (11:26.414)
covers on the album speak to you, and then we can walk through options. Instead of, hey, I want to show you my wall art pricing and discounts, hey, I loved your session. You guys were so wonderful to work with. I would love to make sure you have one of these on the wall in your home as your family's gathering together for the holidays. You mentioned above the dining room table is blank, and I have a few ideas in mind for you I'd love to share, and we're doing a discount through this time right now. So just to wrap it up here.

There has to be urgency as to why now. So there needs to be a deadline on this order. If it's just open ended, why do it now? Why do it later? And the holidays are a great time for that. If we go ahead and order now, I can have this album to you so you could put it under the tree for your loved one, right? So just a reminder, Black Friday doesn't have to be complicated. I wouldn't do all of these at once. I would go ahead and stick to like what really speaks to you. If you want to try one after the other, guess what? You can. Even big companies do that. They don't just do one sale a year.

You're welcome to try different things. You're welcome to personally reach out to clients with an offer that you feel would serve that client really well. Even I had a student one time do, I think it was something like if you booked like you could buy a mini session at a discount pre-purchase for next year, right? Like that would be great for those clients. You know, always want to do mini sessions with you. Okay. So figure out what's going to resonate with your clients. I would make a list of all the past clients this year, all the upcoming clients.

figure out what serves them best, start with that low-hanging fruit. And then I would go ahead and implement like one of these at a time and really get it out there. Remember, we're not just gonna do one email blast or one Instagram post. Like this is something you do need to like consistently show up for multiple times. Whatever you would normally do, five exit, okay? Cause you're competing with more noise than ever. And I've had students before, I remember one student that was selling her mini sessions and she was like, I feel like I'm annoying everyone on social media.

And we were in a inner circle in the group call and I said, raise your hand if her posts are annoying you on social media and like no one raised their hand. And it's like half of us aren't even seeing them, right? Because again, with the algorithm, with all these things, it sometimes takes hitting that client at just the right time. And we're not going to do that if we don't show up. So if you want this broken down further, if on Instagram at Krista with a C H underscore Renee R E N E DM me the word Friday. And I made a guide for you where I talk through it again, we're in depth about the different black Friday offers you can do.

Christa (13:46.963)
and I hope it goes well for you.