3. 5 Steps to get started

You've decided to add a monthly Pop-in to your business - so what next? Where do you start?

This episode will help get you off the ground and running in 5 simple steps:
1. Design your set
2. Price it
3. Name it
4. Get set up online
5. Tell everyone!

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Transcript

Anna Little (00:06):

Hi, pop stars. Today's episode is all about getting started. What are the five steps you need to take to get your monthly Pop-in portraits off the ground and off to a running start? We're covering pricing, naming, designing, and admin, and by the time we're done, you should be just about ready to pop.
(00:31)
Welcome to How to Pop, a business podcast for photographers who want their family portrait business to pop. I'm Anna Little, founder and creator of Pop-in Photos, and I want to help you go from hustling and struggling to busy and profitable, with a cute little idea I call Pop-ins. So nevermind the classic podcast "dive in", today, let's Pop-in.
(01:10)
When I first started offering monthly portraits, my photography business was very much just a side hustle. I was relying on my day job to pay the bills, while dreaming about taking my photography full time. Within months of starting monthly portraits, I had over 30 new clients who were all interested in what else I had to offer, and I was quickly able to quit my day job and open my first studio, comfortable in the knowledge that if nobody ever came again for a full session, I would still have enough money rolling in every month from my monthly portraits to cover my bills. And I'm not the only one. Other photographers here in New Zealand are taking their monthly portraits to the next level by opening multiple venues, and some are even bringing in healthy six figure passive incomes from monthly portraits alone, with staff photographers doing the shooting, freeing up plenty of time for them to focus on photographing families and full-priced photo shoots.
(02:06)
This is no joke. Monthly Pop-in portraits really work. Clients can't resist them. Even photographers who are new to monthly portraits are noticing results. One photographer in Australia who only recently started offering Pop-ins reports, "Even though I only have a handful of monthly portraits booked, my conversion rate is at 80%. That's four new full-price price clients booked after starting monthly Pop-in portraits first, seeing what they liked, and wanting more." What would your business look like if you had an extra four clients a month?
(02:39)
So you're in, right? You wouldn't still be here if I wasn't piquing your interest just a little bit. So let's get you started in five quick and easy steps. Are you ready? If you're running short on time, you can download the Five Steps to Getting Started video and a business plan worksheet at popinphotos.com, to get up and running when you next have a spare moment.
(02:59)
First things first, the fun part. Design your set. Now, all going well, you will take this exact same photo thousands of times, so there are a few key criteria you're going to want to consider when you design how your monthly Pop-in portrait will look. One, is it suitable for babies and children of all ages? Can it hold up a baby who's only just learning to sit unassisted? Can a newborn lie down comfortably? Can it fit a 2-year-old? Can it fit a 12-year-old?
(03:29)
Number two, is it simple to set up, and can it easily be moved, and be set up in the exact same way next month? You might be working out of a hired venue, or even multiple venues, so choosing a set that can be easily transported in a small car might be a priority to you. Make it timeless and broadly appealing. You might still be selling the same photo in five or even 10 years time, so make sure it stands the test of time by avoiding anything that's currently trendy. The simpler, the better. Or if your business targets a specific subset of the general population, like say you only want to photograph children with special needs, then create a monthly portrait that reflects that goal and appeals to that specific demographic.
(04:14)
For us at my Pop-in company, Little Annie, we use a classic white chair. It's plastic, so it doesn't get stained if someone comes in with muddy boots. It has firm sides to it, so babies in that three to five month stage who can't quite sit up by themselves yet can be propped up against one of the arms of the chair. We use a simple white backdrop and professional lighting that can be consistent from month to month, so that when they put all their photos together at the end of the year, it looks great. Our Little Annie portraits are part of our trademarked brand, so I would encourage you not to replicate our shots exactly, unless you want to join our franchise, but take the essentials of that recipe and make it your own. Put your spin on it, and reflect the rest of your branding in your Pop-in photo design.
(04:59)
Avoid the temptation to change the set every month. Monthly Pop-in portrait customers want to capture a series of photos where their baby growing is the focus, so save your creative themes for mini sessions or custom shoots. Remember the number one essential, keep it strictly limited. If they want anything different, then the price is different too.
(05:20)
Okay, so you've got your perfect Pop-in portrait designed, and you've taken a few test shots. Awesome. That's the most difficult part of getting started, and it was pretty easy, wasn't it? Number two in the five steps to getting started is determining your price. This is a simple price calculation, based on your cost of doing business. You can download our costs of doing business calculator from popinphotos.com to help with this step. If you already know your average session price, then take that figure and divide it by the number of monthly portraits you think can fit into one hour. And remember, it's just one photo per child, taken the exact same way each time, batch edited, and sent without any emailing or administration.
(06:01)
So for me, I can do 25 monthly portraits in an hour, but I do have five years of experience here, so you might be more comfortable splitting your cost between 10 or maybe 15 bookings. That way, when you get faster in the future, your profit margin improves. In general, you want to define a price that is extremely affordable for moms of almost any income level. This price will vary massively, depending on where in the world you live and what's going on in your local photography industry. Don't forget to factor in the popinphotos.com booking fee. This is a flat rate, no matter what your booking price, so it's easy to calculate in as a direct cost.
(06:40)
At my company, Little Annie, our Pop-in are just $20 a pop. This is a price that is pretty affordable here for most parents. It is comparable to the price of a child's swimming lesson, or coffee and cake for two at a cafe. What would that price be near you? Whatever the price is, it should be achievable for most families to do regularly, and it should be cheap enough to impulse buy online. Ultimately, the price is not as important as the customer's experience and the photo that they take away with them, which is always going to be so much more valuable than any dollar amount, but the low price point is what helps to get them through the door, and the goal is to get as many mums coming to Pop-ins every month, get them talking to their friends about your business, and crucially, leave them wanting more of what you have to offer.
(07:31)
With Pop-ins, you can create a full day in your schedule, where you know that you'll make some regular cash to get you through the month, and more than that, you'll connect with a bunch of your target customers, and have the opportunity to move them towards other products that you offer in your business, like family portrait sessions, on-location shoots, and even wedding photography, schools, sports photos, corporate headshots. Anything is possible when you have that customer standing in front of you and you're showing them what you can do.
(08:00)
Okay, number three, we're halfway there. This one will require some creative thinking. Name your monthly Pop-in portraits. Sure, you can definitely just go with Pop-in Portraits, that's clear and to the point, but think ahead to the future when you have hundreds of happy mums telling their friends about your monthly portrait scheme. There are also three other photographers in your area who have seen you rise to success and are now copying your ideas to ride on your coattails. How are the mums going to talk about your business in a way that makes it easy to differentiate from the competition?
(08:34)
There's certainly merit to using your existing brand name to help with those upsell conversions, but what if your monthly Pop-in portrait scheme is so popular that you end up living the passive income dream and you're no longer the photographer behind the camera? Maybe you've even licensed out your unique branding to other photographers to replicate. Monthly Portraits by Mandy McCaptures-a-Lot is probably not going to work at that scale. Design a brand name that can grow with you. Ultimately, you need a catchy, memorable name that can be easily trademarked. And I'll give you a pro-tip, describing words, like monthly portraits, typically can't be trademarked. So what about Snappy Sessions, Drop-Bys, Little Growings, 12-lings, or Collectibubbies? If you're a little low on creative juice, check out our naming worksheet, downloadable from popinphotos.com, and get inspired.
(09:27)
Okay, fantastic. So you've got your photo designed, your price point, and your unique brand name that sits perfectly within your existing brand. Step four is getting all of your events set up on popinphotos.com. Popinphotos.com is your most essential ingredient for making your monthly Pop-in portraits a success. This web-based application is specifically designed for photographers, by photographers, to enable you to create and run your monthly Pop-in portraits with the most minimal level of manual administration imaginable. This is a seriously meaty piece of online software that automates absolutely everything to do with Pop-ins. All that's left for you to do is take beautiful photos, and from what I hear, you're already pretty fantastic at that.
(10:14)
Believe me when I say it that popinphotos.com includes everything you need to run a successful monthly Pop-in portrait business and more. And if there's something else you need that popinphotos.com doesn't do, they're open to suggestions, and they have developers actively continuing to build and enhance the software every day. Hacking together other scheduling tools and photo delivery apps will never come close to the seamless customer journey offered by popinphotos.com, as it's built specifically for monthly portraits. Getting your popinphotos.com account set up is easy, simply enter your business details and create your account. For a full instructional video on how to complete this stage, checkout popinphotos.com.
(10:56)
Next, you'll need to create your appointment type. This is where your clever brand name comes in handy, to find your prices and enter descriptions for your customers so they know what their booking and what to expect. Make sure you are very clear on how your monthly portraits work. One photo, one child. Now, you'll need to create your location so that your customers know where to find you on the day of the shoot. Have you thought about where your monthly Pop-in portraits will be held? If you have your own dedicated studio space, perfect. But if not, check out local community centers, dance studios, gyms, or church halls, places with lots of parking and flat access for prams that can be hired cheaply by the hour are ideal.
(11:39)
Better yet, find somewhere where moms already hang out. Is there a baby music class at your local library? Book the hour directly after music, and you'll have yourself a ready-made customer base. Great. Now, you'll create your event and make it ready to book online. Follow these simple steps to get your event set up. Choose your newly created appointment type, set your start and finish time, and you'll see the rest of the form automatically completes from the information you've provided in the previous steps. Easy.
(12:10)
Now, before you go any further, I want to tell you a little secret from some experienced insiders. The most effective tool for ensuring that your monthly portraits are popular and book up quickly is to manage your supply and demand. So what does that mean? That means that when you open your event, you start with just one hour and just a few bookings. When a potential customer visits your booking site and sees lots and lots of sessions are available, they feel no urgency to book. They might even think there's something dodgy about your offer that's keeping other mums from booking. Instead, if your event shows only two spots left, then they're inspired to book right then and there to avoid missing out.
(12:52)
The law of human nature and shopping is based on two critical facts. People love having something scarce and collectible that other people don't have, and they hate missing out on things that other people do have. You can always add more bookings per hour, or even another time slot when the first one sells out. Even better, if your event sells out, you can post on social media about your sellout event, and that you've now added a few new spots. Cue a string of eager mummies, poised and ready to book on the spot. Limiting your supply also means that you're not sitting around twiddling your thumbs for hours if your event doesn't book up in the first few months, because look, that wouldn't be worth your time.
(13:35)
Okay, so you've got your event all set up on popinphotos.com, and you're ready to launch this baby. The fifth and final step to getting started is marketing. I know what you're thinking, "Whoa, whoa, who, wait. I thought you said I was done with marketing?" Girl, no, you're a business person, you are never done with marketing entirely. The difference is that it's very, very easy to sell something that's just $20 and offers amazing value compared to trying to sell $1,000 family portrait shoot. Social media absolutely loves a bargain, so yes, you still need to let people know about your monthly Pop-in portraits, but believe me, this is something that your audience is going to be thrilled to hear about, and every time you mention it, your bank account will sound like a slot machine winning the jackpot.
(14:23)
First things first, let's get your own website hooked up and ready to receive your hoards of eager new monthly Pop-in portrait customers. Create a new page on your website that explains exactly what your monthly portrait scheme is about, and make sure to point out the huge difference, there's no catch, there's nothing more to pay, and the photo is included. Display your sample photos so that your customer knows exactly what they're booking. Link your direct booking link to your popinphotos.com booking site on a book now, call to action button. Before you go much further, you might also want to look at creating some terms and conditions. Check out the popinphotos.com legal portal, and take our example terms to your local legal advisor to amend these to your global location, and ensure that your business is covered in case something goes wrong.
(15:14)
Now, all that's left to do is to tell people about this amazing portrait offer. Contact your existing email list, post, post, post on social media, drop flyers down to the midwives, and shout it from the rooftops, because every mum is going to want to know about this amazing special deal. Now, if you really struggle with this, check out our marketing inspiration and social media toolkits available at popinphotos.com.
(15:39)
You've made it. You've been armed with absolutely everything you need to know now to create your monthly Pop-in portrait scheme that will put your photography business on the road to success. Let's recap the five steps to getting started. Design your photo, choose your price, name it, get your event set up on popinphotos.com, and sell it. Wow, I am so excited for you. When you've put what you learned into action, your whole new life will begin. Monthly Pop-in portraits can turn your struggle to find new customers into Easy Street, and free up your time to do what you do best, which is take beautiful photos.
(16:20)
Stay tuned, pop stars. The next episode is dropping soon. What do you think? Do you want to get in on this? Hit me up on social media if you have questions, I'm always here to help. Check out our How to Pop Facebook group, and join the conversation. If you have enjoyed this podcast, have a look at our website, popinphotos.com. We are very excited to open this amazing tool to new international brands very soon. Sign up to get notified when it's available near you. That's popinphotos.com.