Emailer Copy: Sophie Ebrard

Sophie Ebrard is a London-based photographer and director creating content within the specialties of brand narrative, portraiture, lifestyle, fitness, social documentary, and motion work. She has had various exhibition shows and has been honored with countless photography awards. I admire Sophie’s work so I was excited to get a chance to help her with copywriting for an email campaign.

Sophie first came to Wonderful Machine to work with one of our marketing consultants on a client build. After, she came back looking for assistance with drafting copy for an email campaign. The email copy would be used for the 50 prospects on her International client list build. Sophie is based in Europe, but we also included a few prospects in New York that we knew worked with photographers outside of the U.S. as well. Sophie’s client list was mainly comprised of well-known publications and publishing companies. 

To begin our email campaign draft, Sophie and I jumped on a quick Google Meet call and started talking through the goals she had in mind for her outreach. She has a very extensive portfolio, so we discussed her projects and identified which ones she was interested in promoting. We researched the prospects on her list, the type of work they typically feature, and which projects we thought would best encourage a conversation with those potential clients. Out of her entire portfolio, we narrowed it down to four projects: The Dunk Elite, I Didn’t Want To Be a Mum, It’s Just Love, and Being 16.

Then I began composing a variety of email drafts for Sophie. The goal was that Sophie could go through her prospect list and decide if she wanted to promote a particular project or her portfolio as a whole. Sometimes a client may have a broader portfolio so it may be more difficult to determine which specific series, or gallery, to send. In those cases, I suggest sending an overview of your portfolio instead of a singular series.  

Sophie’s emails would be coming directly from her, so I drafted them in first-person and began with a short introduction on her photographic experience, what specialties she shoots, and named a handful of commercial clients that she works with. I then wrote a paragraph on the four projects we had decided on and was sure to include whether they had been in an exhibition, awarded, or published. I also included a draft that would allow Sophie to promote her portfolio versus a singular project and included links to her about page which features all her awards, exhibitions, and publications she’s been honored with throughout her career. Lastly, the call to action in our emails was a phone call or Zoom meeting with the client for Sophie to introduce herself and speak to her work, or a specific series, in more detail. 

I delivered some email copy options to Sophie and in doing so I was also sure to include a few tips for outreach to clients. For example, with a prospect list build we recommend sending a personalized initial email and then sending a short follow-up about 7-14 days later. A few weeks later, people should try to connect with each prospect via LinkedIn, or through another social network for a second touchpoint. Lastly, review which prospects you received replies from and about 4-6 months later follow-up again with those you never heard from or did not click-through to your site. It is crucial to keep updating prospect lists as clients change jobs so that you have the most up-to-date contact information. Wonderful Machine has a team of dedicated client outreach specialists that can work with you to pull a new prospect list, update your existing list, or even do the outreach on your behalf. 

If you’re looking for help with your emailer or print promo copy, or just want to learn more about our services, feel free to email us or check out our publicity consulting page!