Steve Boxall is a Miami-based photographer who specializes in Industrial, Corporate, Education, and Healthcare photography. He is a workforce specialist who documents people in their day-to-day work environment. I had been researching clients for Steve as part of our Marketing Partner program for about 12 months when he asked what he should do with all these new contacts. I suggested that they should go into his main contact list so that he could send the prospective clients periodic emails to keep in touch.
Steve said, “I was really good at those during COVID when I had all kinds of time. I should probably find someone to do that for me.” I replied, “No problem, Steve, we can do that for you.” That’s how our Email Marketing Campaign journey began.
Since Steve and I have been working together for so long, it was easy to add an Email Marketing Campaign to his Marketing Partner project. Each month, I take all his new contacts from Marketing Partner, add them to his Squarespace account, and put together his newsletter.
Our Email Marketing Campaign project is a great way to lay the groundwork with all those clients. Rather than be a one-hit wonder in their inbox, why not be in it frequently enough that you might just be top of mind when someone needs to make a decision?
We started with an editorial calendar and mapped out the next few months. We laid out exactly what we wanted to feature in each email and brainstormed the accompanying texts. Steve sends me a couple of projects every month and I load them up into Squarespace where we are able to assemble his newsletter. I write up a few words about each project, and then Steve will usually do some editing of his own. Once I send a test email and Steve confirms it’s ready to go, I send out the newsletter.
The first time we sent out the campaign, Steve had a lot of great feedback, including a call from an old client who was hoping to get him on their calendar again for the New Year.
The Email Marketing Campaign has been a good way for Steve to stay in touch with potential clients by sending new work and updates on what he’s been up to. We try to keep to a once-a-month schedule and try to stay consistent at the beginning of the month. We’re always flexible, however, so we adjust when Steve’s schedule gets busy.
While the campaigns themselves are fairly hands-off for the photographer, the pre-planning and communication about the projects are essential for making sure we send out solid emails with accurate information. Since Steve uses Squarespace, he takes advantage of their blog feature. This allows us to easily add the blog posts to his newsletter. We edit the format and galleries depending on what we’re featuring each month. It’s a simple layout and process that works well for photographers who don’t want to fuss too much but want to remain in their contacts’ inboxes.
Marketing is never a one-and-done effort. Various marketing resources will tell you it takes between 8-10 touchpoints to make a sale. Adding a regular monthly email to your contacts list takes care of one more touch point every month. Consider the monthly outreach a piece of the marketing pie — your other slices should be made up of other forms of outreach, i.e., personal emails and LinkedIn outreach.
Further Reading
Specialty: Industrial Photography
Expert Advice: Marketing Misconceptions
Expert Advice: Emailer Design for Photographers