I have a proven method for mini session success.

It took a bit of trial and error to get there, but now every year I am able to effortlessly sell out as many mini sessions as I want to offer. This fall alone, our team will have photographed over 70 mini sessions by the time our season is over!

I’m not saying that paying for ads on Facebook and Instagram to sell mini sessions doesn’t work (although, I don’t run ads at all and never have). Mainly, I don’t want to give any of my hard earned money away to the social media platform giants if I don’t have to.

Furthermore, traditional advertising to the masses is focused on cold leads and takes much more money and effort to convert into a booking than the warm leads of past clients and referrals that you already have at your fingertips. 

So, how do I do it?!

Let me clue you in on the #1 must-do for selling out your mini sessions.

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE EMAIL LIST

The first couple of times I offered my mini sessions I relied on organic posts to Instagram and Facebook to sell them and admittedly, I got by. 

But y’all, 10 years ago, there wasn’t that pesky little thing called “the algorithm”. And even then, I didn’t have an instantaneous sell out like I do today, which left me constantly having to post on social media. I felt like I was begging and bothering my audience by posting the same thing over and over until I sold all of my sessions and I hated it. Not to mention, it wasted so much of my time and mental energy that I could be spending on other business tasks to grow my business.

We know that the algorithm is always changing, but current social media experts show that just 4% of our audience sees the content that we work so hard to create. 4%?! No wonder it is so hard to sell on Instagram alone. Having a pipeline to directly connect with your warm leads for your mini sessions via your email list is absolutely critical. 

I hate to break it to you, but if you are relying exclusively on Instagram to sell your mini sessions, you are going to struggle. I promise you, putting in the work to set up and grow your email list will be WELL worth the effort, as it’s the key to selling mini sessions quickly. 

Imagine that every single person that was interested in your work would get a notification about your available mini sessions. Taking the time to set up and use an email list is an absolute no-brainer and paramount in the mini session game. 

Do you have an email list for your mini sessions? If not….why?! Today, it’s easier than ever to get started.

GET STARTED WITH YOUR EMAIL LIST

Hopefully by now, I’ve convinced you that you need an email list for your mini session program if you don’t already have one. Let’s talk through the easiest way to get things going.

#1 – Choose your email marketing platform

I experimented with several different email marketing platforms in the early years of setting up my email list, but found them to be overly complicated, sometimes glitchy, and frankly….they just weren’t cute! As a creative business owner that values simplicity, organization AND loves things that are pretty to look at, it was a no-brainer to make the switch to FloDesk once I found it. With the formatting being “drag and drop” style, FloDesk makes it so easy to start, grow and maintain an email list. Not to mention, there are beautiful templates that I can customize to reflect my overall business brand and aesthetic. 

#2 – Grow your email list

One of the most effective ways to grow an email list throughout the year for mini sessions is to create and share a sign-up form, which can be done in a snap in FloDesk. Not only do I get numerous new email addresses by keeping this form as a constant link in my Instagram bio, but I will share mini session images in my Instagram stories and provide a link to this form for those that are interested in receiving information about future sessions. I work on building my list all year long, so I have a healthy number of interested clients to launch to once registration day arrives.

Here is what my sign-up form looks like:

#3 – Use your list to sell your sessions

The incentive for signing up for your email list is to be able to have exclusive access to all of the information and details about your upcoming mini sessions. With this in mind, it’s important that you don’t share the specific details or about how to book a session publicly on social media. The goal is to get leads for your current and future sessions ON. YOUR. LIST. Even if they don’t book a session for your current season, you want them on your list for future offers. 

When it’s time to open up mini session registration, I send two emails to my email list:

Email #1 (goes out 2-3 days before registration opens): the “Save The Date” email. It lists all of the session details and most importantly, shares the registration date and time, as well as the booking link (that is paused) for them to go to when registration opens (tip: giving them the booking link at this point is key! Pro tip…I love using Session for my booking platform). 

Email #2 (goes out the moment that registration opens): the “Registration Is Open” email. This is basically the same information as the first email that was sent and mainly serves as a reminder. 

I send these 2 emails and I sell out of my mini sessions. 

Every. Single. Time.

Mini sessions can be an amazing source of income…if they are done right!

To get started with FloDesk, visit this link to get 50% off of your first year. And please feel free to reach out to me with any questions about using an email list for mini sessions. I’m here to help!