Five ways to create profitable mini-sessions

Make them special and limited.
You never want your mini-sessions to be a lower priced version of your regular session. Have a special theme to them and limit how many spots there are. You can even offer a special product that’s only offered for mini-sessions. Use them as a fundraiser or a way to give back. This will give people an incentive to book.

Pay attention to your marketing.
You want to give yourself enough time to market your mini-sessions well. Don’t try to throw together a mini-session offering a week before. Give yourself time to post and build interest.

Don’t rely only on Facebook to promote your mini-sessions. If you are using Facebook, try targeting your posts to a specific audience to get in front of more people. Sending an email to your client base is a great way to get repeat customers. Ask people in your local networking groups to share about your mini-sessions or even partner with a local business to do a cross-promotion.

Don’t overwhelm your clients with options.
Since the final gallery will contain a smaller selection of images, limit your product choices the items that make sense: canvases, gift prints, and digital files. Keep items like books and albums as exclusives for your regular sessions where you’ll have a larger gallery to pull from. Whether you make your products part of a mini-session special package or a la carte add ons, this will help your clients easily make their post-session purchases.

Prepare clients for the mini-session.
In order for the time to be used to the maximum potential, it’s important to educate your clients and make sure they are well prepared before the session. Create a mini-session guide with tips and information to give them before the session. This can include things such as the theme for the setup, how to plan their outfits (and remind them that they only get one), what to expect during the session, when to arrive, etc. This way you can eliminate any miscommunication and stress ahead of time.

Be sure to send them a reminder email with specifics on how to get to the location, what time their session is, when they should arrive, and a contact number for you or the person assisting you that day in case anything comes up.

Set up an ordering session.
You want this to be in-person if possible. This gives you the advantage of asking questions like where they want to hang their images, do they need any holiday gifts, holiday cards, etc. You are the expert helping them choose how their images will be displayed.

Walking your clients through this process step-by-step provides an added value to your services and will help them make their decisions easier.

Or if you are unable to do in-person sales, try uploading them to a great gallery system like Shootproof to send to your clients! You can have a fully branded gallery and sell prints easily through your favorite lab. Plus you can set up reminder emails to follow up with clients to purchase from their galleries.

Psst… Want to be super organized with your mini sessions this year? Set up automatic emails with your pdfs and session reminders be sent to clients in Iris for you! No more having to remember who has what. Try it out today!

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