• How do I connect my print sales to Mailchimp?
• How do I get my print customers into Hubspot?
• Can I connect NextGEN Pro to CovertKit?

Out of the box, NextGEN Pro does not offer such integrations.

However, there is a workaround thanks to the gateways included in the Ecommerce plugin.

Because NextGEN Pro utilizes Stripe and PayPal for you to collect payments on print and digital download sales, there are two connection services you can utilize.

IFTTT is a free service that will allow you to connect Stripe to Mailchimp and a handful of other platforms.

Zapier is a freemium service that will allow you to connect Stripe and/or PayPal to a large variety of other platforms.

For photographers only using Stripe for payments and Mailchimp for email marketing, IFTTT can be the quick solution.

But for those who need more, check out Zapier. You might wind up having to pay for their service depending on your needs. But the option is there for you to explore.

If you would like to see integration with your CRM or email marketing service inside of NextGEN Pro, reach out to support with your request. We keep track of all requests and pay close attention to the most popular ones.

While social media marketing has its perks, there are downsides to consider too. Relying solely on social media to give you visibility and engage with new customers leaves the fate of your photography business in the hands of Facebook (or other platforms) algorithms. The risk is that with one change, you could completely disappear from the feeds of your followers unless you invest in paid ads, which don’t have a super engagement and high click-through rate.

You need to hit your customers with something else. Email marketing is a hugely successful marketing ploy; it’s got a ridiculously high ROI, higher click-through rate than social, and is the customers’ favorite when it comes to the marketing channel.  

Below we’ve detailed how photographers can use email marketing to engage existing and new customers. Read on to find out how you can use these methods to boost your engagement.

By showing them your new work: Showcase emails

If you’re trying to make any kind of money from your photography, the chances are that you’ve already got a blog or website on which you can showcase your work.

But why stop there? A website is all very well and good, but it’s something that customers have to actively search out if they want to have a closer look at your work. And (no offense to customers), customers in this digital age of instant gratification are a little bit lazy (it’s okay to say this, we’re customers too). Sometimes you need to make the first move and approach them, rather than waiting for them to call.

You need to be able to reach out to customers to highlight the excellent photography you’ve been doing. A short email containing a few of your favorite images and even the story behind them will show off your work, spark your customers’ interest and also generate some click-throughs to your website for further exploration of your photography.

This is the aim of the game with the showcase email — to give customers a taste and leave them wanting more.

By treating them: Promotional emails

Everyone loves to be treated, don’t they?

Including promotional emails in your email marketing shows that you’re thinking about your customers and what you can offer them.

Advertising your promotions on Facebook or other social channels is perfectly fine, but there is a risk that your content will get missed among all the other deals and discounts that are being offered by your competitors. Particularly around seasonal holidays, people’s feeds will be awash with photography promotions.

If you want to cut through the social media chatter, then emailing your subscriber list with promotions is the best way forward. You can offer deals to get XX% off your photography services or include free extras like a photo album or additional copies.

If you can tie in your promotional email to a seasonal holiday, then all the better. For example, mention that a lovely family photo would be the perfect gift for a loved one at Christmas, or a couple of photo sessions is a romantic way to celebrate your relationship on Valentine’s Day.

By keeping them in the loop: Email newsletters

Newsletters are the most popular type of email — stat on how many businesses send them

Sending out a weekly or monthly newsletter to your followers gives you a chance to connect and update. You can include features like:

• Highlight new projects/changes
• What you’ve been up to during the past month
• New website/updates to websites
• Links to new blog posts
• Your commentary on industry news

Email marketing software platforms tend to include newsletter templates so that you don’t have to send out a poorly formatted newsletter email. Instead, you can easily design your own high-quality, mobile-friendly newsletter highlighting your essential updates. Don’t forget to include short and sweet CTAs in your email body to entice customers over to your website.

We recently wrote about why using too many images is bad (and how you can fix it) for your website. The same holds for your email newsletters. Large images of your photography will affect the loading time of your emails and could put off customers. Depending on your customer’s mailing preferences, they may even have blocked images in emails and might not even see the great photos you’re sending out.

Make sure you balance text and images and use descriptive alt text to counter issues like this.

By including them in your journey: Milestone emails

One of the great things about sending out regular emails to your follower base is that you’re building up a relationship with them. Through the use of newsletter emails, you’re keeping them updated with all of your news and new work.

With milestone emails, you can share special moments with your customers. Marking celebrations — like your business’s birthday, achievements like opening up a store, or winning a photography competition — highlights your brand’s success and value to customers, but also works on another, more emotional level.

When you share your happiness and victories with your customers, you’re inviting them into your world in a more personal, intimate way. This reinforces the bonds you’ve already formed with existing customers and contributes in a big way to them becoming brand advocates.

And it gives new customers a chance to get you to know you and form these bonds for themselves.

Building a brand as a photographer is more about having a decent logo and taking good photographers; it’s about creating lasting emotional connections. Through sharing your journey and any milestones along the way, you’re reaching out more humanly to engage with your customers.

These are just four ways that photographers can use email marketing to engage new customers. Using a combination of these email types in your marketing campaign will help you to celebrate your work with your community, update them regularly and make sure that your customers still feel connected and interested in your brand.

Refine your marketing strategy based on your clicks and incoming traffic, and find a style of communication that suits you best. If you use an email marketing platform, make the most of its split-testing capabilities to work out what the most effective version of an email is.

Which email marketing techniques do you use to engage new customers? Let us know in the comments below.

Kayleigh Alexandra is a content writer for Micro Startups — a site dedicated to spreading the word about startups and small businesses of all shapes and sizes. Visit the blog for the latest marketing insights from top experts and inspiring entrepreneurial stories. Follow us on Twitter @getmicrostarted.

The average photographer does not know what to offer visitors or why, so let’s discuss that for a little.

At my website I have two download offers currently. One is a pre-shoot checklist to help photographers and customers plan for a photo session. The other is a long exposure checklist which is useful for anyone looking to try long exposure photography.

Both of which need a website visitor to enter their email address to download. When someone completes the form he/she is then placed into an email marketing list. This process is called a conversion and the visitor is now a lead. A lead is someone that I can then engage with and try to perform another conversion into a paid customer.

Visitor >> Lead >> Customer
(where >> is a conversion)

That’s the process you need to understand and know well. It’s straight forward, but requires thought and planning to make it work well.

Wedding photographers can take advantage of techniques like this, and it all starts with a free offer. Many wedding photographers get lost when they begin thinking about what to offer and how. That’s because most wedding photographers are in fact photographers – not marketers.

That is also why I decided to create the wedding photographer conversion kit. So that wedding photographers now have a proven method of converting visits to leads.

The conversion kit includes a variety of Photoshop templates to create a magazine or eBook that is optimized for attracting quality visits. I say quality visits because the kit also comes with a sample landing page that is search engine optimized.

When implemented, site visitors will being searching for help planning their weddings. You, the photographer, will have a document that these visitors can download for free to help the planning process.

Yet, the document you create will also have your sample photographs, your vendor network and your contact information.

So besides SEO and attracting and converting quality leads, there are a few other benefits:

• You are portraying yourself as an expert
• You are building your vendor network
• You are keeping your brand in people’s minds
• You are offering something of value without selling
• You have the chance to remarket to valuable leads

I didn’t want to stop with just templates, though. So I gathered some of the best content related to this approach, to email marketing and conversion optimization. The content is organized into an eight week email campaign. The emails aren’t daily, and each is valuable to further expanding on just what’s included in the kit.

Also, I am making myself available to help the wedding photographers who buy the kit. That way if anyone is stuck with a step they can ask questions and get help.

So with that all said – I encourage all wedding photographers who are in need of a system like this, and looking for a way to attract and convert new leads to please check out the wedding photographer conversion kit.  Click here to learn more.

Thanks and good luck,
Scott

Below is a list of words to STOP USING right now. Notice the capitals? Do not use all caps in your email subjects. Title case is ok, though. Also – never have a blank subject line because that is more careless than spammy.

• Alert
• Obligation
• Proposal (yup, sorry wedding photographers)
• Assistance
• 100% free
• Credited
• Owe
• Cheap
• Low rates
• As seen
• At no cost
• Approved
• Your family

I hope you’re copying this into your own list. If you need some more, check out these article:

• Email Subject Lines Words that trigger Spam filters
• The Ultimate List of Email SPAM Trigger Words

So boost your business by email marketing, but don’t get caught in the spam box!

Thanks for reading,

Scott

The problem with this very simple. Many of your clients and potential clients might not realize that the new sorting tabs are there. That means if you send an email and it makes its way to Promotions then the recipient may not see your email.

I’m not going to go into this too much because Kristi Hines already explained it very well. Please visit her article on why you should care about Gmail’s new tabs.