Rangefinder Magazine
November 2005

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How Can Email Marketing Work For You?Maria Piscopo
 

Email marketing is the newest and most contentious method for sending self-promotion information to current and prospective clients. As important a tool as it can be, email marketing can also add to the flood of spam your clients receive. But let’s look at how it can work for you!

First, email marketing combines the unique features of design flexibility, lower production costs, quicker turnaround, testing different offers, showing new work, sharing information important to your clients, and driving traffic to your web site. Second: Don’t underestimate the power of relationship building in email marketing photography services. Many people prefer follow-up and even first contact to be email. It is personal and impersonal at the same time—quite the hybrid marketing tool. Email will not take the place of stamped (ground) mail or phone calls, but it is another avenue, another chance to generate and maintain interest in your photography.

Subject: “Kinesthetic photography made simple”— Email marketing campaign by Chicago photographer Deborah Vyskocil

First, email marketing combines the unique features of design flexibility, lower production costs, quicker turnaround, testing different offers, showing new work, sharing information important to your clients, and driving traffic to your web site. Second: Don’t underestimate the power of relationship building in email marketing photography services. Many people prefer follow-up and even first contact to be email. It is personal and impersonal at the same time—quite the hybrid marketing tool. Email will not take the place of stamped (ground) mail or phone calls, but it is another avenue, another chance to generate and maintain interest in your photography.

Design Criteria
You need your clients to open the email, so design it to your highest level of technical and creative ability. Consider using a different campaign for your current clients and your prospective clients when planning your email marketing. Your current clients can get more personal contact in your email than prospective clients. Also, you can be more general in your marketing message to your current clients—they have already worked with you and know your work. Prospective clients need to get a more specialized marketing message such as “Weddings on Location” or “Family Portraits”— something very specific to catch their eyes and attention. Don’t forget to be irresistible!

Be sure to add credibility or third-party proof as often as possible to your email marketing campaigns. By definition, marketing is you saying how great you are as a photographer. You need objective evidence in your email message to convince prospective clients to respond. One of the best sources to use is your membership in professional associations, such as WPPI. This “third-party proof” could also be in the form of client testimonials, case studies of actual jobs or published work.

Repetition leads to recognition, which leads to response. This is the mantra of all marketing, so plan spaced repetition of your email. The best rule to use is to gear the pace of your wedding and portrait photography email promotions to seasons or holidays. There is a risk in mailings that are too close together: You could lose effectiveness and annoy prospective clients. If too far apart, you won’t build recognition, and you will lose the equity you gained from previous emailings.

Increasing Responses
Before you design your email marketing, decide what it is that you want your client (or prospective client) to do when they get your email. Set specific goals: Do you want them to call for more information? Visit your web site? Anticipate the next email? Ask for a consultation? Refer you to their friends? You can have multiple choices (everyone’s favorite!). Be sure to let the client reading your email know what their options are.

In traditional direct marketing, you can increase the number of responses from clients by making an offer of some kind. This has not changed with email marketing. It should be something they need or want. For example, you can offer a “Holiday Portrait Package” or “Wedding Location Consultation.”

Email response also increases when your personality and philosophy as a photographer are strongly reflected in the email. You are a total stranger to prospective clients receiving your mail— whether email or ground mail. They need to get to know you better before they will take the next step and respond. Email is an impersonal promotion tool, so put yourself into the mailing to create a personal presence. You can add biographical information, background information on the image or discuss your philosophy as a professional photographer. Think of this personal information as the “why” clients should hire you. The “what” is clear from your images. Help them respond by telling them why you created the image they are looking at and what you would be like to work with.

The Client’s Perspective
Remember always to write from the point of view of the client. Successful marketing is always based on standing in the customers’ shoes and understanding their needs and interests. For the text part of the email, be sure the client can see themselves in the way you word your email. For example, it is much more effective and meaningful for the client to read, “You need a wedding photographer that can make your wedding day special,” rather than “I can make a wedding day special.”

Don’t forget to emphasize the benefits of working with you instead of the features. Like traditional direct mail, clients relate best to their own needs. For example, instead of saying, “I can meet deadlines,” you would say, “You get on-time delivery.” The idea of meeting deadlines is considered a feature, but on-time delivery is the direct benefit to the client and a more effective point.

When you need conceptual illustration that is stunning and soulful for your next project, give me a call at (216) 702-3088, or visit my website at www.richardtuschman.com If you would like to remove your name from this list, please reply with the word “unsubscribe” in the subject line. Richard Tuschman Images tel: (216) 702-3088 fax: (216) 360-0614 web: www.richardtuschman.com e-mail: rt@richardtuschman.com

Subject: “Distinctive new images from Richard Tuschman”—Email marketing campaign by Ohio photo-illustrator Richard Tuschman

Production Criteria
Start with a “From” address that accurately identifies your name and not some mixed up set of numbers and letters. Use a subject line that contains no more than 35 characters. The subject line should contain at least one keyword phrase that is important to your client, such as “Holiday Portraits” or “Family Portraits.” Don’t try to be cute or clever and use words like “hello,” “for free,” or “guaranteed” as these types of words are often spam-filtered, and your email will never be seen. Use an online content checker to test your email for potential problem words that might trigger a spam filter. Try www.lyris.com or www.overture.com/.

Next, test how your email will look to clients. Broken links or raw HTML code in email marketing could be a problem. Try setting up test accounts with the major online services to see how they handle your email. Again, always put yourself in the prospective clients’ shoes, how will this look to them?

Use a targeted (profile of the type of photography you are selling) and opt-in email list. Your best email address list comes from current clients and good prospects that have consented to email contact with you. This consent may come from visiting your web site, replying to your direct mail, viewing your portfolio or an initial email query you send. You can also buy an “opt-in” email list, especially for targeted markets, such as weddings and portrait photography clients. This client demographic is highly targeted and well researched by established companies. Take a look at the email opt-in list companies on Target Marketing magazine’s web site, www.targetmarketingmag.com by doing a supplier search for “lists” then “consumer lists.” For example, www.infousa.com has over 200 million people in 104 million households profiled by income, age, gender, geography and home value (just to name a few options).

Your very brief email body text should open with a two- or three-word headline, a strong image and then a brief paragraph designed to capture people’s attention. Be sure to include active links to selected web pages on your site. You do not need to send them to your home page. For example, if you are emailing to a list of new parents, you would send them the link to your mother and newborn portraits. Driving prospective clients to your web site is important, but don’t think of only an online response. Give clients the option to call you—toll free numbers work very well here.

Don’t ignore “bounced” or undeliverable email that returns because the address no longer exists or someone’s in-box is full. Keep your personal database clean, and any email list you buy should have current opt-in addresses. Internet service providers have rules about this, and if you exceed their standards for undeliverable (bounced) messages, they could flag you as a spammer and block all your email!

Avoid Spam
As of this writing, the CAN SPAM Act is in effect and you should check on the rules before you design your email campaign. Following the above design and production criteria will help keep you in compliance. You can find information on the Federal Trade Commission’s web site (www.ftc.gov). Also, check the web site of the Direct Marketing Association (www. the-dma.org) as one of the best sources for updated information on this hot topic.

Finally, balance your email message with selling and interesting content. Your selling message is important, but editorial or newsworthy content makes your email more attractive. This balance adds value to your campaign and keeps clients interested in hearing from you.