Automate your photography booking and scheduling workflow and get more clients with BookMe.
October 22nd, 2024
A day in the life with BookMe, Zenfolio’s online photography booking and scheduling tool.
Marketing and booking photo sessions for your business–and keeping track of them–can be a difficult and laborious task. Thankfully, an online booking and scheduling tool like BookMe can help relieve the stress and monotony of booking clients manually and allow you to focus on the more enjoyable parts of managing your business. Not only does it sync with your calendar and offer secure online payment, it includes options to further simplify your workflow, like automated gallery creation and fulfillment of print packages included with your photography services. The BookMe tool makes managing and tracking your bookings easy, taking one less thing off your mind as you go through a workday.
Imagine a busy day of sessions and errands when you have an online booking tool:
7:00 am: Get ready for the day.
You wake up, get washed up and dressed, eat breakfast, then check your email and social media accounts for messages.
7:45 am: Check your photography bookings.
After replying to your messages and sending new client inquiries your standard reply–containing the link to your booking page–you tap the link in your homescreen to open your Zenfolio account’s mobile experience. Within seconds you’re reviewing your upcoming bookings to make sure today’s shoots are all paid in full.
“BookMe is very easy to set up and my clients love being able to choose the time that works best for them from my available dates.” – Amanda, Wild Orchard Studios Photography
7:48 am: Approve family session booking.
After confirming everyone’s good to go, you see a new pending booking that one of your regular clients had referred, who used online booking from your site. They used the tool to check your calendar availability and booked a 60-minute family session with you at 4pm downtown tomorrow afternoon. They added a note to the booking that their daughter who goes to college out of state surprised them with a visit and they want to squeeze in family photos for their holiday cards. With one tap, you approve their booking and move on to finishing your preparations for your 9:30 am shoot–knowing that the BookMe tool automatically sends a confirmation email, invoice, and generates a gallery in your account.
9:20 am: Create new invoice for at-home newborn session.
A little before 9:30 you arrive at your client’s home to take photos of their newborn baby—a two-hour session they’d booked and paid for after the amazing experience and photos you gave them during their maternity session. The new mother asks if you have time to extend the session length and take portraits of the baby with her grandparents, who just got in town. You happily confirm and add an additional invoice charge to their existing booking via BookMe on your mobile phone.
“Simple to have customers set a booking and pay” – Scott from Photography by Scott
1:00 pm: Photographer bestie lunch date.
After your newborn photo session, you meet a fellow photographer and friend at a favorite deli for lunch. Forty-five minutes of shop-talk later, you decide it’s been way too long since you photographed black & white portraits and you whip out your laptop to create a service for 10 minute b&w mini sessions. You duplicate one of your other mini session services, make a few quick adjustments, save the changes–and you’re done. (You can announce it in your next email newsletter!)
2:30 pm: Last-minute headshot session booking.
At about 2:30 you get a call from a local who found you online and loves your style. They just started a new job and need a new headshot asap. It’s their lucky day–your kids don’t have any games tonight and your partner can pick them up from practice, so you can fit the headshot client in. You put the call on speaker so you can confirm the start time, location, what is included in the service, and the price, then manually add in their session to your bookings through Zenfolio on your phone. After verifying their contact email, you let them know the invoice and shoot details will be headed their way momentarily so they can send payment before the session starts.
“I loved the ability to create custom services and packages with BookMe. This is a great tool that allows me to be behind the camera more, not the computer.” – SWVA Photography
5:25 pm: Ready for Tomorrow
At about 5:30 you finish backing up the images from your last session of the day and shut down your computer for some family time. You checked your messages again while the images were uploading, sent your replies, and put your camera batteries on to charge–now it’s time to have dinner with your family. You’ll pack your bag for tomorrow’s session after the kids are in bed and spend an hour culling today’s shoots while you listen to your favorite podcast.
You take a minute to savor what you accomplished today–you were able to accommodate the newborn parents and the new headshot client, as well as create a new shoot package to start marketing soon and schedule a family session with the referral client tomorrow (you’ll send your client who made the referral a thank you note and special discount after finishing the session). You and your clients are happy and you’ve already started collecting payments for your upcoming work.
Your next step:
Whether you’re just starting your photography business or an established pro, adding BookMe to your Zenfolio plan makes online booking and scheduling simple and easy to manage–for both you and your clients.
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