Increase profit with automated sales campaigns.

November 10th, 2022
Increase Profit with Automated Sales Campaigns. Image of laptop screen showing Black Friday and Cyber Monday automated campaigns in a Zenfolio portfolio website

Any business, big or small, can boost its annual sales with some clever holiday marketing campaigns – especially around Black Friday/Cyber Monday or the holidays. With months of work and planning you can manually run and manage your campaigns, but why put yourself through that headache? In just a few clicks, you will be ready to reap the benefits of a fully automated campaign by opting in to the Zenfolio Client Campaigns.

What is a Client Marketing Campaign?

Zenfolio campaigns are ready-to-go marketing tools available to our members on ProSuite and PortfolioPlus, as well as our Classic Pro and Advanced subscribers. All automated marketing campaigns will send emails directly to clients and visitors with whom you’ve shared a gallery. ProSuite and PortfolioPlus campaigns also include optional gallery banners, and the ability to customize the discount, email frequency, and content of the emails. Whether you customize a campaign or simply enroll, this helpful tool will save you time and increase sales. 

Campaigns are available to enroll in all at once or individually. When enrolled in a Zenfolio Client Marketing Campaign, our system creates a coupon code within your account and distributes it to your clients on your behalf via email on key occasions and holidays. The result is an uptick in your print and product sales for those occasions, and throughout the year. It’s completely free to join for all ProSuite, PortfolioPlus, Classic Pro, and Classic Advanced plan members. 

Here’s an important tip: You must enroll in these Client Marketing Campaigns before the set deadline to enjoy their benefits. Once a deadline for enrollment has passed, you will not be able to enroll in that campaign, although you can still create your own coupon to offer to clients. Deadlines to join the next campaign are quickly approaching!

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Enroll in an automated campaign. 

Automated client campaigns are a great example of how Zenfolio strives to simplify the business side of being a photographer. 

Enrolling in a campaign only takes a few minutes. First, sign into your Zenfolio account and opt into the campaign. On ProSuite and PortfolioPlus, you can locate and opt-in to Automated Campaigns via the Selling widget on your dashboard, then clicking on Coupons & Campaigns. For Classic Pro and Advanced plans, you can opt into campaigns via your account settings

When you’ve opted in, you will be able to see the coupon savings, order minimums, and when the emails will be sent to your clients to announce the sale. To experience firsthand what your clients will receive throughout the campaign, we recommend that you add your email address to one of the galleries included in the campaign. Campaigns automatically include all active galleries, or you can choose to customize which galleries are included during set-up.

Now it’s time to make sure that you have your galleries and website optimized.

image showing gallery password and site navigation inside a Zenfolio account

Update your photography website.

To make the most of the marketing campaign, you can set expired client galleries to active for the duration of the campaign. This is your chance to pull in additional sales from all the galleries you’ve delivered throughout the year(s). Clients are typically motivated by discounts to buy images or products for themselves, or give them as holiday gifts to friends and family.  

Marketing campaigns are designed to drive traffic to your site; we recommend taking a few minutes to make sure that this traffic is directed to a beautiful, clean, and well-organized website, with these three quick tips: 

cheerful surprised woman looking at laptop

1. Update your portfolio.  

Many photographers wait until their slow season to make changes to their website, but don’t think of this as a site-wide overhaul; 15-20 minutes is all that is needed. You likely already have your latest work uploaded to your portfolio website, either for sharing with clients or to offer for sale in your fine art galleries. If you haven’t included any of these images on your homepage yet, select 4 or 5 of your recent favorites, then add them to your homepage hero image block or homepage gallery block. If you have more than 30 images in your hero block, we recommend removing a few that have been there a while or no longer represent your very best and most recent work. 

Take a couple of extra minutes to click over to your portfolio and shop gallery pages to add a few recent images to their most relevant portfolio gallery page as well. 

display of Zenfolio price list creation dashboard

2. Review your price lists.

This is a good time to take another look at your price lists. Even if you updated them at the beginning of the year, inflation has caused printing labs to increase the price of products and shipping. Reviewing your prices will ensure that your prices are still competitive and provide the profit margin you want. Even more importantly, ensure that the campaign’s coupon discount works with your profit margin.

While you are in your price lists, take a few minutes to review the product offerings. The holiday season is one of the best times of the year for selling photo gifts. Including holiday card options, canvases, framed or matted prints, along with other photo gifts such as mugs or keychains will help increase your order sales. Choose carefully which products are the best fit for your type of photography so you don’t overwhelm your clients with options. Most of the products listed are available through Zenfolio integrated vendors. They handle the processing and shipping for you, so adding more products to your price lists won’t create any extra work on your end. Self-fulfilled products are also an option for photographers who want to offer a custom item not already included in our integrated vendor options. 

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3. Visit your website like a client. 

Lastly, take about 5 minutes and look through your site as a new client might–enlist a friend or family member for fresh eyes if possible. Click and scan each page on your site checking for any dead links or outdated information on your site menu and pages. Update or remove these issues for the best site experience.  

While you are vetting your site content, double-check your contact information; be sure it is up to date and easily accessible. Clients may have questions, and having the correct contact info ensures they can contact you without navigating away from your site.

Launching a well-run marketing campaign is a great way to bring back and engage clients who have previously navigated away from your site without making a purchase. We all get distracted by our day to day lives. Let the campaign email do the client follow-up for you during this busy season, so they can get back to ordering their favorite images from your site! It also motivates those who have previously bought from you to get the additional items they were considering but couldn’t quite afford at the time. You can reactivate galleries from the last year or the last 10 years; it’s up to you. With a little fine-tuning to your site, you can continue to leverage this automated feature year after year, to attract more sales during this lucrative time.

Contributor

  • Amanda W

    Amanda is the Content Marketing Specialist at Zenfolio and the Owner/Photographer of Wild Orchard Studios photography. A BFA graduate from Maine College of Art and Design and professional Portrait, Family, and Branding photographer for over 10 years, she thoroughly enjoys drawing from her experiences to guide new photographers as they are starting out. Amanda lives in the wilds of Maine with her husband and two imaginative daughters. If there’s such a thing as too much dark chocolate, she hasn’t heard about it.

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