When it comes to email marketing, we can tell you all about how to use our new tool, and even some cool and different ways to communicate using email. But sometimes, it's better to hear some "real talk" from your peers. 

Let me introduce Kari and Joseph. Both are photographers & small business owners who recently exhibited at bridal shows. Here's a little about how they used the email marketing tool to communicate with the leads they picked up at the show.

How are you using email marketing?

Kari: I recently did a bridal show and got leads. I used email marketing to send to all leads at one time.

Joseph: After doing a bridal show, we wanted to market to the 40-50 leads we gathered. We had used other mail programs in the past and didn’t love them.

After a PhotoBiz rep showed the product over the phone, we fell in love.

We were able to get all of our contacts in the system (with notes & tags on each one individually), create the email campaign, design a graphic, and send it out in just a few hours.

How easy was it to set up / send a campaign?

Kari: The email was super easy – I actually created an email first as a test, then ended up sending out a whole campaign. I want to be able to create and send about 2 emails per month without wasting precious time. This took maybe 20 minutes to perfect!

Joseph: Was pretty easy – we had to become familiar with putting contacts in the system. We made sure to tag contacts so we could send emails based on what the person is interested in. Love being able to add notes on individual contact: wedding dates, etc.

Have you seen any results?

Kari: I LOVE that there is a built-in campaign tracker. It’s important to see how many people open and click. I’ve already had emails come back in inquiring about wedding packages.

Joseph: It’s funny because you learn about your own market – for example, what subject lines are good for your audience.

After sending one campaign, we updated the email and made it more specific to what we do, re-sent, and saw higher open rates.

It’s neat to learn as you go and see how you can change your marketing to see better results. Also, it’s great to know that we can make slight variations to our emails based on what the clients are interested in.

How does email marketing fit into your business model?

Kari: I really want to use it to make brides aware of specials. I’ll maybe send out an update when a new blog is posted.

Joseph: We’re already talked about how we can use it more – after sitting down and actually using it, you realize how powerful it can be.

Being members of our town’s Chamber of Commerce, we’d like to have a contest, collect emails, and be able to reach out to those people and introduce our commercial work, or new products & services.

It’s motivated us to think of a lot of ideas on how we can market ourselves to different groups.

What do you hope to achieve through email marketing?

Kari: I want to drive traffic to my site and book more clients.

Joseph: Repetition. Having someone see your name and brand as it’s related to something that’s relevant to them is powerful and helps when it comes time for them to choose a business to work with.

Also, growing our list of contacts, and being able to tag those contacts and separate them into groups is great.

It’s also nice to be able to send marketing that is beautiful. It helps set us apart from the other professionals in our industry. It just doesn’t work the same with a phone call or business card. Feels like a complete package.

Would you recommend PhotoBiz email marketing to other small businesses?

Kari: Absolutely. I actually referred a friend to PhotoBiz, and already want to talk to him about the email marketing tool. It’s so user-friendly I feel like my 12-year-old could get on there and navigate the interface.

Joseph: After using another program a couple of times - we looked at the amount of email we could send for the price. For a platform that costs us $5, it feels like it’s worth way more. I’d definitely recommend.

Want some help kicking off a new email marketing strategy?

Here are 4 Emails To Send This Weekend - or - give our team a call for a walk-through!