Today, I’m sharing with you 4 Black Friday ideas for photographers.

Black Friday is upon us, that means everyone is prepping for a good deal. While I don’t think that this holiday, or this special sales day should be an excuse to undervalue yourself, I do think it’s an awesome opportunity to be able to increase your profits and set you up for a successful New Year.

I not only give you some ideas for your photography business, but I also want to walk you through how to actually make sure that your sales are going to be successful. So I’m going to be giving you some marketing tips at the end of this, too!

Let’s Dive into those Black Friday Ideas!

NUMBER 1:

Offer a discount on your most popular or your highest package.

Think through the package options that you have.

• Which one did you book the most of in 2021?
• What package your is your highest?
• Of the two, which one can you offer a discount on?

Instead of coming out of the gates and trying to give a blanket discount on everything you offer, I want you to book the session that you want to have booked, and then offer a discount on that. This way you’re not undervaluing yourself, but you’re giving people a really good deal.

Maybe they’ve always wanted to book your highest session, but they never have been at a point where they felt like that was their best option or that they were prepared to spend or invest that much money.

So number one, pick a package that either was your most popular in 2021, or one that you wish more people would book and add a discount there.

NUMBER 2:

“Book two sessions, get a free fill in the blank”, I call this the get a free gift offer.

Here’s how it works: if someone wants to book two sessions for 2022, then you are going to automatically include insert whatever here.

Some ideas that I came up for this one are:

• booked two sessions, get a 16 by 20 wall art metal frame
• something that is going to be highly valuable
• something that would originally cost a lot on its own, but you’re now gifting it.

Whatever you can think of here is probably okay. Something to note, this could also be for a limited time.

So, run your numbers, double check that you’re actually making money off of this, you’re not just putting a good deal out there to get people on your books, and then realize that you’re actually making less profit, just because it’s Black Friday, I don’t want that to be the case.

If this fits into something that you want to offer, another way to do this could be…

If you are a maternity and newborn photographer, then maybe it is book your maternity and newborn session, and you get a announcement or gender reveal session, complimentary, whatever fits your budget and whatever fits your profit margin.

NUMBER 3:

Promote a bundle.

Instead of trying to just pick one item or one session or one product that you have, and trying to push that one thing, I want you to promote a bundle.

This could look like:

• a first year of life bundle of sessions.
• four sessions bundled up and you’ve got an amazing deal on it.
• mini sessions in advance as a bundle.
• engagement and wedding package bundle.

The deal is, they have to pay for it all up front. You’re giving them a small discount with that, of course.

And, then when signups go out, they get first dibs on actually getting their date and their time.

Have it at a price that no one can purchase any other time of the year, except on Black Friday.

Decide what works best for you.

BONUS TIP:

Something else that you guys can do, is partner up with another local business that is related to your target market that would make sense for people to do a double dip and purchase a given bundle. This allows you and another business owner to split profits.

NUMBER 4:

Upsell all of your past clients from 2021.

Upsell them something like:

• prints products
• additional images they did not initially get from their gallery

You can circle back with them before you clear your external hard drive, or before you clear your gallery hosting sites for extra storage for the new year. This is a great opportunity for you to circle back and see if anyone is ready to now invest in taking their digitals and ordering more prints, more products, an album or an USB.

Want MORE Black Friday ideas…tune in to the Book More Clients Photography Podcast

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HOW TO ENSURE YOU’RE SUCCESSFUL

I hear you! You have the ideas, but now the question is: how can I ensure that it’s actually going to be successful?

While I cannot guarantee you that whatever offer you choose is going to fly off the shelves or that you’re going to book out the first half of your 2022 calendar. I want to encourage you with some marketing tips…

Let’s ensure that you’re not waiting till the last minute to try and accomplish a Black Friday sale.

Here is how you are going to increase your chances of having a very successful Black Friday sale:

• Start right now. Start planning your offer right now. Make an outline.
• How long is this going to last? Is this going to be a 24 hour only sale on Black Friday? Is this going to be something I extend through the weekend all the way until Cyber Monday.

You need to decide these things ahead of time. And, then starting next week, start talking about it, start getting people excited that you are running a Black Friday sale. Make it something they don’t want to miss out on. They need to either stay tuned with your Instagram stories or you need to start building your email list and get a Black Friday segment going so that you have people ready to receive your Black Friday email on Black Friday.

Choose where are you marketing and get those marketing avenues written down and mapped out. So, you’re going to tease people about your Black Friday sale from the time you’re reading this…all the way through until you’re at almost Black Friday.

THE WEEK OF…

The week of Black Friday, you want to go heavy, you want to have countdowns going and you want to get people excited and maybe share a sneak peek and talk about the importance that this thing you’re offering is a one time opportunity they will not see it again for at least a year or maybe never again.

If they want to act on it, they’ve got to do it while your sale is open, and then tell them how to get the latest information about your Black Friday sale.

I want you to think about this:

• do you need to limit what you’re offering?
• does it need to only be open for a limited amount of people.

If you’re going to pre sell sessions, promote a bundle or any of those things for next year…

I don’t want you to overdo it, especially if you’re trying to charge your existing (or cheap) prices, knowing that you want to increase your prices next year because what’s going to happen is everyone is going to jump on that deal. You’re going to book out the first half of next year, which is gonna seem really amazing in the moment, but then you’re going to be very resentful when 2022 rolls around and you realize, “I’m not even getting paid for the first half of the year because I made all that money on Black Friday. Find a limit that works for you and your profit margin.

Now, that your wheels are spinning with Black Friday ideas, come join the #1 community for photographers, Book More Photography Clients: Branding, Marketing + Client Experience, and share all your ideas with us!!

Want a more in depth look at these four Black Friday ideas for photographers? Tune in to the Book More Clients Photography Podcast.