I totally understand not wanting to give up control. I have to ask, how is that working for you so far? Are you booking out? Are you overwhelmed with the amount of work you need to do?

Unlike other ad agencies who just want bookings, we care not only about your brand, but about you. We are not looking to book out your season at low costs, but to instead increase your sales numbers to the highest possible so you profit as much as possible.

Quality Control:

We have a streamlined system that allows us to consistently put out content that matches your brand and speaks to high-end clients with quality control (this is highly valued amongst high-end clients so we value it too - and often more than the photographers we work with). 

Higher Standard:

Because our target markets are always the high-end client, our methods are held to a higher standard than other marketing firms. We will not put out any content or ads that do not support your brand- it will literally result in less bookings if we do and remember, we only get paid when you get booked.

If you ever have a concern about content that you see not matching your brand, all you need to do is reach out to our team.

What we’ve seen, and really why we started this business, is photographers want complete control over everything that goes on in their business. This results typically in 1 of 3 scenarios:

1. They don’t do anything because they want things to be perfect.

2. They focus on the wrong things because they don’t understand what actually gets them in front of high-end clients and why.

3. They do everything well and burn themselves out.

Website Changes and Portfolio:

I get it! You want to be in control of your portfolio. Unfortunately, most photographers will hold onto shots that were the best from a wedding because they know what happened behind the scenes or will choose images that do not show consistency. This is in no part the photographer's fault, it’s just hard to see your own images objectively, especially if you don’t have the experience to know what high-end brides really want to see. 

I have personally been designing websites that convert well for the last two-years and I know what high-end brides are looking for with website content and portfolio. I have seen on a number of occasions that photographers will change the images that I have chosen for them only to replace the images with those that I know will repel clients for a number of reasons. We don’t want this for you. 

When it comes to the website, we need complete control in order to test and make sure everything is speaking to your target audience. This doesn’t mean you do have a say in it. If there is anything that you don’t like, simply reach out to me and I’ll explain the choices behind it and we will find a solution that makes you happy and increases your bookings. 

Testing:

We also work hard on testing too. We split test all the emails that go out, all the opt-ins and even the pricing. Because we are constantly doing this, it would truly be a burden to you to have to approve everything before it goes out. That is a time consuming job!

Emails:

As far as emails: we handle these for you! Here’s why: most photographers let emails sit. Did you know the number one reason why photographers lose bookings is because they didn’t respond to the client quickly enough? Our rule of thumb is to respond within a minimum of 24 hours, although typically we respond within minutes. If we had to approve every email by you first, then we wouldn’t be able to get you the bookings.

We do a lot of work in the first 3 months for your business to make sure we get more traffic to your site right away. Not only are we updating your website, or building you one from scratch, we also finish old blog posts you haven’t posted and go through all your past blog posts to make sure the SEO has been maximized.

There are a lot of other setup items that happen during this time as well. Because it takes 3-6 months to see organic results from this work, we do ask that you commit to one full year so we can maximize both your paid and organic reach.

We will be collecting all the payments from your clients (and making sure they pay!), taking out our fee and then paying you. You will see all the contracts so you will know exactly what you will receive from us before your monthly check is sent out. We only take our cut when payments are made by the client. 

We collect the entire portrait session fee up front. For weddings we collect 50% non-refundable deposit upfront and 50% 30 days before the wedding date. You can expect your portion from these within 30 days of us receiving payments from clients. If you have an emergency and need funds faster, just contact our team for an exception. Keep in mind it takes at least 7 days to process checks.

How do we handle portrait session? Great question! I added portrait photography to my portfolio a few years into my business so I get it, you want to do both. What we’ve found is that brides want to see you are an expert in ONE thing- wedding photography. They want to know that you will be focused on them and not on 100 portrait clients too. This means that we will be creating a wedding only website for you, typically a subdomain of your main website. This means you can still show off your gorgeous portrait sessions on your main website and get those bookings.

Will you run ads for the portrait side of my business too? The short answer is no. You will get more bang for your bang with wedding photography ads if we focus on booking out your wedding season each year. Once you have been partnering with us for 3 years and the marketing has been tested and is consistent, then we can discuss adding additional marketing for your portrait photography. 

*The exception here is for wedding photographers who are working with us because they are already booked consistently and need extra help to keep things running smoothly. For you, we will open the option for added advertising for portrait photography in year 2.

As far as emails: we handle these for you! Here’s why: most photographers let emails sit. Did you know the number one reason why photographers lose bookings is because they didn’t respond to the client quickly enough? Our rule of thumb is to respond within a minimum of 24 hours, although typically we respond within minutes. 

We will set up a separate email account for your business that we will manage. All your leads will be sent to our system, either through that admin email or through Honeybook. We will handle everything so that you don’t have to. If any leads go to your current work email address, either forward them to us, or handle them on your own. We cannot maintain quality control for their client experience if you handle the client, but only if we book the session.

You might not. After you fill out the application, we will meet with you to discuss what will be best for your website. Often what we find is that photographers have beautiful websites that miss the mark in educating their clients in a way that is not only beautiful but actually converts visitors to leads. We want to make sure that you don’t miss out on any leads, which is why we need to evaluate your website. 

Typically, we will either revamp your website or create a weddings only website for you. What we’ve found is that brides want to see you are an expert in ONE thing- wedding photography. They want to know that you will be focused on them and not on 100 portrait clients too. This means that we will be creating a wedding only website for you, typically a subdomain of your main website. This means you can still show off your gorgeous portrait sessions on your main website and get those bookings.

Flodesk:Yes! We would love to do that to keep all of your client lists in one place.

Honeybook: Our team has a team account that we will use for your business. This allows us to make sure that everything is running smoothly and in one location.

In order to run educational ads that your clients will love, we provide you with suggestions for reels and Tiktoks. Our ask is that you create 5-10 videos per month that we can turn into ads. Although you can post them, these videos do not need to be posted to your social media accounts, just Dropbox or emailed to us. All of these videos will be 20 seconds to 2 minutes max long and should only take 1 afternoon per month for you to create.

We also ask that you keep your calendar up to date so we know when to book you. 

Lastly, we will ask that you send us the gallery and fill out a questionnaire for every session and wedding. This allows us to to create blog posts, ads and newsletters filled with your personality and thoughts about the day/session.

It depends. 

Showit: You will be responsible for paying for the ShowIt account, but we will help you get it set up. If you want us to handle the entire set-up, we can do that. If we handle the set-up and payment, we will take the year payment for ShowIt and for your domain (if required) out of your first payment. 

Domain Hosting: You will be responsible for your domain name hosting. We have someone who can help here if you want to transfer your domain or create a new one. If we are handling the entire ShowIT set-up then we will handle a domain name set-up too. Typically this is only a $15/year expense.

Honeybook: We will create an account within our system for you and pay for it each year. 

Flodesk: If you already have an account then we will use your account. Otherwise we will create one for your business and charge you for the year by taking the fee out of your first payment, or if you are paying monthly for our services then you will need to create your own account with Flodesk. Doing this will make sure that you have access to the list we build for you.

Admin Email: We will set up a separate admin email account and pay for it. This is where all of the email communication will go through. It will keep it out of your email box so you don’t have to worry! We will be signing the emails with your logos as your assistants. This helps brides know that you are a professional because you have a team.

If you were to put $1 into a machine and get $3 back, would you do it? How many times would you do it? This is what we are asking you to do. 

I know it can sound like a lot when you have other costs involved in running your business. We are not asking you to take 30% out of your current pricing. We will do our best to add that amount to your current pricing to have it covered by your client and allow you to get your full payment. Pricing will depend on the market in your area, your photography expertise and your current rates. Our goal is to have you make more than you are hoping for for each wedding we book you. 

If you’ve ever looked into getting help with your business, or evaluated your time spent working on your business, you will quickly see that the time and money adds up. Here’s a breakdown of the costs to outsource with those that don’t have our expertise and why we only ask for 30% for booked weddings and portrait sessions. 

Educational Blog Writing, Posting and SEO: 

$150 per blog post x 52 = $7,800

($600 per month)

Blog Writing and Creation for 20 Engagement Sessions and Weddings:

$150 x 40 = $6,000

($500 per month on ave)

Virtual Assistant for client communication and bookings:

$25/hour x 10 hours a week (2 hours per day) = $12,000

($1000/mo)

Website Design:

$3000-$6000 for new site

Graphic Design:

Wedding Pricing Guide - $250

Engagement Planning - $150

Wedding Planning Guide - $350

Opt-In Download + Email Sequence- $400

Newsletter copywriting and design:

$150 x 12 = $1800

($150/mo)

You can easily spend over $30,000 per year just for the work to be done with no guaranteed results. 

We are asking to be paid for all of this work only when we book you jobs and you get paid. Because the work does take time to not only do, but to see organic results, we ask that you sign a 1 year contract.