How to send newsletters to your dream fashion clients
I sent an email newsletter out to my industry contacts on Tuesday morning with my latest editorial for ELLE Croatia, and got an amazing response. One of my dream publications to shoot for got back to me, and said they'd love to work with me in the new year so THAT was exciting!
When I sent that newsletter out, it reminded me to share a bit more about email blasts to industry contacts, because I don't think I've mentioned them that much. If you've taken “Pitching With Confidence” you'll already know all about these, but if not, here's a quick run through.
Before we had the internet, one of the only ways for photographers to get noticed was to send physical printed images out to potential clients. Art buyers, producers, marketing directors - they were always receiving post cards and portfolios in the post (and you can still do that, but it's expensive and with COVID, many people still are working from home).
Now, we have email!
Every few weeks, or anytime I have something that's really exciting to share, I put together a beautifully designed email with new work and send it to whomever in the industry I believe it to be relevant to.
I do that using the exact same software that I'm sending this email to you through right now!
Here's an example of my latest email blast:
As you can see, it's very simple. I let the images do all of the talking!
The reasons this is great is:
it reminds people of who I am
it's a quick and easy way to get new work seen by the right people
email is more likely to be seen than social media posts
I can see who opens and clicks on links
people can easily reply
emails are searchable and saveable in their inboxes, so that if I become relevant to a new project, they can come back to me at a later date
I don't get loads of replies from these emails, but then again that isn't always the aim. The aim of these is to remind people of who I am, stay front of mind, and show them new and exciting work. It's just another piece of a very large marketing puzzle.
So, should you do this too? I think so! If you don't have many contacts yet, you can start by sending emails to your past clients/industry colleagues once a quarter with a little update of new work.
I prefer to email someone personally first if I can, before I start to send them newsletters. If you can, just say hi before you add them to your lists.
I know a lot of you will have questions about GDPR, and I'm not a lawyer so do your own research, but there is something called “legitimate interest” which allows you to send emails in a professional capacity to people if you believe them to have legitimate interest in what you would be sharing.
With that said, DO NOT BE SPAMMY. I limit the emails I send to very few, and only when I have something very exciting to share. The last thing you want to do is send emails to people constantly and either get moved to junk or annoy the people you'd love to work with.
Finally, I wanted to let you know that the software that I use, Flodesk, is putting it's price up on November 2nd from $19 a month to $38 a month. I honestly can't recommend this software enough, so if you'd like to start sending out mailers of your own, if you use my link, you'll be locked in at that lower price forever! Flodesk is different to other software like Mailchimp because their pricing is based on how many contacts you save to your lists. The more people in your database, the more expensive your subscription is… and it gets expensive fast! Flodesk is one price, forever. No matter how many contacts you have.
Also, their emails are SO much prettier and easier to design than any other email software I've ever used.
PLEASE NOTE: I do get a kickback if you choose to sign up via my link, but that comes at no extra cost to you :) I wouldn't dream of recommending anything to you that I don't love and use all of the time myself (And you have proof, you're getting emails from Flodesk from me every week).
If you have any questions about Flodesk, or sending out emails, feel free to get in touch and I'll get back to you.
