How to Beat the Summer Slump + Still Get Booked
Summer is in full swing! Pool time, ice cream and beach vacations!
Though it’s a fun time of year, it can also be a bit challenging when it comes to booking photography clients.
If you have kids who are home from school, you may have less time to work on and in your business.
Or you may find it more difficult to get people to schedule sessions. Many people are traveling or perhaps you live in an area that's too hot to be photographing outside!
Whatever the reason, it’s not uncommon for photographers to experience a slump in bookings and income over the summer months.
But does it really need to be like that?Do you have to just accept that summertime will be slow? Nope, absolutely not….not if you don’t want to.
Summer has traditionally been full of photography bookings and income for me.
And that's because I plan for it to be.
You see, good marketing needs on average 6-8 weeks (sometimes more) of planning time. That means if you want your June, July or August to be fully booked, you need to start marketing for those months in March or April.
Most photographers do not think of their marketing long term like this. Unfortunately, many just throw up a Facebook or an Instagram post when they want some bookings, but if that one or two posts does not get any reach or engagement, they feel like their marketing is not working.
When in reality, good marketing takes time.
Let me give you an example…
For the majority of my photography business, I’ve photographed high school seniors and utilized a marketing strategy of a high school senior model program. Even if you do not photograph high school seniors, pay attention because this strategy can apply to other niches.
With a high school senior model program, I intentionally start marketing to the rising senior class in January or February of their JUNIOR year. In other words, I'm marketing senior portraits to them when they are not yet a senior!
I pitch the model program, which has a fee in order to join, and have made tens of thousands in a typically cold, winter month when I can’t photograph outdoors.
I then require all my model senior sessions to happen during the SUMMER before their senior year starts. In other words, my summer is filled with photoshoots three months before summer hits!
Since I do In Person Sales, the senior's product sales bring in quite a bit of income over the summer months.
And because I actively photograph during the summer, I have fresh sessions and images to promote for fall senior portraits. Plus my senior models send their friends my way, too.
And with that, my fall calendar is then filled with non-model, but ideal, high school seniors.
I utilized this marketing strategy for many years in my business and it works like a charm.
If you photograph seniors, try this out. If you don’t, the strategy will likely work within other niches too. Students of mine have applied the model program marketing strategy to both newborns and boudoir and have gotten excellent results.
So the reality is that summer time doesn’t need to be a slow time for us photographers at all.
But there is a catch: If you want your summer months to be fully booked, you must plan your marketing 6-8 weeks before summer hits.
Does that mean it’s too late for you if you missed the mark?
Nope. Not at all. I got you.
We teach a Booking Burst strategy inside The Mentorship that has gotten our students as many as 7 bookings in 7 days. This way you can have some quick wins while we help you plan and optimize a marketing calendar that will allow you to be booked by ideal clients all year long.
Interested in hearing more? Apply here and let’s connect!