Why Every Photographer Should Offer Custom Holiday Cards

People love getting holiday cards. In fact, 89% of respondents in a survey by American Greetings said it brings them joy. And 74% of them preferred holiday greetings with personal photos. It’s not just getting a card itself that matters — it’s getting a custom holiday card that shows love and care.

As a photographer, you can help people embrace this holiday tradition by offering custom holiday cards with ShootProof. Learn when to offer holiday sessions, get cards printed, and how to market custom cards to your clients successfully.

Should you sell custom holiday cards to your photography clients?

If those numbers in our introduction weren’t impressive enough, let’s talk about other reasons you should offer custom holiday cards to your clients. 

There’s already demand for greeting and print cards during the busy winter holiday season. Why not take the opportunity to generate extra revenue for your photography business? If you catch your clients at the right moment when promoting your cards — more on that later — they may have more room in their budget before they do all their holiday shopping.

Another reason to offer holiday cards? It’s free marketing. Your clients are sending examples of your work to other people. Even if the recipients aren’t your ideal clients, they’re likely to spread positive word-of-mouth about your photography to other people or online. 

Selling custom holiday cards is easy with ShootProof, too. Our card builder tool integrates with White House Custom Colour, one of our professional lab partners, and offers your clients an excellent customer experience, from designing to approving to ordering.

When to offer holiday card sessions

Once fall begins, the holiday season can get hectic for photographers pretty fast. It’s important to know when you’ll offer your holiday card sessions so you can schedule your marketing and printing accordingly. Our partner labs recommend hosting holiday sales as early as October, so it’s a good idea to begin offering holiday card sessions around then, too. 

One way to survive the busy season and still sell custom holiday cards is to offer holiday mini sessions. Since mini sessions are only 15 to 20 minutes long, you can serve more clients who only want custom cards, without overbooking yourself and burning out.

It’s up to you whether you’d like to sprinkle mini sessions throughout the holiday months (September through December) or hold specific mini session days or weekends before the holidays arrive. Give yourself and your clients plenty of time for cards to be printed and delivered. No one wants to send — or receive — a holiday card at the very end of the season.

Market your holiday cards with email campaigns

Let your clients know that custom holiday cards are available to order by using our date-based email campaigns. These automated emails will send on your chosen dates to people who visit their galleries. They can remind recent clients who booked mini sessions with you to order their cards. You can also email past clients to let them know you’ve unarchived their gallery temporarily if they’d like to place an order.

Setting up an email campaign with us is easy enough, but what do you say to convince your clients to buy in your emails? It’s all about how you frame what you’re selling. 

Here are some tips for sending sales emails that work:

• Speak to their emotions. People send holiday cards for a reason. It may be the only way to keep in touch with loved ones. Maybe they love the tradition of it. Maybe it makes them and the recipients of their cards happy. Touch on that in your emails.

• Make ordering easy. Don’t overwhelm your clients with too much information. Give them the basic details in your emails and explain clearly how to order and customize cards from their galleries.

• • Create a sense of urgency and excitement. Tell clients that this is a limited-time offer, that the holidays are approaching, and that they need to order before it’s too late. This kind of language convinces people to take action. Check our blog on mastering email campaigns.
  • Warn clients about the holiday shipping rush. It takes time to print holiday cards and ship them out. The earlier they book you for a session and order their holiday cards, the better. Everyone avoids the rush and stress of last-minute holiday tasks.
• Market from the start. Introduce the idea of ordering holiday cards from you at their photoshoot or mini session! That way, they already have it in mind when your email shows up in their inbox.
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Start selling today with ShootProof

If you’ve never offered custom cards with ShootProof before, don’t worry — we make it easy. You’ll need to set up a WHCC Price Sheet in your account. It’s okay if you don’t typically fulfill with WHCC. You can still create a price sheet. And if you’re unsure about using a new lab, order a sample pack of WHCC cards for just $2.50.

Then, customize your price sheet and assign it to a gallery. Your clients can then customize and order cards with our card builder tool. Once your price sheets are customized and assigned, you’re ready to write and send your marketing emails!

The best part of selling custom cards with ShootProof? You don’t have to limit yourself to the holidays. Yes, holiday greeting cards are super popular, but your clients will appreciate cards for other occasions, too! Newborn announcements, senior portraits, save-the-dates: custom cards aren’t just for December. Use the tips in this blog and our card builder tool to offer your clients custom cards all year round.