Email marketing is a fundamental must-have for family photographers who want to build lasting relationships with clients beyond the photoshoot. But it’s also key for connecting with potential clients to foster trust that leads to amazing, personalized imagery. Unlike one-off social media posts, email creates an intimate space where you can nurture connections with families who will ultimately trust you with capturing their most precious moments. In other words – trust is kindof a big deal. That’s why using Flodesk for family photographers is such a game-changer.

Flodesk has emerged as a popular platform among photographers specifically because it blends beautiful design with being super user friendly. Many email marketing platforms feel almost clinical and give dashboard-overwhelm from the start – but Flodesk allows imagery to shine while making the technical aspects of email marketing surprisingly simple.

I used Mailchimp for years because, well it was free and my list was small. But eventually, I realized that the interface was making me dread writing emails at all, making it completely irrelevant. Because I was dying to spend less time marking on Instagram, I finally decided to try Flodesk and realized almost instantly that I would happily pay the difference in cost because of how much easier it was to use.

Flodesk made writing emails both quicker and more visually appealing, right from the start. I’ve since developed my own email marketing strategy that’s turned into the #1 way I book clients.

This post will address some of the biggest questions and hangups I hear around email marketing from family photographers, including comparing and contrasting tools, my favorite Flodesk features, tips for building the list to begin with and, how to create a consistent structure that makes sense for your time and goals.

I truly believe that a tool like Flodesk can help transform your photography business by helping you communicate more effectively and consistently, showcase your work, and market in a way that feels natural to the heart of your business.

What Makes Flodesk Perfect for Family Photographers

Flodesk was clearly designed with visual creatives in mind. Every template is beautifully customizable while maintaining a professional look that elevates your photography rather than competing with it. Unlike other platforms that penalize you for growing your subscriber list, Flodesk’s flat-rate pricing structure means your costs remain predictable as your photography business expands.

Re: you don’t get punished for doing the thing email marketing is supposed to help you do.

The idea of building “funnels” felt really intimidating to me at first, but Flodesk makes workflows and automations for onboarding new subscribers incredibly intuitive. I also love that I can easily segment people based on the opt-ins they sign up for, which lends itself to more targeted follow-ups and communication for specific groups.

Because the tool is so seamless to design in, photographers can use Flodesk to create professional-looking campaigns in minutes rather than hours. Less pixel-pushing = more creating words and images that are the actual meat of the sale! Flodesk is simply the vessel for bringing people in- like a window display for your incredible work.

The Power of Emails for Your Photography Business

As family photographers, a lot of our marketing rests on building a personal brand and connecting with families over shared values. At the same time, we have to strike a balance between authenticity and values-driven copy with actual converting sales and showing the work.

Email – when done well – provides the opportunity to share storytelling images with words that complement them. This creates an emotional punch that can motivate potential clients to book in a way that doesn’t typically hit as clearly over social media.

I love that email is more effective with quality over quantity, too.

Think about it – what feels like a better use of your efforts: content that has a 2% reach and engagement rate for an audience of 2000 or content that has a 65% open rate for an audience of 650?

The connection factor is so much higher value via email.

How to Start: Beginning a regular email marketing practice with Flodesk for family photographers

Set a cadence for when you’ll deliver emails

Whether you decide to send emails 1x a week or 1x a month is up to you, but if you want to utilize the power of email marketing, the more regularly to can commit to showing up, the better results you’ll find. Before using Flodesk, my email cadence was sporadic and I usually only sent something when I needed to launch a new offer or book a particular season. When writing and sending emails got easier, I realized I could probably handle sending them every week, and that’s when The Firefly Letters was born.

Over time, your audience will self-select – meaning that if they don’t like getting your emails, they’ll just unsubscribe! This is actually a good thing, because it means you’ll be left with a really strong, engage segment of people who want what you’re putting down.

(Pro tip: Flodesk analytics lets you filter by audience activity status, meaning you can see who’s regularly engaging and who hasn’t opened an email from you in over a year. If you see zombie subscribers like that, you can clean them from your list manually, which supports a healthier campaign; higher open rates signal to email providers that you’re not spam and increases deliverability even more!)

Don’t forget the ask

While connection is the key goal of your email newsletter, don’t forget to make the ask, too. This means including a “call-to-action” of some kind with every email. A call to action doesn’t have to be hard selling a full session every time, though; they can include anything from directing readers to a particular post you published on instagram to a podcast episode you listened to recently that hits on topics relevant to your audience. You can introduce them to your favorite photo or keepsake related products for parents that might trigger a sense of nostalgia and a desire to print their family photos (or get them made to begin with!). You could link readers to a new blog post of featured work or an organization where you’re volunteering in your community.

Calls to action can be anything that reiterates the values of your brand and bridges connection with your audience so readers learn to value an ongoing relationship with you. This long-term effect of trust building leads to a reputation of expertise and the high likelihood that when the desire strikes to hire a professional for family photos, you’re the first (and maybe only!) photographer who comes to mind.

Design and formatting

Keep in mind that mobile optimization is a non-negotiable now, since many parents view emails on their phones. Flodesk’s responsive templates ensure your messages look perfect on any device without needed to do any extra formatting (hooray!). Because the platform gives lots of template options alongside the ability to drag/drop and customize, you can be sure that your emails won’t crash and burn in an old-schoold-email graveyard.

I love that Flodesk lets you create custom templates from your specific design preferences, too, you when it’s time to make a new email, you’re never starting from scratch.

It can take some time to land what feels like a style that is on-brand and functional with personalized elements, so don’t worry if you fumble around trying different things for a while.

My newsletter – The Firefly Letters – went through several formatting iterations in the early days (check out this one: “Caring Small” and this one : “Mean Girls and Morning Pages,” to see what I mean! That early header? Yikes. But hey, I kept sending emails, right?).

You have to test things out to see what sticks, and to test, you have to start.

Building Your Email List: Strategies with Flodesk for Family Photographers

The passion approach

It used to be that opt-ins like “what to wear for your family photos” and “how to take better pictures of your kids at home” were appealing resources for parents to download and get plugged into your email list. But now? Parents are resource-d out. They don’t want another pdf they’ll likely scan and forget about. Think about your own behavior – what makes you hand over your email address these days?

For me, it’s usually either content that’s super resonant or a discount on something I’m already considering purchasing.

Because The Firefly Letters focusses on storytelling and topics with high relevance for parents who align with my photography style and general vibe, I’ve found that simply talking about what I’m going to share in my newsletter that week tends to convert well. I invite people into a trusted circle that goes deeper than social media, and I present it with passion.

By regularly sharing these invitations, I know that people who are signing up are highly invested, not just casual browsers who want something for free.

The freebie approach

For my photography education audience, lead magnets from my podcast and free resources are more effective because there are direct results for people who are engaging with me to answer specific questions. They’re usually signing up for that list because they liked something I said or need a tool I’m offering; often they want to get a taste for how I teach or how I may be able to help them from a mentoring capacity.

But for local services and attracting family photography clients, authentic passion and perspective as a artist, parent, local-business owner, etc wins every time.

The discount / bonus offer approach

While I don’t offer mini-sessions on a regular basis, this can be a great incentive for visitors to join your email list if that is part of your business model.

The scarcity of “getting a spot” for something limited that they’re already curious or potentially waiting for. A reduced rate is always appealing. And people love to feel exclusive – like they’re getting something early or with first dibs before the general public.

Signup forms (everywhere)

How do you take someone from interested browser to subscriber? Signup forms.

Add sign-up forms or “opt-ins” throughout your photography website in strategic places to continually reiterate the next step of value for a potential customer – even if they’re not ready to book right now. Sometimes people end up being on your list for months or years before booking. Email is the long game. Thankfully, Flodesk makes signup forms really easy to embed in your website, especially if you use Showit as a companion tool for your website.

I’ve gotten results from inserting inline forms within blog posts, in my footer, as a pop-up, and strategically placed throughout other pages on my website.

So I have forms to invite people into my email list in all those places. Yes, all of them.

Flodesk vs. Other Email Marketing Platforms for Photographers

Flodesk vs. Mailchimp

Flodesk’s templates offer significantly more design flexibility for visual businesses like family photographers. The drag-and-drop functionality is leaps and bounds better than Mailchimp’s more rigid structure that always felt clunky to me.

The learning curve is also really intuitive, given that they were designed for visual thinkers rather than marketers or coders. When I switched from Mailchimp, I was surprised by how much faster I could create professional-looking emails and how much more positive feedback (and conversions!) I received from clients about my newsletters and promotions on a regular basis.

While there is a price jump for Flodesk from the free Mailchimp tier, Flodesk is at least a predictable business cost that won’t penalize you with fees as your audience grows.

When I realized I could pay for my entire subscription for the whole year if I booked just one family photography client from email – (which I did in the first month!) the cost became a no-brainer.

Flodesk vs. Email Tools in Squarespace

While Squarespace offers basic email marketing capabilities, they have significant design limitations for photographers—particularly in image handling, layout flexibility, and the ability to create sophisticated automation sequences that respond to client behavior.

Flodesk is specifically built for email marketing, so that’s where it thrives. Squarespace is primarily a website builder – so by nature, it’s not primarily focussed on creating the best user experience for email marketing on the back or client-facing sides.

Flodesk vs. CRM-Based Email (Sprout Studio, etc.)

With CRMs like Sprout Studio beginning to integrate email marketing into their platforms, you may wonder if you need a separate tool. If you’re just starting and are only sending emails specifically tied to booking calls-to-action or particular event campaigns, a CRM tool might be enough.

But if you’re wanting to build a streamlined, efficient approach that will scale, you’re better off with a separate tool designed with email list growth in mind.

Your CRM is perfect for 1:1 client communications, lead and session workflow tracking, and billing automations. But for marketing, a separate email marketing tool will have so much more to offer.

CRM email marketing tools typically lack the design finesse and marketing capabilities that make Flodesk stand out when it comes to nurturing potential clients and staying top-of-mind between sessions.

I recommend taking a hybrid approach to communications so you can maximize the strengths of both systems.

I use Honeybook for automated, session-specific communications like planning details with my clients, sending auto-responses after filling out my contact form, and prompting me for emails to send throughout the client journey.

Meanwhile, I leverage Flodesk for all things marketing – like sending priority booking access for weekend dates in high-demand seasons (cough, fall) to past clients, my weekly story-based newsletter, and sending updates about the Photo Fuel podcast to my audience of photographers.

My Favorite Flodesk Features & How I Use Them

Flodesk’s analytics dashboard is straight gold. I love the way it lets me keep a pulse on reader clickthroughs, open rates, and more without any overwhelming complexity. I can quickly identify which content resonates with my audience and adjust topics accordingly.

I also love using Flodesk segments to create waitlists for testing new offer ideas with low lift, which has revolutionized how I launch limited-availability offerings like group coaching and gauge interest before committing to development.

The segmentation features have also transformed my client experience by allowing me to send highly relevant content without spending hours sorting client lists manually. I particularly use this to filter out people who have already hired me from the wider list of general interest.

For example – a couple times a year – especially right before the big booking push in the fall – I’ll email just my “Clients” segment with a “first dibs” announcement and a let them easily reserve spots on my calendar first with priority selection of weekend dates.

Legal Considerations for Email Marketing as a Photographer

It may seem daunting to navigate email marketing regulations like GDPR and CAN-SPAM, but the principles are pretty straightforward:

1. only email people who have opt-ed in to hear from you
2. make unsubscribing simple, and
3. be transparent about how you’ll use their information.

Flodesk makes all of those things standard operation in their templates (whew). This is called “permission marketing” and leads to even more quality over quantity. When you get explicit consent from everyone on your list, you’re not only staying legally compliant, but you’ll find the results lean towared higher engagement rates and fewer spam complaints.

Again, quality over quantity.

Bottom Line…

Consistent, thoughtful email marketing has transformed my photography business from constantly chasing leads and making disconnected marketing grabs, to learning and implementing purposeful outreach and nurturing. I will advocate all day long for the power of Flodesk for family photographers.

It’s become a natural referral engine that expands my reach without the need for outright self-promotion or tons of time on social media.

The long-term value of an engaged email list for family photographers cannot be overstated, particularly in competitive markets where social media visibility continues to decline without paid advertising. My email marketing calendar follows a rhythm that keeps me consistent without becoming overwhelming—focusing on real-time conversations, client education, and occasional promotions that align with particular offers or popular booking seasons.

If you’re considering implementing Flodesk in your family photography business, you can use my referral code here to get your entire first year for 50% off (are you kidding?! Amazing right?)

Resources for Family Photographers

If you’re really itching to get started with Flodesk but all of the info feels a little much when you actually get your hands in there – I’ve got you.

I created a streamlined checklist for family photographers switching to Flodesk that will take you from zero to cruising through your first automated sequences, signup forms, and segments. This checklist will break down the steps to make it all a little more manageable.

You can also learn more about the resources and tools I use to run my business, check out this podcast episode 16 of Photo Fuel: What’s In My Bag where I go into my lean approach to both shooting and operating.

Last, I want to recommend filling out The Big Picture Workbook is a great free resource for digging into your internal goals and reflecting on the course of your business.

Sometimes the hardest part about starting an email list is figuring out what you really want to say – and this helps you get to the bottom of that.

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Questions abut using Flodesk as a family photographer? Send me an email anytime at leah@leahoconnell.com or connect with me in the DM’s on Insta.

You may also like:

Newsletters: What I Learned from 1 Year of The Firefly Letters

The Four Stages of Client Experience

A Pre-Shoot Pep Talk for Family Photographers