• Business and Management
• Photography Website

Holiday marketing made easy: Grow your photography sales with Zenfolio’s automated campaigns.

You know marketing is good for your business, but sometimes it can feel like one more plate on a huge stack of things you already have to balance. Of course, the more you put yourself out there, the better, but finding the time to actually do it? That’s the tough part. 

But here’s some good news: marketing doesn’t have to be super time-consuming or complicated to be effective. In fact, with Zenfolio’s Automated Client Marketing Campaigns, you can keep your brand top of mind for your clients, drive repeat sales, and grow your income with just a few quick clicks!

Too good to be true? Maybe not! Stick around.

What are Zenfolio client marketing campaigns?

Zenfolio’s ready-to-go, fully automated Client Marketing Campaigns are built directly into ProSuite and PortfolioPlus plans and are designed to help you sell more prints, digitals, and photo products without the complexity and effort of typical promotional puffery. Once you enroll, Zenfolio sends perfectly polished, on-brand emails to your clients and gallery visitors on your behalf.

Each campaign includes:

• A fully written email series that goes out automatically.
• An optional banner for your client galleries.
• The ability to customize your discount, message frequency, and content.

You can jump in and adjust the campaigns to fit your tone and pricing, or just enroll and let Zenfolio handle it from start to finish. Either way, you’ll save valuable time while giving your favorite clients more reasons to order.

Even better? It’s completely free for ProSuite and PortfolioPlus plans.

How automated marketing campaigns work:

Once you’ve joined a campaign, Zenfolio generates a coupon code in your account and includes it in the email communications going out to your clients. These emails are strategically timed around key holidays and shopping occasions when people are already in the buying spirit!

Your clients see the offer land in their inbox, click into their galleries, and start shopping. You don’t write a single subject line or send a single message. Easy as that!  

Enrolling only takes minutes

Setting up your first client campaign couldn’t be easier:

1. Sign in to your Zenfolio account.
2. From your dashboard, go to the Selling section.
3. Under Coupons & Campaigns, go to Automated Campaigns.
4. Click Set Up a Campaign, then Enroll in the campaigns you’d like.

Important tip: Each campaign has a finite enrollment cutoff date, and once that passes, you won’t be able to join that specific one. So if you want to keep those sales coming in, jump to this section of your website and opt in early.

If you’d rather not worry about missing one, click the box labeled “Enroll me in all campaigns.” That way, you’ll automatically be included in every future promotion.

Once you’re signed up, it’s time to make sure your galleries and website are in tip-top shape for all that incoming traffic.

Make your best impression: Update your photography website.

Before your clients get that first promo email, take some time to make sure your website and client galleries are ready for visitors. It would be totally frustrating for a potential buyer to land on an expired gallery and not be able to see their photos. You want to make this experience absolutely seamless for them. If you’ve used gallery expiration dates to create urgency, you can temporarily reactivate them during these campaign periods. This gives past clients a chance to revisit their photos and finally order those prints they meant to get months ago.

It’s also a great opportunity to check that your website still reflects your very best work and current offerings. Most of us procrastinate on this, or tell ourselves that we will get to it when “things are slow”. (Psst…it’s never slow). Turn “someday” into “today” and just spend some time doing a little digital housekeeping. Even a quick 30-minute refresh can make a huge difference!

Here’s a simple list of to-dos: 

1. Update your portfolios.  

Start with the visual foundation of your site: your homepage and portfolio galleries.

If it’s been a while since your last update, add a handful of new favorites (four or five is perfect). Choose images that really capture your recent style and best represent your current work. If you have a slideshow or large photo block, consider trimming it down to 30 or fewer images. Shorter image sets load faster, look cleaner, and keep clients engaged. 

Updating doesn’t just mean adding new…it means removing the old too! Remember, you only have a few seconds to really engage a visitor for the first time. Don’t make them sift through old work that doesn’t reflect who you are as an artist anymore. Resist the urge to keep old images around—your website isn’t a junk drawer. 

Next, hop over to your portfolio or shop gallery pages and add a few recent images there as well. These small updates can breathe new life into your site and remind clients why they love you and your work.

2. Review your price lists.

When was the last time you reviewed your prices? If you’re about to run a promotional campaign with discounts, it’s smart to make sure you still have a healthy profit cushion at the end of the day.

Go through your products and double-check your margins. Adjust as needed so you’re comfortable with your pricing, even after the campaign discount is applied.

While you’re in there, take a few minutes to review your product offerings. Consider adding a few giftable items that fit the season or occasion. Think mugs, keychains, photo cards, or wall art. 

Another big seller to include; greeting cards. If you haven’t seen it yet, Zenfolio’s Product Builder feature now includes professionally designed presets for holiday cards—Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa—along with Memory Mates and magazine covers. Each preset for these products give your clients a beautiful starting point to create something truly unique and personal. These are easy add-ons that clients love to order for friends and family. 

Pro tip: Resist the urge to offer everything. Too many options can lead to decision paralysis. Stick to products that make sense for your photography style and client base.

The good news? If you’re using Zenfolio’s integrated professional labs, they’ll handle the printing and shipping for you—no more lines at the post office! Prefer to sell a custom item or a product not provided by our vendors? You can easily add self-fulfilled products to your price list, too.

3. Visit your website like a client. 

Now that your site looks fantastically fresh and your prices are fine-tuned, take a moment to experience it from your client’s perspective.

Pretend you’re seeing it for the first time. Are there any broken links? Outdated dates? Missing contact info? Fixing small things like this can make a huge difference in how professional and cohesive your brand feels.

Better yet, ask a friend or family member to look through your site for you—they’ll often pinpoint a potential discrepancy before you do.

Make sure your contact details are up-to-date and easy to find. If clients have questions about a sale or product, you want to make it simple for them to reach out right away.

Automated campaign FAQs:

1. How Fast Can I Enroll? If you aren’t making any customizations to the campaign, it only takes about a minute to enroll in a single campaign–or all of them at once. 
2. What’s Included in Each Campaign? Each campaign includes a fully written email series sent automatically to your clients. You also have the option to add a promotional banner in your client galleries. You can use them as-is or customize them to fit your brand and style.
3. How Does Smart Upsell Work with Campaign Discounts? No problem! Your client will have the option to choose their discount. The shopping cart will default to your Smart Upsell settings; clients have the option to use the campaign coupon or revert to the Smart Upsell discount.

Marketing can sometimes feel like shouting into a black void. You post, you send an email, you hope someone sees it. Automated campaigns change that equation. If you’ve ever wished your photography business could market itself, this is pretty much as close as it gets. Zenfolio’s Automated Client Marketing Campaigns take care of the planning, the content, the design, and the delivery. All you have to do is enroll! 

You’ll bring in more orders, reconnect with clients you love, and keep sales coming in all year long—all with barely lifting a finger. And if that means you get a few extra hours back for a creative project (or a well-earned nap), we’d call that a win!

Want more tips to grow your photography business? Explore our latest blog posts for guides, inspiration, and expert advice.

Related Posts

15 key features photographers must have in an e-commerce platform. Holiday online selling checklist for photographers.