This year has been full of changes and a very busy summer. We started building our house, went on multiple family trips, hosted workshops, and hired two new team members. With the growing hustle over the past few months, I took a little break from filming youtube content, and instead focused on these other tasks.
However, I am so excited to share that we uploaded a new video last week that share some valuable tips on one small change I made to my business this year that has produced the most growth, income, and client retention.
As I was wrapping up my 2023 books and looking over the booking trends and where I wanted to grow, I noticed that I didn't have many maternity clients. I was shocked because I photograph 7-10 newborns a month, meaning I was missing out on clients who could have come in for a maternity session before their newborn session. I had a few inquiries, but I was lacking in actual bookings, so I started thinking about how I could produce more bookings for maternity clients in order to serve them and get to know their families before the baby is born.
After considering other collections that book well, and have really moved the needle for my business- such as the Wonder Years collection- I realized I wasn't offering anything special for expectant moms who wanted to cherish the life of their baby, both inside and outside of the womb. So, I created the Bump to Baby collection, which is basically a bundle for a maternity and newborn session.
This allows my clients to book both with a discount on the session total. I also decided to provide complimentary hair and makeup for the moms on the newborn session, so it was one less thing they had to worry about. While this may not seem like a huge change, and was likely something I would have offered had someone asked, it wasn't something I openly spoke about much. As I launched this new collection, I made sure to really talk about it. I wanted to make sure it was on social media, my website, pricing guide, and anywhere that expectant moms would be able to see the offer.
I want to highlight how important it is to cherish these moments, get to know the family before the baby was born, and celebrate and anticipate the excitement with them!
Because of this little change in my business, I have booked 9 times more maternity sessions in 2024.
The biggest takeaway was that the focus is never about the numbers, but about the client relationships and moments we get to share and create together. Instead of sharing the value of this collection from a monetary perspective, the goal was to focus on the intrinsic value for the mothers. Why is it important to have a maternity session? What questions do they have? What emotions are they feeling? This is where experience in not only working with expectant mothers but having four pregnancies of my own has helped me understand the emotions and feelings behind both, having maternity sessions, and not having them.
Our focus is to serve our clients in a stress free environment and experience. Developing relationships with prior to the birth of their newborn's arrival gives the paren'ts ease at their newborn session.
Overall, sometimes the smallest changes in your business can have a huge impact, not only in increases profit and client retention, but in serving families in ways they don't expect.
Check out the full video below!
Hello Jude Photography provides newborn photography in North Georgia for busy moms who want stress-free and luxury portrait experience. Also offering maternity, family, and baby photography, our studio is located in the heart of Demorest, between Clayton and Gainesville. We serve families in Habersham, White, Stephens, Hall, Rabun, Banks, Jackson, Gwinnett, Forsyth, and Dekalb Counties, and all throughout the North Georgia region.
We offer a high-end, full service experience including a pre-session consultation, exclusive access to the carefully curated Studio Wardrobe and cozy bright and airy studio space, a beautiful gallery of story-telling images, and an array of family heirlooms such as albums, prints, custom framing and more to pass down to your children. If you are searching for the perfect maternity, birth, newborn or family portrait photographer near Demorest and are wanting to create heirlooms for your family, we can’t wait to serve you.