5 coupon ideas for photographers to get your holiday sales sizzlin’

The holidays are prime photo-selling season. Your customers are looking for ways to gift their favorite moments with their friends and loved ones whether those moments are family portraits, beautiful landscapes from places they’ve travelled to, or memorable events you’ve captured.

You need to be able to get out in front of it all before the season gets into full swing so you don’t get lost in the marketing mess that really gets going at the end of November. One of the best ways to turn your potential buyers into happy customers is with SmugMug’s extensive coupon tool. You can create coupons for almost any situation, so can do your best business on into 2018 to finish this year strong.

Check out five of our favorite ways to use coupons through the holidays including examples and the specific to apply under the Settings and Restrictions tabs when you create each coupon.

Max your earnings with max items.

You can increase the volume of prints you sell to customers by introducing some limits to what they can buy using your coupons. By setting a maximum number of prints or digital downloads a coupon can be applied to, you’ll be encouraging customers who may have only bought one or two items originally to take advantage of this deal and order more, or even max out the discount while they have it. This is a great coupon for event photographers who capture about the same number of photos of each guest.

Example: First 5 downloads are 50% off.

Coupon Type: Percentage off.

Settings:
•Discount Amount: 50%

Restrictions:
•Maximum Uses: 1 — This makes the coupon good for only one user. Leaving this field blank would allow users to place multiple orders using the same coupon. You’ll need to create this coupon for every client if you limit the uses.
•Maximum Items: 5 — The 5 most expensive single-download items in the cart will receive the 50% discount.
•Choose Products: Downloads → Personal Photo License → Single Photo Downloads (All Sizes) → ☑

Hurry it up will ya?

Using a time-restricted coupon will create some real urgency with your customers to make a move on buying your prints and downloads. (And in a hurry!) One clever way we’ve seen this done throughout the season is to create one earlybird coupon as well as late-season versions for last-minute gift buyers. Make sure to communicate often with your customers as the coupon nears expiration in case they’ve set it aside or forgotten.

Example: Metal prints are 20% OFF this week only.

Coupon Type: Percentage off.

Settings:
•Discount Amount: 20%

Restrictions:
•Valid From: Current or future date.
•Valid Through: 7 Days of the “Valid From” date.
•Product Restrictions: Metal Prints; Wall Art → Metal (All Finishes) → ☑

The classic: buy one get one free.

Is there anything better (or more motivating) than buying something you want and getting another one just like it free? I mean, seriously: popsicles, pizzas, that extra candy bar that drops out of the vending machine…(Am I just hungry right now?). Buy-one-get-one-free deals basically sell themselves, but if you want to go the extra mile with your deal, try marketing it to your customers as a way to purchase twice the gifts for half the price. Maybe both sets of grandparents get the newest baby portrait or maybe both best friends get that sweet memory from a first big road trip. Everybody likes a little free happiness.

Example: Buy one 8x10 paper print, get the second free.

[Assuming one 8x10 paper print without a coupon is $30.00. Adjust discount amount and minimum purchase based on your own prices.]

Coupon Type: Amount off.

Settings:
•Discount Amount: $30.

Restrictions:
•Minimum Purchase: $60.
•Product Restrictions: Paper Prints → Standard Sizes → 8x10 (All Finishes) → ☑
•Gotchas: Cart must contain two 8x10 prints valuing $60 before applying the coupon. All 8x10 finishes should be priced the same.

Only while supplies last.

You want to make people move fast? Get your prints flying off your digital shelves using a limited quantity discount. Great for landscape photographers to push popular prints early in the season, you can all but guarantee a certain sales count and income by capping the amount of folks who can use your discount. It’s the perfect way to kick off the holiday season without committing long term to a certain discount.

Example: First 50 people get 50% off their orders.

Coupon Type: Percentage off.

Settings:
Discount Amount: 50%.

Restrictions:
•Maximum Uses: 50.

But wait, there’s more.

If you’re not sure about a buy-one-get-one-free deal working for your photography business, you can be a little more strategic about the guaranteed income from your sales by offering free prints or downloads if your customer spends a minimum amount on their order. Snagging a free 8x10 or other size paper print on the tail end of an order is a big win for customers, and given the relatively inexpensive cost of paper prints at cost for pros, that’s a win–win.

Example: Spend $100 and get 1 FREE 11x14 paper print.

[Assuming one 11x14 paper print without a coupon is $75. Adjust your discount amount based on your own prices.]

Coupon Type: Amount off

Settings:
•Discount Amount: $75.

Restrictions:
•Minimum Purchase: $100.
•Product Restrictions: 11x14 paper prints.
•Paper Prints → Standard Sizes → 11x14 (All Finishes) → ☑

*Notes: Buyer can spend $100+ on any products. The11x14 paper print also has to be added to the cart for the coupon to work.

Want to learn more about creating coupons using SmugMug? Check out our help pages for information about how to create them or check out how one of our pros uses them to boost his own sales.

Not on SmugMug yet, but want to start using coupons now? Start your free trial and get to selling here.