Who doesn’t love photos full of love? Valentine’s Day is a great time to get out of your comfort zone and run some fun mini sessions. Sometimes the idea of running mini sessions can bring about stress, but trust us, mini sessions can be fun AND a vaulable part of your business.
Here are some of our top tips for how to plan, organize and execute successful mini sessions (without the worry of getting heart palpitations)!
What is a Valentine Mini Session?
A Valentine mini session is any session with a Valentine theme that tends to be shorter in time and in the offering of digital photos. For example, a regular portrait session may be 45-minutes and include 40 digital images (this will vary, obviously). A Valentine mini session may run 10 minutes with 5 digital images included. *Remember, you can always offer upgrade option where people can purchase additional images at a set cost.
How Mini Sessions Can Improve Your Photography Business
Mini sessions can be profitable AND can save you time if you’re organized and efficient. However, keep in mind that putting your client’s experience should be your number one goal. If you are new to mini sessions, make sure to PLAN, PLAN, PLAN. There is nothing worse than feeling overwhelmed and stressed. So let’s get started…
Planning Your Valentine’s Mini Sessions
Offering themed mini sessions can be overwhelming for most professional photographers, which is why planning is really key to having things run efficiently.
Here are some questions you may want to ask yourself when thinking about planning ANY themed minis:
- How do you plan to set up the minis? Will they be held outdoors or indoors? Will you have a natural or artificial background? Will you need to buy props? How will you express the theme?
- When do you plan to hold your mini sessions? A weekend or just one-half day?
- How will you schedule your clients? Every 10 minutes, 20, or every 30 minutes?
- What is your plan to market your mini sessions? Will you post on social media and reach out to past clients? How long in advance do you plan to advertise? We advise anywhere from 4-6 weeks prior to your scheduled date.
How to Price Your Valentine Minis
Pricing can differ a ton for mini sessions in general but can range anywhere from $50-$300+. You can choose to offer one “package,” with a set amount of time and a set amount of images, or you can offer multiple packages with varying amounts of photos.
For example, you can offer $99 Valentine mini sessions that last 15 minutes and give your clients five edited, high-resolution digital images. You will clearly charge and offer whatever you’d like depending on your experience, the setup, and whether you are offering any deals.
If you plan, 15 mini-sessions over the course of a weekend at $100 each, you could stand to make $1,500 (and that doesn’t include any potential upselling options).
You can run all your future mini sessions just like your Valentine mini sessions! If you have a solid plan, you can use it as a template over and over!
Valentine mini sessions are a great way to get repeat clients coming back every year and can be a quick money maker for a photographer as well. But as always, we want to make sure that our goal is to first give our customers the ultimate client experience (since THAT is what gets them coming back for more)!
