Mini Session Photography Booking and Scheduling with Pixieset

Alice Houstons

Updated on:

Imagine transforming the often cumbersome journey of booking photography services into a seamless, effortless experience. Traditional photography bookings, with their multiple steps from initial inquiries to final payments, can be time-consuming for both clients and photographers. Enter the world of session photography – where simplicity and efficiency reign supreme. This streamlined approach allows clients to easily select a time slot, sign contracts, and make payments in one fluid workflow, catering to today’s fast-paced lifestyle.

To help streamline your mini session workflow, Pixieset has developed features that make it, what we believe, is the best booking and scheduling software or app.  In fact, in our studio, we recently switched over to Pixieset; and to save you the time and research, we’ll explain why in this article.

Full Integration with Pixieset Galleries

If you use Pixieset as your online gallery to deliver photos and as your website builder to host your portfolio, then you get to keep everything inside one dashboard. This differs from a more segmented approach where you might use separate software for different tasks – for instance, booking sessions through booking apps like Calendly or Acuity and then delivering galleries via Pixieset or Zenfolio. The integration of these functionalities within Pixieset can potentially save time, streamline workflow processes, save on costs.

However, it’s important to consider individual business needs and preferences, as some users might find specialized software more suited to specific tasks. Ultimately, Pixieset’s all-in-one approach provides an alternative that could lead to efficiency improvements, especially for those looking to simplify their administrative processes.

Intuitive and Beautifully Designed Booking Pages


Online booking pages offer a streamlined solution for clients that not only facilitate scheduling but also serve a dual role as sales pages. In scenarios like mini sessions, where there is typically less interaction with clients before booking, the functionality, aesthetic appeal, and user-friendliness of the booking page become crucial. It’s important for the page to be well-designed and intuitive.

Pixieset, known for good design and aesthetics, provides tools that enable users to design personalized booking pages. These tools can help in creating pages that are not only visually appealing but also effective in facilitating the booking process.

Instagram Marketing Tools

Pixieset also provides Free Instagram templates to promote mini sessions.  These holiday-themed, elegant Instagram story templates, designed to promote mini sessions, let you amplify your marketing efforts and book more clients. Click below to get the templates along with instructions on how to customize them with your own fonts, colors and photos. Download Them Here

Collect payment and Important Details

As we discuss in our article, Photography Mini Sessions | 10 Tips for Success, you can speed up your process and reduce admin work by asking clients to pay for their mini session, sign a contract and fill out a questionnaire as they book their spot. Having them pay immediately reduces the risk of no-shows and simplifies your to-do list.

If you’re building your booking site with Pixieset, you can set up your preferred payment method (credit card, PayPal) and attach a contract and questionnaire for clients to fill out as part of confirming their booking.

Prepare Templates to Save Time

Another way to enhance your mini session workflow is to create templates that you can easily reuse later to save time. From your client communication to editing and delivering photos to clients, there are numerous opportunities to prepare things in advance:

Email templates — Create drafts for the messages you will send clients once they book a mini session, when you email the gallery and instructions on how to order prints, etc.

Contract template — Draft out a mini session contract so it’s ready once you need clients to sign one.

Questionnaire template — if you usually ask clients to fill out a quick form prior to their session to learn more about their preferences and expectations, create one in advance, so it’s ready when you need it.

Gallery template — if you use Pixieset to deliver your photos, consider creating a “template” for your favorite gallery setup. This includes your preferred options for fonts, colors, gallery cover, grid style, privacy, downloads, proofing, and so on. You can easily apply all these settings to future mini session galleries, and save time.

Print store template — if you sell prints, create a new price sheet for your mini sessions and highlight the product options that are most relevant for your clients (i.e. albums, framed prints, canvases, holiday cards). Once you need to deliver a gallery, just attach that price sheet to the gallery.

Earn Additional Revenue While Delivering the Photos

There are multiple sales opportunities during the photo delivery process that you can take advantage of. For example, if your mini session package includes 15 edited photos, when delivering the gallery, include ALL the photos that you’ve taken of that client. Set a download limit to 15 photos and allow the client to pick their favorites. Most likely, they’ll end up ordering additional photos from the gallery.

You can also connect your print store to the gallery, so each mini session client can easily order prints of their favorite photos. And, my personal favorite — add a banner at the top of each gallery with a special, limited coupon. You can offer a discount on all prints or digital photos or have free shipping for purchases larger than a given sum. If you use Pixieset, all of these features are available inside your dashboard.

Conclusion

Whether you’re only getting started with planning your first mini sessions or you’re a seasoned photographer with tons of experience, these tips can help you build a better workflow that serves your business and makes life easier. While many of these tips are based on the options available inside Pixieset, you can explore similar solutions with the tools and software that you use for your own photography business.

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