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Are you tired of the feast-or-famine cycle in your photography business? Do you find yourself frantically posting on social media when your calendar looks empty, only to disappear when you're booked? I call this "panic marketing," and it's one of the biggest barriers to sustainable success in photography.

Today, I'm sharing one of the most valuable lessons from my paid marketer program: how to create a 90-day marketing calendar that eliminates panic marketing forever. This system has transformed how I run my business, and it could do the same for yours.

Why Most Photographers' Marketing Fails

Before we dive into building your calendar, let's address why most photographers struggle with marketing consistency:

✅ Reactive instead of proactive: Only marketing when bookings are low ✅ No clear strategy: Random posts hoping something sticks ✅ Reinventing the wheel: Creating new offers constantly instead of optimizing what works ✅ Burnout cycle: Intense marketing followed by complete silence

Sound familiar? Let's change that.

The Power of a 90-Day Marketing Calendar

A 90-day marketing calendar isn't just a schedule—it's a strategic roadmap that transforms how you approach client acquisition. Here's why it works:

1. Eliminates last-minute scrambling: You know exactly what you're promoting and when

2. Creates consistency: Your audience regularly sees your offerings

3. Balances workload: Prevents marketing burnout by spreading efforts strategically

4. Improves results: Planned promotions outperform panic marketing every time

Building Your 90-Day Marketing Framework

Your marketing calendar should be fluid and customized to your business, but here's how to structure it effectively:

Step 1: Identify Your Core Promotional Events

Start by mapping out 3-4 major promotional events each quarter. For most photographers, these might include:

• Seasonal mini sessions (Spring, Fall, Holiday)

• Model calls or portfolio building events

• Special holiday promotions (Valentine's, Mother's Day, etc.)

• Annual sales (Black Friday, Christmas in July)

Pro Tip: "I do quarterly mini sessions and just kind of fill in the gaps. There's been years where I've done zero promotions because the calendar has been so full with full-price bookings."

Step 2: Implement a Referral Strategy

One of the most overlooked aspects of a marketing calendar is planning your referral program touchpoints:

"We're going to talk a lot about how to turn one booking into five, into 10, into 20... My referral program brings us so much business. Especially with all this money that we're spending on Facebook ads—if we can increase our referrals, we can decrease our ad spend."

Your calendar should include regular prompts to:

• Follow up with past clients for referrals

• Remind current clients about referral incentives

• Highlight successful referral stories

Step 3: Plan for Last-Minute Opportunities

This is crucial! Most photographers give up too early, but some of your most profitable bookings can happen at the last minute:

"I will market until literally the day before. I was sending out marketing stuff on January 24th for a mini session happening on January 25th. And guess what? We got two bookings on January 24th."

Build these into your calendar:

• Weekly "last-minute opening" announcements

• Systems for quickly promoting cancellations or reschedules

• Discount strategies for filling empty slots

Step 4: Create Content Buckets for Consistency

For each promotional period, plan content across four buckets:

1. Awareness: Introducing your offering

2. Education: Explaining the value and answering questions

3. Social Proof: Sharing testimonials and results

4. Conversion: Clear calls to action and booking information

Real Results: The Mini Session Transformation

Let me share a real example of how this approach transformed my recent Valentine's Day mini sessions:

"We started off with four bookings. I changed my offer a little bit and pushed hard on marketing right up until the day before. We ended up with 11 bookings total. Originally we had somewhere between $6-8K in prepays. We ended the mini session event around $15K."

That's nearly doubling the revenue by not giving up early!

The Last-Minute Booking Mindset Shift

Many photographers have gotten hung up on the "clients need to prepay" mentality. Here's the reality:

"People do have money, no matter what the news is telling you or what other photographers are telling you. And if they don't have it, they can find it if they want it bad enough."

This mindset shift is powerful. When I analyzed my 2024 results, I realized:

"We were about 14 clients away from hitting my goal for the year. If we had filled every last-minute opening that was available in 2024, we would have majorly surpassed my goals."

Creating Your System for Last-Minute Success

Based on this realization, I implemented a system that you can add to your marketing calendar:

"I made it a point to tell my staff: We need a system for last-minute openings, and these need to be pushed every single month. We are not going to let a single day go by for a last-minute reschedule or cancellation because we don't think somebody would book it."

The results? "We have six or eight bookings for January and February that we didn't have before."

The Compounding Effect of One Booking

Remember, the power of your marketing calendar isn't just in the immediate bookings—it's in what those bookings become:

"We can take that one client and turn that client into 10 clients or 20 clients, right? Between our referral program and all the content that we can possibly create and share from that, we can turn that one client into 10 or 20 clients."

Final Thoughts: Simplify and Repeat

The biggest mistake photographers make is thinking they need to reinvent the wheel with each promotion:

"Most photographers make the mistake of only marketing when they need clients, not planning promotions ahead of time, or thinking they need to invent new offers every time. Newsflash: all my promos have basically the same offer. I don't think about what my offer is going to be, I just grab the one that I always use."

Your Next Steps

1. Block out your next 90 days: Mark key promotional periods

2. Identify your core offers: What 2-3 services will you focus on promoting?

3. Create your referral touch points: How will you systematically generate referrals?

4. Develop your last-minute system: How will you fill unexpected openings?