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Turning Fine Art Mini Sessions into a Profitable Revenue Stream
34 Plays9 days ago
In this episode, Elena shares how to make fine art mini sessions a successful and sustainable part of your photography business. She walks you through her approach to creating minis that feel elevated, artistic, and aligned with your brand values—while also serving as a reliable income stream. Whether you’re in a slow season or just craving a creative shift, this episode gives you the clarity and encouragement to run minis your own way.
You’ll walk away with practical tips for pricing, setup, branding, and marketing so that your mini sessions don’t feel like a rushed afterthought, but instead a powerful tool to connect with ideal clients and keep your calendar full.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
- How to structure mini sessions that align with a fine art brand
- The importance of visual branding and intentionality in minis
- How to price minis to make them worth your time and energy
- Why mini sessions can be a great entry point for long-term clients
- Mindset shifts around offering minis without diluting your brand
Links & Resources:
Free Fine Art Mini Session Class
ElenasBlair.com for more free education.
Connect With Me:
Follow me on Instagram
Join my Facebook Community
Subscribe & Review:
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Transcript
Introduction to Empowered Podcast
00:00:01
Elena Blair
Hey, everybody, and welcome back to Empowered, the podcast that's meant to give you quick, bite-sized education so that you can win at this photography business thing and you can take everything in your life to the next level.
Business Strategy for Quick Cash Injection
00:00:15
Elena Blair
So today I want to talk about what so ah happened to my business last month, and I just want to share it with you because it was so successful So simple.
Creating a Fine Art Mini Session Event
00:00:24
Elena Blair
And it's something that I know that you can implement right away to make a quick cash injection for your business, but also to grow your email list.
00:00:33
Elena Blair
So I decided that I wanted to have a quick $5,000 cash day And I decided to offer a fine art mini session event. So if you are new to me, I offer boutique school photography and I needed to build that portfolio and film some content for the updated new schooled
Demand and Sales Success of Mini Sessions
00:00:52
Elena Blair
class. And so I decided to make it into a money making opportunity because, you know,
00:00:56
Elena Blair
That's what I'm all about is growing and scaling this business. So I decided to do a fine art mini session day. but And the way that we first did it was opened up 14 spots, sold those in an hour. And so then I opened up um five more spots and was 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 18, 18, 18
00:01:15
Elena Blair
four more spots and was able to sell 18 total spots with two emails. So this was about $3,500 in sales on that initial
Marketing Strategy and Email List Growth
00:01:26
Elena Blair
launch. And then with upgrades, the ah total mini session event brought in just under $6,000. So how did I do this?
00:01:33
Elena Blair
First, I announced that these mini sessions were going to be opening up ah in my Instagram stories. And I told everyone in that story that the only way they would be able to get a spot would be if they were on my email list because I expected it to sell out quickly.
00:01:48
Elena Blair
So I used this as a list building opportunity. That one story, I posted one story, added 50 new email subscribers to my email list.
Pricing Strategy for Mini Sessions
00:01:58
Elena Blair
So it was a simple step, but it built excitement before I even opened the bookings and was an opportunity to put new people on my email list.
00:02:07
Elena Blair
Once I knew my audience was ready and waiting, I kept the launch very simple. No complicated sales pages, just a clear announcement in an email to my email list and a link.
00:02:19
Elena Blair
So I sent one email to my client email list, telling them about the one mini session day that I had, telling them that it was very limited spots and giving them a link to book. The email made it very easy to say yes.
00:02:33
Elena Blair
Why? Because I had a simple booking link. It linked directly to a calendar that got them into my software so that I could get paid immediately as well. So booking and paying just took a couple of clicks, no back and forth, no delays.
00:02:49
Elena Blair
I priced each mini session spot at $195 per child. So even they had three or four children, they had pay $195 per child. they for as many children they planned to bring. per child so they paid for as many children as they planned to bring This way I was compensated fairly for the time and editing required.
00:03:10
Elena Blair
I did do sibling sibling photos if there were families that came and we did have a few families and the bonus that they got for having multiple kids was that They didn't have to pay extra for those sibling photos. They just went into one of the galleries.
00:03:25
Elena Blair
So each booking included that one child and five digital images. They could pick five different digital images from that gallery. And so it gave families exactly what they wanted.
00:03:36
Elena Blair
And then I left room for
High Demand and Future Event Plans
00:03:38
Elena Blair
upgrades. They were able to upgrade to the entire gallery for an additional $95. ah ninety five dollars So it made it super simple for them to upgrade. It was like a no-brainer price.
00:03:47
Elena Blair
So after that session the session was done, we kept the offer the offer upgrades very simple. So it was a no-brainer. We made it super easy for them to buy additional prints, which almost every single family did, which is what brought our sales up.
00:04:00
Elena Blair
And like I said, buying all the digitals ah was an an additional fee. And most of them, almost all of them did that actually. and So that increased my profit without adding a lot of extra work for us.
00:04:13
Elena Blair
so Within a day, i was able to book out 18 mini session
Summary of Strategy Success
00:04:18
Elena Blair
spots. The demand was high, and I'm thinking about opening a second day next month because it was so profitable.
00:04:25
Elena Blair
so All of this was done with a very simple strategy, growing my email list, letting people know that this offer was exclusive for my email list, so one Instagram story,
00:04:36
Elena Blair
One email, a simple booking process, and that was it. Because it was simple, because it was a no-brainer price, I was able to inject my business with and just under $6,000 in cash for one day of work.
00:04:51
Elena Blair
You do not need to complicate this. You don't have to have a complicated marketing plan. You don't have to have a giant email list. So it was a really simple way to inject cash in my business and grow my portfolio for my school photography because it's hard to market your school photography because you don't have a lot of model releases from schools.
00:05:08
Elena Blair
And so I got model releases from almost every family when I did this.
Call to Action and Further Engagement
00:05:11
Elena Blair
So we'll go ahead and link in then in the show notes my fine art mini session class. I have a video for that. And I just wanted to share this really successful, simple strategy.
00:05:22
Elena Blair
If you are needing money, this is a great idea. If you're needing to grow your portfolio for school photography, if you're interested in that, this is an awesome way to do it. And it's just super simple. And I wanted to give you access to that.
00:05:33
Elena Blair
So if you have any questions, feel free to DM me on Instagram about it. Don't forget to watch that mini session class. And I can't wait to see if you that you see you implement this in your business.