| Campaign | Bookings | Weeks | Lead to booking | Leads needed | Leads / week | Target CPL | Spend | Cost per booking | As % of value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weddings | 18 | % | $ | ||||||
| Senior portraits | 9 | % | $ | ||||||
| Family sessions | 8 | % | $ | ||||||
| Christmas minis | 3 | % | $ | ||||||
| Gift certificates | 5 | % | $ | ||||||
| Women's, January | 2 | % | $ | ||||||
| Retargeting, always on | assists | 18 | n/a | n/a | n/a | $30/wk | $540 | n/a | n/a |
| Total | 18 |
| Lead to call booked | 55% |
| Call booked to held | 80% |
| Call held to booked | 65% |
| Lead to booking | 29% |
The 80% held rate is the soft one. Seniors need both parent and student confirmed or this drops.
Under five minutes, text first then call. Every rate in this document assumes it. If she is shooting and replies the next morning, halve the lead to call number and the plan needs 60% more leads for the same bookings.
On weddings it is worse than that. A couple who inquired with six photographers has usually booked a call with two of them before she opens the email.
Cut in this order, and the reason is not efficiency, it is whether she has an alternative channel:
That gets to $7,297 without touching weddings or seniors, which are the two things no list can replace.
| Week | Live | Shoots | The job that week |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01Aug 31 to Sep 6 | Weddings, lowSeniorsRetarget | 1 | Meta domain verification and payment method cleared. Senior landing page, VSL and pixel live. CRM source field in place before the first lead lands. Wedding campaign switches on at $50 a week from day one, purely to train the pixel. |
| 02Sep 7 to 13 | Weddings, lowSeniors | 2 | First creative read at $150 spent per ad set. Danielle emails the women's experience brief. Decide whether the wedding offer leads with an engagement shoot or goes straight at the wedding. |
| 03Sep 14 to 20 | Weddings, lowSeniors | 2 | Second senior angle live: sell the parent, not just the student. Book into October, not only September. |
| 04Sep 21 to 27 | Weddings, lowSeniors | 2 | Build the family landing page. Family VSL script to Danielle. Wedding VSL script goes out at the same time so she can shoot both in one sitting. |
| 05Sep 28 to Oct 4 | Weddings, lowSeniors | 2 | Family creative into review. Senior spend holds while October slots are open. |
| 06Oct 5 to 11 | Weddings, lowSeniorsFamilies | 4 | Families go live. Senior budget starts to taper. The senior retargeting pool now feeds families, so family CPL should run under senior CPL. |
| 07Oct 12 to 18 | Weddings, lowSeniorsFamilies | 5 | Open weekend and sunrise slots for seniors. Five sessions a week is the pinch point, watch the editing backlog. |
| 08Oct 19 to 25 | Weddings, lowSeniorsFamilies | 5 | Christmas mini page and 20 minute booking calendar built. Confirm the tree farm date and real slot count before anything is advertised. |
| 09Oct 26 to Nov 1 | Weddings, lowSeniors, off Nov 1Families | 4 | Senior cold traffic switches off. Clocks go back Sunday Nov 1 and an hour of evening light disappears overnight. Wedding page and VSL must be finished this week to be live before Thanksgiving. |
| 10Nov 2 to 8 | Weddings, lowFamilies | 5 | Family creative refreshed for the new light. Sessions move to weekends and late mornings. Say so in the ad, it kills the objection before it arrives. |
| 11Nov 9 to 15 | Weddings, lowFamiliesMinis, list only | 4 | Christmas minis go to the email list, past clients and the BNI group first. No paid spend. Every slot the list fills is one we do not buy. |
| 12Nov 16 to 22 | Weddings, lowFamiliesMinis | 3 | Minis paid campaign live. Family spend tapers. Wedding nurture sequence loaded and tested before the volume arrives. |
| 13Nov 23 to 29 | Weddings, upMinisGift certsFamilies, retarget | 2 | Thanksgiving is Nov 26 and proposal season opens on that weekend. Wedding spend triples. Gift certificates live from Black Friday, Nov 27. Auction costs climb all week across every campaign. |
| 14Nov 30 to Dec 6 | WeddingsMinis, off Dec 3Gift certs | 30 minis | Last call on minis, then off. Two shoot days at the tree farm, Dec 5 and 6, every 20 minutes. She will be unreachable both days, so wedding lead response needs cover. |
| 15Dec 7 to 13 | WeddingsGift certs | 2 | Turn the minis around fast, they are the year's best word of mouth. Gift certificate push continues. |
| 16Dec 14 to 20 | WeddingsGift certs | 1 | Last minute gift buyer creative. Delivery is digital so it still works on Dec 24. Say that in the ad. |
| 17Dec 21 to 27 | WeddingsGift certs, off Dec 24Women's, soft | 0 | Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are two of the three biggest proposal days of the year. Wedding creative switches to congratulations language on Dec 25. Women's experience page and VSL live. |
| 18Dec 28 to Jan 3 | Weddings, peakWomen's, launch | 0 | The single heaviest spend week in the plan. New Year's Eve is the third big proposal day and the newly engaged from Christmas are all searching now. Women's experience launches into January alongside it. Both campaigns run past Dec 31. |
| Item | Owner | By | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meta domain verification and payment method | Danielle | Week 1 | |
| Senior content into Google Drive, stills and video | Danielle | Week 1 | |
| Senior VSL, about 2 minutes, her words | Danielle | Week 1 | |
| Senior landing page and senior page on the site | Ben | Week 1 | |
| Pixel on the site and the landing page | Ben | Week 1 | |
| CRM source field, website / landing page / instant form | Ben | Week 1 | |
| Wedding campaign at $50 a week to start training the pixel | Ben | Week 1 | |
| Women's experience brief by email | Danielle | Week 2 | |
| Wedding offer decided: engagement shoot first, or straight at the wedding | Both | Week 2 | |
| Homepage copy cut back, her name at the top instead of the mark | Ben, she approves | Week 3 | |
| Wedding VSL script out, recorded in the same sitting as the family VSL | Both | Week 4 | |
| Family landing page and VSL | Both | Week 5 | |
| Christmas mini page and 20 minute booking calendar | Ben | Week 8 | |
| Wedding landing page live, and a written answer to the pricing email | Ben | Week 9 | |
| Wedding nurture sequence, email and SMS, loaded and tested | Ben | Week 12 | |
| Hair and makeup team confirmed for the women's experience | Danielle | Week 12 | |
| Lead response cover for Dec 5 and 6, she is shooting both days | Both | Week 13 | |
| Viewing room set up and product menu priced | Both | Week 14 | |
| Women's experience landing page and VSL | Both | Week 17 |
Engaged, and already ahead of everyone else? The couples who book first get the Saturday they actually wanted. I take ten weddings a year, which means the ones I do take get all of me.
ExampleCongratulations. Before the group chat gets overwhelming — photography is the one vendor you book for a single day and keep for the rest of your life. The flowers die, the cake gets eaten. Have a look at how I work.
ExampleJust engaged? Send me your date and I'll come back with availability and pricing today — not in three days, when you've already booked somebody else.
ExampleThere are 52 Saturdays in 2027. I photograph ten weddings a year. The maths is not complicated, and autumn always goes first.
ExampleIf you got engaged this week — congratulations, genuinely. Here is what the first month of planning actually looks like, and the one thing worth sorting before anything else.
ExampleSenior year goes faster than anyone warns you. One evening, the light we have all been waiting for since June, and photos that look like you rather than like everybody else's.
ExampleSenior photos this fall. Tell me the class year and I'll send times, pricing and the outfit guide — usually within the hour.
ExampleYou have about eight months left of them living at home. This is the last picture of your kid before they become somebody's roommate, and the one that stays on the wall for twenty years. Book the evening while the light still holds.
ExampleA senior session start to finish — where we go, how long it takes, and what to bring so nobody ends up standing in a field wondering what to do with their hands.
ExampleThe cards have to be ordered by the first week of December, which means the photos happen now. One session, all of you in it — including whoever usually volunteers to hold the camera.
Family photos before the cards go out. Send me how many of you there are and I'll come back with the open weekends.
The clocks went back and everyone assumes the season is over. It is not — it moved. Late mornings and weekend sessions, and honestly November light is kinder than anything September had.
Twenty minutes of controlled chaos and about four photographs you keep forever. That is a family session with small children, and I would not run it any other way.
Before this goes anywhere near an ad: you are on this list, so you get first pick. Two days at the tree farm, twenty minutes each. Reply with a time and it's yours.
Two days. Thirty slots. When they are gone there is no second weekend — the rest of December is weddings and full sessions. Twenty minutes at the tree farm, edited and back to you in time to actually use them.
Christmas minis at the tree farm, Dec 5 and 6. Send your details and I'll hold you a time before they go.
Last call. Whatever is left of Saturday and Sunday is on the booking page, and I am not adding a third day.
Everyone else is selling her something that ends up in a drawer by February. This is a morning where somebody does her hair, she gets photographed properly, and she sees herself the way the rest of you already do.
It is the 22nd and you have nothing. Certificates arrive by email, so you can buy one at eleven at night on Christmas Eve and still have something real to give in the morning.
Last day. Buy it now, it lands in your inbox within the minute, print it or forward it. Done.
[Offer name] opens in January. Hair and makeup, a proper session, and an evening where you see the images printed rather than scrolling past them on a phone. A handful of dates a month.
Most women have not been photographed properly since their wedding, and half of them are the one holding the camera. [Offer name] is a morning that fixes that — hair, makeup, and somebody who knows how to direct you.
What actually happens on the day, from turning up with wet hair to seeing the images for the first time.
You had a look, and then life happened. The dates are still there — most of them, anyway.
You watched most of the way through, so you already know how I work. The only thing left is picking a date.
We spoke and then it went quiet, which usually means life rather than disinterest. The calendar is still open and it takes two minutes.