The Light Blue desktop and mobile apps will continue to work normally during this maintenance work, apart from features that require a connection to our servers. Our data sync features are designed to handle intermittent internet connections and will automatically catch up as soon as our servers are back online.

We’ve just launched one of the most popular feature requests that we’ve had for scheduling calendars: your clients can now view your available times in their own timezone. For those of you who are working with clients in different timezones, this helps to avoid any of those “whoops, I was an hour early/late” issues that can occasionally happen when you’re trying to connect with someone whose clock doesn’t agree with yours.

If you’d like to find out more about Light Blue’s scheduling calendars, take a look at our help pages or get in touch!

We’ve just added a couple of new actions to our Zapier integration:

• The “Add Workflow to Contact” action opens up lots of exciting automation options, because workflows can contain scheduled tasks, emails, and text messages.
• The “Cancel Scheduled Items for Contact” action allows you tidy up tasks, emails, and text messages that have been scheduled for a contact. For example, if you’re using a marketing platform and a prospect has opted out of receiving further communications from you, you can use this action to cancel any outstanding items for that contact in Light Blue.

You can find out more about these new Zapier actions in our knowledgebase article, but we’re always happy to help you explore automation ideas so please get in touch if you need any help!

Bump2Baby sources 100% GDPR-compliant, opted-in leads for mums-to-be and new families. Photographers who receive leads from them enjoy total exclusivity and can build a newborn and baby photography business around being the recommended and approved Bump2Baby photographer for the local areas of your choice.

Photographers working with Bump2Baby used to receive a weekly spreadsheet of leads, but their new integration with Light Blue allows photographers to receive those leads in real time. As soon as Bump2Baby receives a lead for your area, it will be sent straight to your Light Blue account!

Start using Bump2Baby with Light Blue

Our knowledgebase shows you how to set up Bump2Baby and Light Blue to work with each other. When you start receiving realtime leads in Light Blue’s Inbox, you can start using our marketing and automation features to turn them into paying clients!

• Workflows allow you schedule emails and text messages that help you communicate your offer, along with reminders for you to check in on the lead from time to time.
• Two-way text messaging is great way of building a relationship with a client and works brilliantly alongside text message reminders that cut down on no-shows.
• Scheduling requests make it easy for your newborn leads to turn themselves into clients by booking an available slot in one of your Light Blue scheduling calendars.
• Integrations with everything from email marketing apps to online accounting packages allows you to make Light Blue the centre of your business while taking advantage of industry-leading apps and services in a totally automated fashion.

Getting started with Bump2Baby

You can find out more about Bump2Baby on the Click website and take advantage of an exclusive offer: for a limited time, they’re waiving the £50+VAT joining fee for £5+VAT per postcode one-off subscription fees, so you’ll be paying just £2.75+VAT per lead that they send to you.

Want to find out more about how Light Blue can help you to run a busy and successful photography business?

Visit our features page to find out more, book a Zoom demo via our help page, or start a free trial today!

Light Blue now integrates with Pics4Schools from One Vision Imaging, streamlining your workflow by automatically importing client orders into your CRM. This integration connects Pics4Schools’ efficient sales tools with Light Blue’s powerful reporting, helping you maximise & track revenue from your school, nursery, & event projects.

Orders placed by clients in Pics4Schools will get sent to your Light Blue account automatically, imported into the Sales section, and linked to the right shoot, enabling you to combine Light Blue’s planning and reporting tools with Pics4Schools’ sales tools.

What is Pics4Schools?

Pics4Schools is specifically built for schools, nurseries, and event photographers looking for an easy, fast, and efficient e-commerce solution. This incredibly simple shooting solution enables the photographer to shoot, upload, and walk away from any further administrative duties. The system itself offers popular prints and products that have a proven sales track record thus maximising revenue from each booking.

Because Pics4Schools is built in-house by One Vision Imaging, it’s one of the only solutions in the UK with a fully integrated lab, thus ensuring 100% control over quality, delivery, and customer service. It offers:

• No monthly costs.
• Zero payment fees.
• No order costs.
• No lab handling fee.
• Free colour correction.
• Free storage.
• Free support.
• Only 6% service fee.

Start using Pics4Schools with Light Blue

Our knowledgebase shows you how to set up Light Blue and Pics4Schools to work with each other. Once you’ve set up the integration, all you need to do is enter the Pics4Schools booking ID into the relevant Light Blue shoot. Pics4Schools will send orders to your Light Blue account as soon as they’ve been confirmed by your clients.

Want to learn more about Pics4Schools?

Visit the Pics4Schools page on One Vision Imaging’s website!

Want to find out more about how Light Blue can help you to run a busy and successful photography business?

Visit our features page to find out more, book a Zoom demo via our help page, or start a free trial today!

Protecting your Light Blue account from bots is important, but there were a few drawbacks to using reCAPTCHA: asking your clients to solve CAPTCHAs isn’t a great experience for them, and reCAPTCHA is run by Google so that’s not great from a privacy point of view.

Cloudflare’s Turnstile solves these problems: it’s developed and run by a trustworthy company that runs a large part of the internet and it protects user privacy while also using the latest web browser technologies to reliably filter out bots.

Our beta testers have been using this replacement for reCAPTCHA for a while now without any issues, so we’ve now rolled this change out to all of our subscribers. You’ll see a Cloudflare box on your contact forms and booking forms, but in most cases your clients won’t need to do anything: it will automatically verify that they aren’t a bot. In some cases, they might have to tick a box that triggers some more tests that verify that they’re a real human, but that’s a lot simpler than the previous reCAPTCHA experience.

Gmail and Yahoo have recently announced changes to how they will deal with incoming emails. These changes will come into effect in 2024.

The short version of this post is that you don’t need to worry about this if you’re sending emails from Light Blue via our email servers. If you’re sending emails via a third-party SMTP server, you might need to check that the DNS settings for your domain name have been set up according to your email provider’s instructions to ensure that they are delivered.

What’s changing?

Gmail and Yahoo’s changes require domain-aligned authentication with DKIM and SPF. DKIM, SPF, and DMARC are a set of tools that allow email senders to specify which servers are allowed to send email on their behalf, ensure it hasn’t been tampered with, and what recipients should do with any messages that don’t match these rules. It’s a bit like making sure the right stamp and post marks are on the envelope of a physical letter.

Emails sent via Light Blue’s own email servers already comply with these requirements. We put a lot of work into making sure that emails sent via Light Blue will be delivered to their recipients, so these policies have been in place for years. We recently conducted a review of these policies to ensure that everything is still in order.

What do I need to do if I’m sending emails via Light Blue’s email servers?

Nothing. We’ve taken care of all of this for you.

What do I need to do if I’m sending emails via a third-party SMTP server?

If you’re not using your own domain name (e.g. you’re sending emails from an email address like “example@gmail.com”) then you probably don’t need to do anything, but if you have any concerns then you should check with your email provider.

If you’re sending emails from your own domain name (e.g. “example@myphotographybusiness.com”) then you should check your email provider’s instructions for setting up DKIM, SPF, and DMARC. This will involve making changes to the DNS records for your domain name. If in any doubt, you should contact your email provider and/or your DNS host.

Zapier is a service that connects the various apps that you use and automates those connections for you, essentially acting as a go-between. For example, you can create automations like “when a contact is added to Light Blue, add it to my Mailchimp audience”, “when an order is placed in WooCommerce, send it to Light Blue”, or “when I create an invoice in Light Blue, send it to Xero or QuickBooks”. These automations are called “Zaps”.

Zapier have just announced a change to their Free and Starter plans that makes them even more useful: these plans now include as many Zaps as you want, removing the previous limits of 5 and 20 Zaps, respectively. There’s a still a limit on the number of tasks you can run in a month, but there’s a new pay-per-task billing option that gives you more flexibility to cope with a busy month.

You can find out more about Light Blue’s Zapier integration in our knowledgebase, which shows you how to set it up and gives examples of how to use it to automate some of the most popular integrations for photography businesses. We’re happy to help you to get started with this on a 1:1 Zoom call, so please book a training session with us if you need any help.

First of all, you’ll notice that the booking confirmation page now features “Add to Apple Calendar/Outlook” and “Add to Google Calendar” buttons. Your clients can use these to quickly add their booking to their calendar, and of course you can use Light Blue’s powerful workflows feature to send automated reminders via email and text message.

Today, we’ve started beta testing another new scheduling feature: you can use scheduling requests to book meetings or shoots with existing clients. Your clients will love them because the booking form will be pre-filled with the information that you already have, and you will save time because the event that’s created will automatically be linked to the relevant records in Light Blue. Please let us know if you’d like to join our list of beta testers so that you can start using this feature today!

Light Blue’s new online scheduling calendars allow your clients to book shoots and appointments directly into your diary. You no longer need to send messages back and forth to find the perfect time, or rely on complicated integrations with third-party tools. 

We’re excited to announce launch of the latest version which is available as a free upgrade for all subscribers.

“Light Blue’s online scheduling automates another task that helps me focus on improving other aspects of my business, and makes the whole experience much more professional and seamless for my clients.” – Michael Love

Streamline enquiry management

Online scheduling simplifies the booking process for your clients whilst providing tight integration with Light Blue’s other powerful features such as contracts, forms, payments, and workflows (including automated emails and text messages), so you have all the important details together in one place.

“I can’t always reply to client’s calls and emails when they want to book me. Now they can check my availability and book without waiting for me to get back to them. It saves so much time for me and is a better experience for the client!” – Jane Jordan

Avoid double bookings

We know that you have to juggle all sorts of commitments so, as well as automatically blocking off times that clash with events in Light Blue, we’ve also made it possible to link your scheduling calendars to Google Calendar or calendar feeds that you can use to stop clients from making bookings that clash with your personal commitments.

Your availability is updated in real-time as you (and your clients!) schedule events in your diary, and it’s easy for you to set up weekly availability as well as ad-hoc availability for specific types of event.

“It’s a really good way to streamline booking in smaller sessions so you have to do very little, but from the client point of view it’s extremely efficient and straightforward. You can also set options to make sure you aren’t overwhelmed and ensure that your client has all the information they need to proceed without having to send a million emails. Plus, when you open Light Blue, everything you need is at your fingertips.” – Angela Ward-Brown

Free upgrade for subscribers

This has been a really popular feature request and something that we’ve been keen to implement for some time, so we are really pleased to have had such positive feedback from our testers and are delighted to offer this feature to our subscribers for no extra cost.

“Having CRM and scheduling in the same program saves a ton of time and money. Plus it saves all the headaches of trying to make two separate systems integrate.” – Julian Austin

Get started by updating to Light Blue 2022.1  and then adding a scheduling calendar via the Preferences window. Learn more about how to set up and use online scheduling calendars in our detailed help article.

You can find out about the many other new features and changes in this release in the Light Blue 2022.1 release notes.

Setting up our online scheduling tool is quick and easy, and you can choose which types of shoot or appointment are available online. Your availability is updated in real-time as you (and your clients!) schedule events in your diary, and it’s easy for you to set up regular availability as well as ad-hoc availability for specific types of event.

Our new online scheduling features also give you options to include a customised booking form, contract, and booking fee when a client is scheduling a shoot, making the online booking process easier than ever. It’s also tightly integrated with Light Blue’s automation tools, so the reminder emails, text messages, and tasks from your workflows help you to deliver great a great service for your clients.

Read on for a summary of the other new features and changes included in Light Blue 2022.1…

Operating system changes

• Added a 64-bit version of our Windows app. From 2022.1 onwards, using the “check for updates” command from the 32-bit version of our Windows app on a 64-bit version of Windows will offer to download either the 64-bit or 32-bit versions. Once you’ve upgraded to the 64-bit version, you’ll always be given the 64-bit version.
• The macOS version of Light Blue is now a Universal binary, adding native support for Apple Silicon-based Macs.
• The Windows version of our desktop app now reports its bitness and the macOS version reports its CPU architecture in the About dialog.
• Worked around a change in macOS 12 Monterey that could cause a grey stripe to appear at the top of the main window.
• On macOS, changed the ID that the app uses to identify itself to our servers to allow it to be more easily used from multiple macOS user accounts.

Deduplication & merging records

• Potential duplicate contacts are now highlighted on contact records and in the “Linked Records” tab on shoots. Clicking on the warning brings up a shortcut to merge that contact with one of the potential duplicates.
• When reviewing an online booking, you’re now warned if the main contact for the booking looks like a duplicate of an existing contact in your database.
• The “Merge Records” command now lists contacts with the same name or email address when you invoke it from a contact record.
• When merging records, the contact, shoot, quote, sale, purchase, and payment notes fields are now combined rather than asking you to select one version or the other to keep.

Inbox

• When you view an online booking from the Inbox, its now kept as part of the selection if you’re using the “pending items & unread messages” filter.
• Added a “Mark As Read” contextual menu command for incoming data in the Inbox, so you can mark it as dealt with and remove it from your list of pending items without importing it.
• Double-clicking a linked record from the email dialog now navigates to that linked record in the main window.

Client portal

• Invalid fields in forms are now highlighted more prominently, and clicking the submit button when it’s not activated triggers validation to show you which fields need to be filled in correctly before it can be submitted.
• Added an option to form templates to not include a CAPTCHA when they’re being used as a contact form. If you choose not to include a CAPTCHA on a contact form, the form will not send an email to the supplied email address when it’s filled in because that prevents it being of any use to spammers.
• The “Activity” tab’s contextual menus now include “Extend Expiry Date…”, “Cancel Contract…”, and “Open Contract PDF” commands for contracts. These commands are the same as the matching commands that are available in the contract dialog.
• The shoot detail panel and appointment dialog now show when the record was created by an online booking, and include an options menu that allow you to open or copy the URL for the booking confirmation and management page.
• Added an option to require at least one contact in “contact roles” and “other contacts” sections on forms.
• Added an option to customise the “add person” and “add another person” button labels in the “contact roles” and “other contacts” sections on forms.
• Fixed a bug where paragraph text fields in online forms would add extra line breaks to the content sent to Light Blue.

Mail-merge

• Added %EventTypeName% and %BookingManagementURL% mail-merge tags.
• You can now add a “:URLOnly” suffix to a URL mail-merge tag, which when used in an HTML email will be converted into the URL without the surrounding <a> element necessary to make it a clickable link. e.g. %BookingManagementURL:URLOnly%.

Preferences

• You can now merge price lists and shoot types in the Preferences window.
• Reorganised the “External Programs” section of the Preferences window and added help links.
• Added links to help for creating and using workflows to the places where workflows are set up and used.
• Email and text message templates that have been used in scheduled workflow messages now include a button that you can use to update those scheduled messages to use the latest version of the template. This allows you to make changes to your message templates and easily apply those changes to all of the messages that have already been scheduled as part of your workflows.
• The “Appointment Types” section of the Preferences window now includes a workflow visualiser, just like the one included in the “Shoot Types” section.
• Added a “before/after key date” popup menu when editing workflow steps, to make the offsets easier to understand
• Added a “Warn When Moving Events Via Calendar” setting to the Preferences window. This will make the desktop app show a confirmation dialog whenever you move events by dragging and dropping in Light Blue’s built-in calendar.
• Shoot types and appointment types now show which scheduling calendars they’re used in, and also contain a button to create a new scheduling calendar for them.
• Improved performance of editing long contracts on Windows.
• Reduced the minimum height of the Preferences window by 40px.

Miscellaneous

• Added an “Import Sales From CSV” command to the Records menu.
• Added an “Issue Refund” button to Payment records that have an unallocated amount of more than zero. This creates a negative payment that represents the refund and a zero-value invoice that both the original and refund payments are allocated to so that they end up with an unallocated amount of zero.
• When selecting a text message template, the record selection dialog now shows a preview of the message template as well as its name.
• You can now hide your custom quick queries from Light Blue’s main sections. This allows you to create quick queries for use in Home screen widgets without cluttering up your list of quick queries in the main sections.
• You can now build queries that use the email status field (e.g. you can query for records that are scheduled to send an email).
• The desktop app no longer automatically scans all of the document files and templates that it manages for changes when you launch the app. If you want it to do this (i.e. because you regularly edit Light Blue documents while the app is closed) then there’s an option for this in the Preferences window.
• When the “Prices Include Tax” preference is not ticked, the “Linked Records” tab now shows both the net and tax inclusive totals for linked quotes, sales, and purchases.
• When you edit the date or time of a cancelled appointment, you’re now warned that the appointment has been cancelled and asked if you want to change it back to “confirmed”.
• Housekeeping commands are now restricted to full access users, apart from the ones used for marking sales and purchases as paid or cash & cheques as paid in.
• Added the shoot contact Role field to the “Tidy Popup Menus” housekeeping command.
• Added a “Primary Contact Notes” field to the Shoots section, which can be used in queries, reports, and data exports.
• You can now build queries for purchases using their linked shoots in the query criteria.
• Shortened the title of appointments published to third-party calendars: removed the “Appt: ” prefix and no longer appending the appointment type if it’s already included in the title.
• “County” fields in forms are now labelled as “Province” if your localisation is set to Canadian English.
• Fixed a bug that could cause the shoot detail view event clashing loader thread to not be closed properly.
• Fixed a bug where linking an appointment to a different record wouldn’t move any scheduled emails for that appointment to the new record.
• Fixed a database error that occurs when trying to use the “on a Sunday” option for date fields in the query dialog.
• Fixed a bug where the “Create Sale” popup menu on quotes could show the undiscounted net sum instead of the discounted net sum.
• Fixed a bug where deleting an appointment didn’t delete the emails and text messages from its workflows.
• Fixed a bug on macOS where a text area could appear to include some content from the last record selected.
• Fixed a bug where workflow types could be blank when downloading data onto a new device.
• Fixed a bug when creating a credit note for an invoice with more than 1,000.00 outstanding when using European currency formatting.
• Fixed a bug that caused schedule steps with a start time of 00:00 to not show the time in the “Schedule” tab of a shoot.

We’re delighted to let you know that our next major update is in prerelease testing and includes one of our most popular feature requests: an online scheduling tool that allows your clients to book shoots and appointments directly into your diary. You no longer need to send messages back and forth to find the perfect time, or rely on complicated integrations with third-party tools.

Setting up our online scheduling tool is quick and easy, and you can choose which types of shoot or appointment are available online. Your availability is updated in real-time as you (and your clients!) schedule events in your diary, and it’s easy for you to set up weekly availability as well as ad-hoc availability for specific types of event.

Our new online scheduling features give you the option to include a customised booking form, contract, and booking fee when a client is scheduling a shoot, making the online booking process easier than ever. It’s also tightly integrated with Light Blue’s automation tools, so the reminder emails, text messages, and tasks from your workflows help you to deliver great a great service for your clients.

Want to start using our online scheduling calendars right now?

We’ve opened up testing to any of our subscribers that want to take part. So, if you’d like to start offering online booking to your clients, or you’re interested in replacing a third-party scheduling system with our own, tightly-integrated scheduling system, please get in touch and we’ll let you know how to get involved.

Light Blue subscribers are given a unique email address, and any emails sent to your unique email address are automatically imported into your Light Blue account. They appear in the Inbox, and from there you can use them to create a new enquiry or link them to an exist shoot or client. This makes it easy to keep all of your correspondence in one place, so that you can see the full history of your dealings with your clients.

We’re constantly updating Light Blue’s email import features to add new features and support changes in the way that major email clients format their emails, but we wanted to highlight a couple of big changes that have gone live recently.

Attachments are now automatically imported

When an email containing attachments is sent to your Light Blue email address, we now automatically import them for you. Emails up to 10MB in size are supported, and attachments with the following extensions will be imported:

• .pdf
• .txt
• .rtf
• .docx
• .doc
• .xlsx
• .xls
• .csv
• .jpg
• .jpeg
• .heic
• .png

Once you’ve created an enquiry from an incoming email, or linked it to an existing record, you can “promote” any particularly important attachments so that they show up on the Activity panel instead of only being displayed when you view the email. To do that, open the email from the linked record’s Activity panel, select the attachment, and click the “promote” button that appears next to it.

Improved formatting for emails forwarded from macOS or iOS Mail

To get that initial email enquiry into Light Blue, forwarding the email to your Light Blue email address is usually the quickest way to get it into your Inbox so that you can create an enquiry from it. We’ve recently improved the formatting of emails forwarded from the macOS or iOS Mail app, removing the first level of quote marks and making them easier to read.

WordPress e-commerce plugin Sunshine has added a direct link to Light Blue’s API, allowing photographers who are using Sunshine’s online proofing and ordering galleries to have their client orders sent directly to their Light Blue account.

The Light Blue API allows our subscribers to send information straight to their Inbox from a variety of sources, including online forms, booking systems, and online galleries. Orders sent from Sunshine to your Light Blue account will appear in the Inbox, and from there you can import them into Light Blue as a new order, saving you from needing to manually re-enter print orders while keeping all of your sales and invoicing information together in Light Blue.

Sunshine’s Light Blue API link add-on is available from their website. Light Blue users will need an active subscription to be able to use it, and you can find more information about our API in our knowledgebase.

We’ve made some small changes to the way that Light Blue’s online invoices and emails work. We’ll be announcing some big new features in the coming weeks but these changes have been made now so that we can start beta testing those other new features.

Online invoices

Our online invoice receipt emails now include a link to view the paid invoice online, rather than including a copy of the invoice in the email itself. There are two main reasons for this change: it works better with a wider range of email clients; and it also protects your clients’ privacy if they’re using an email provider that scrapes the contents of their emails for information.

We’ve also changed the information that’s displayed when your client views a paid invoice. Instead of just displaying your “thanks for paying this invoice” message, we’re displaying all of the details of the invoice so that your client can refer back to it or print it for their records.

Client portal emails

The other new feature that you’ll notice is that copies of emails that are sent for Light Blue’s contact forms, questionnaires, contracts, and online invoices are now recorded in Light Blue’s Outbox and the Activity panel for the relevant records. We’re still CCing a copy of these emails to you so that you get an instant notification when your client has done something, but this gives you a clearer record of all of your communications with your client.

Feedback

As always, we’d love to hear from you if you’ve got any feedback about our new features. And if you’re on our list of beta testers, expect to hear more from us in the coming weeks 🙂

We’re constantly improving Light Blue’s features, even when we’re very busy helping our customers to deal with the effects of the pandemic and lockdown.

We’re working on some big new features that we’ll be announcing soon, but we’ve added some new features to Light Blue’s contact forms that have gone live today.

The most obvious change is that we’ve added reCAPTCHA to our arsenal of anti-bot tools. Our contact forms have always included effective anti-spam protections, but it never hurts to add more and reCAPTCHA’s popularity and ease of use will be reassuring to both you and your clients.

Most of our subscribers are using the HTML code that Light Blue automatically generates to embed our contact forms into their websites. If you’re using the embed code that we provide then it will automatically resize your forms to accommodate the reCAPTCHA widget. If you’ve modified the embed code to set the height of the embedded form manually though, you’ll need to check whether the form still fits and adjust the height in your embed code. If you need any help with this, get in touch and we’d be delighted to assist.

One other change that you’ll notice is that if you’ve set up an autoresponder for your contact form, we’re no longer including the data that your client entered into their enquiry in the email that we’re sending to them. You’ll still see what they’ve written in the notification email that we send to you though, and of course it will still appear in Light Blue’s Inbox so that you can convert it into a new enquiry with the click of a button.

The notification email that we send you when a client submits a form (whether that’s a contact form or a questionnaire that you’ve sent to a client) has been reformatted, too. The new design makes it much easier to read the information that you’ve been sent if you’ve got any long field headings.

We know that a lot of photographers run multiple brands under one business. Maybe you shoot both weddings and newborn photography, or you have a separate website for corporate photography. With Light Blue you can run all these brands in a single account.*

This is really handy for a lot of people because, while they may have different websites and logos for the different types of shoots they are doing, they’re still running one business.

You can run as many different brands as you like with Light Blue. Our custom branding means that you can change the logos, colours, and fonts on the emails, forms, contracts, and online invoices that you send to customers.

Setting up your different brands is really easy. You have probably already set up your main brand already if you are using our online services. Log in to your account on the Light Blue website and select the client portal section. Got to the branding area, then run through each section to choose your fonts, header images, background colours and form styling for each of your brands.

You can also apply your branding to the invoices, quotes, and receipts that you print (or PDF) from Light Blue. As well as your main branding (which you set up in the “Printing” section of the Preferences window), you can use separate branding for any of your shoot types. To do that, go into the “Shoot Types” section of the Preferences window and upload a different background PDF.

*Important point: Light Blue is designed to run a single business, but you can use shoot types with their own branding to essentially split up your income into different categories. One of the big advantages of this approach is that you have a single client database, and everything is nice and simple to manage. However, when it comes to things like the built-in reports, we assume that you’re running a single legal entity (e.g. a single limited company) because that’s what the vast majority of our customers need.

On 14 September 2019, new regulations are being introduced across Europe to protect people using cards to pay for goods and services online. These new regulations are called Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) and will add a requirement for two-factor authentication for many online payments.

The requirement for two-factor authentication means that affected transactions will require something in addition to the card number. Details will vary between card providers, but they might include codes generated by your online banking app, a security dongle, etc.

If you’re using our popular online contract signing or online invoice payment services and accepting card payments from your clients via our Stripe integration, you will be affected by SCA. However, we have already made all of the necessary changes and there is nothing that you need to do. Your clients won’t notice anything different: they’ll still be able to pay you quickly and easily by card.

If you’re not already using our online contract signing and invoice payment services, we’d be delighted to show you why photographers give us so much great feedback about them. Our customers love how easy these services make it for their clients to confirm a booking or pay an invoice.

You can find out more about our online contract signing service in this video tutorial, while this tutorial shows you how to go about publishing invoices for payment online. If you need any help getting started with these services (or with any other aspect of using Light Blue) get in touch with us and we’d be delighted to provide you with one-to-one help via a screen-sharing session.

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” George Bernard Shaw

In any business, effective communication is crucial. In photography, it’s a simple way to set and meet expectations before, during and after a shoot.

Keeping in touch at every stage of the customer journey helps to avoid misunderstandings and ambiguity, clarifies arrangements and establishes a warm relationship, often before you’ve even met your client.

And the easiest method to use? Email: efficiently managed and recorded thanks to the magic of specialist tools, such as a CRM for photographers like Light Blue.

Here, we’re sharing with you a suggested set of email templates to use throughout the lifetime of a shoot. From your initial response to a query to your post-project thank you, using them as inspiration for your own messages will ensure that no vital communication stage is ever overlooked.

Photography email templates

Email template #1: Automatic Reply To Website Contact Form

Consumers’ email etiquette expectations have never been higher. So rise to the challenge by being the photographer with great manners right from the start of the relationship.

If potential clients get a response immediately after sending their enquiry, you’ll quickly get a tick next to your name on their list of photographer possibilities. Your professional, efficient and helpful approach has been established quickly and with minimum effort.

This is a great opportunity to send them some basic information such as a link to your price list or some sample shoots.

And don’t shy away from telling them that it’s an automatic reply. Pretending that it isn’t won’t fool anybody. Instead, use it to showcase your honesty and, of course, to prove that you’re busy with your camera and not just waiting for an enquiry.

From: My Photography Business
Subject: Thanks for getting in touch!

Hi there, thanks for your enquiry! I know that planning a wedding is a very busy time, so I really appreciate you taking the time to get in touch! As you can probably guess, this is an automatic reply to your enquiry. I’ll send you a proper reply as soon as I’ve had a chance to check my diary & confirm that I’m available. In the meantime, I thought you may find it helpful to get a little more information about how I work, so below are a few links to some sample weddings and a few frequently asked questions …

Email template #2: Detailed Reply To Enquiry

Once you’ve swapped your lens for a screen and are back in admin mode, you can send a more detailed and personalised reply confirming your availability.

From: My Photography Business
Subject: Photographing your wedding on 20th June 2020

Hi Charlotte & Paul, thanks again for taking the time to make an enquiry about photographing your wedding! I’m delighted to say that I am available on Saturday 20^th June 2020, which is great news! Why don’t we line up a meeting to talk through your plans and spend a little time getting to know each other?

You can then use different templates depending on the type of shoot. For example, if it’s for a wedding at a venue you’ve worked at before you can refer to your experience there and add a link to some inspiring images.

From: My Photography Business
Subject: Photographing your wedding on 20th June 2020

Hi Charlotte & Paul, thanks again for taking the time to make and enquiry about photographing your wedding! I’m delighted to say that I am available on Saturday 20^th June 2020, which is great news!
Exampleton Hall is such a wonderful choice of venue for a wedding celebration, and I’ve had the pleasure of working there many times before! Sarah and the team at the Hall are fantastic, and I always love working there – you’re going to have a great day! You can see some of my favourite images from weddings that I’ve shot there on my website: www.example.com/exampleton-hall-wedding-photos
Why don’t we line up a meeting to talk through your plans and spend a little time getting to know each other?

Email template #3: Follow-Up To Enquiry

If you hear nothing after your polite reply to their enquiry, a gentle email prompt is an ideal way to warm up a tepid lead.

From: My Photography Business
Subject: Your recent enquiry

Hi again, Charlotte & Paul, I hope that you’re well and that wedding plans are coming together nicely! I know how much of a busy time planning a wedding can be, and there’s a great deal to think about! I was wondering if you’d had a chance to take a look at the information that I sent over recently in response to your wedding enquiry? I’ve attached a copy of my price list & brochure so you can take another look. Why don’t we line up a meeting to chat about your plans & answer any questions that you may have?

Email template #4: Follow-Up To Sending Contract

Email three did the trick: you’ve had an initial chat, the rapport was great and you’ve sent over a contract and then … silence.

If a client is dragging their feet about signing, you could spur them along by sending a polite email reminder. When you get a response, Light Blue’s powerful online contract signing service can do this for you automatically.

From: My Photography Business
Subject: Your photography contract

Hi Charlotte & Paul, I hope that you’re well. This is just a gentle reminder about the contract that I sent through recently, which you’ll need to review & sign in order to confirm our booking. Please, can you follow the link to view & sign the contract. If you have any questions, please do let me know!

Email template #5: Nurturing Messages In the Run-Up To The Shoot

With the contract signed, thanks to your effective email communication, your focus now needs to shift to pre-shoot preparation.

This is your chance to really nurture your client, especially if they’re a little nervous about being in front of a camera. Build on the growing relationship by giving them a regular point of contact, providing advice and offering to answer any burning questions.

You can also helpfully direct them to relevant links on your website, including blogs, to manage their expectations and make them feel suitably looked-after.

From: My Photography Business
Subject: Helping you to prepare for your session

Hi Sam, thanks for booking your portrait session with us! We’re really looking forward to welcoming you into the studio. We understand that it isn’t every day that you’re getting your photo taken, so we’ve prepared a handy guide to help you to prepare for the experience. If you have any questions, please do let us know!

Email template #6: Excitement Messages Before The Shoot

It’s nearly shoot day so an email sent a day or two before acts to confirm, reassure and prepare.

You can outline what the client needs to do or consider beforehand, e.g. the weather forecast, and start sowing ideas for up-sells afterwards, e.g. albums and prints.

From: My Photography Business
Subject: Looking forward to seeing you soon!

Hi again, Sam, we can’t wait to see you in the studio for your portrait session tomorrow! I’ve attached a guide to help you to prepare for the shoot. Don’t forget to drink plenty of water between now and the session, so your skin looks as good as possible. Also, have a think about the places in your home where you’d like the images to be displayed; we’ll have a chat about that before we start shooting. Looking forward to seeing you soon!

Email template #7: Sales Messages Before The Shoot

At this stage, you can also send an email aimed at adding other items onto their package, for example booking an extra couple of hours or offering a discount if they order a product before the shoot takes place.

This highlights both your flexibility and generosity, further building on client rapport and trust.

From: My Photography Business
Subject: Checking in before the big day!

Hi Charlotte & Paul, I hope that everything’s going well in the run-up to the big day! I wanted to check in with you to make sure that you had everything that you need – I’m currently booked to start at 11:00 and wrap up at 19:00. If you need to add more coverage, then I’ve got a special offer available to book additional time at a discounted rate if you confirm it before the wedding. If that sounds like something that you’d be interested in, then just pop a quick reply to this email and I’ll take care of it!

Email template #8: Checking In Shortly After The Shoot

Images captured, the client communication continues with a reminder of what happens next and when they can expect to first see their images.

From: My Photography Business
Subject: What happens next.

Hi Charlotte & Paul, it was great to be part of your special day, thanks for having me along! I’m popping an email with a quick reminder of what happens next with your photos. I’ve already got everything backed up & safe and I’ll be getting to work on editing the images very soon. It usually takes me around 3-4 weeks to get the gallery ready, so you’ll hear from me then with a link. If there’s anything you need in the meantime, please let me know!

If they haven’t already booked a viewing, encourage them to do this now so you can get your online diary organised.

From: My Photography Business
Subject: Great working with you!

Hi Sam, thanks for coming in for your portrait experience! Here’s a reminder about what happens next. We’ll be hard at work processing your photographs in time for our viewing session which is booked in for Saturday at 11:00. We look forward to seeing you back in the studio to show you the images – they’re looking great!

Email template #9: Sending An Online Gallery Link

Your editing work is done and now it’s time to share your impressive images. If you’re not having an in-person viewing and sales session then this email is the one they’ve been waiting for: the big reveal.

This one will contain the link to their gallery and a password to access it, along with the opportunity to provide feedback and a review of your work.

From: My Photography Business
Subject: Your images are ready!

Hello David, thanks for booking me to photograph your event recently. I’m delighted to send through a link to the online web gallery where you can view your images. Your feedback is important to me, so I’d love to hear your thoughts on the images. If you’d like to leave a review, you can do so by following the second link below. If there’s anything more that I can do for you, please don’t hesitate to drop me a note.

Email template #10: Keeping In Touch After the Shoot

By now, your client relationship and email tone of voice will be well-established. You know you’ve done an excellent job and have received some great feedback.

Next, it’s time to keep building that loyalty with the aim of encouraging further sales and bookings.

Use your database wisely, analysing customers to assess what products and services could most appeal and to precisely target your emails.

Even if one particular client never gives you another penny, your friendly professionalism could inspire them to recommend you to others.

This email can focus on up-selling albums and other products after the shoot, along with suggesting gift vouchers for friends and family.

And of course, you can invite them to book another shoot. After such a fabulous service and awe-inspiring images, how could they refuse?

From: My Photography Business
Subject: Something special for you.

Hi Sam, I hope that you’re well. It was so great to have you in the studio for a portrait experience earlier this year – I can’t believe time’s flown by! We’ve got a special offer on right now for past clients to enjoy a free session when they buy gift vouchers for their friends & family. They make for wonderful Christmas presents! You can find out more via the link below.

Photography email templates download

Your basic client communication strategy is sorted!

With a straightforward email template system in place, your basic client communication strategy is sorted.

If you use pre-prepared messages with a consistent tone of voice, you’ll not only save time but can also ensure that a crucial detail or vital stage along the customer journey is never missed.

The result? An organised, friendly approach to every shoot that will foster loyalty, build trust and make the whole experience easier and more enjoyable for everyone.

Learn more below about how specialist software designed exclusively for photographers can help

Straightforward, efficient and time-saving, Light Blue makes it easy to communicate with clients.

Sending emails using Light Blue

Using email templates

Using workflows to send automated messages to your clients

The requirement for two-factor authentication means that affected transactions will require something in addition to the card number. Details will vary between card providers, but they might include codes generated by your online banking app, a security dongle, etc.

If you’re dealing with European clients and using Light Blue’s client portal to take payments from them, you will be affected by SCA. However, we will ensure that Light Blue’s client portal is ready for SCA in plenty of time for the 14 September 2019 deadline, and you probably won’t need to make any changes at all.

Keep an eye on our blog and email newsletter for further news!

When a new enquiry comes in to Light Blue via email or your contact form, you can use an email template to craft the perfect response. Using a template saves you time (because you don’t have to type it out!) and makes sure that you don’t miss out any important information (because you crafted your email template in advance). But Light Blue’s email templates also allow you to personalise your responses, using intelligent mail-merge tags that customise it with your client’s details and always allowing you to add your own touch to the message before you send it to your clients.

When you’re sending an email from Light Blue, we recommend that you send it from your own email account. Using your own email account looks professional and helps your messages to get through to your client. You can add as many email accounts as you like, and if you need a hand with setting them up then we’d be delighted to help.

When a client replies to an email you’ve sent from Light Blue, the reply goes to your email address but it also appears in Light Blue’s Inbox. This makes it really easy to keep track of all of your communications with your client, because you’ll have copies of the emails you’ve sent and your clients replies in one place. This is especially useful if you’ve got more than one person working in your business, because the messages that your team are exchanging with clients aren’t spread out over lots of different systems.

If you receive an entirely new email from a client (e.g. a new enquiry), all you need to do to get it to appear in Light Blue is forward it onto your unique @lightbluecustomermail.com email address. All of our subscribers get one of these special email addresses, and anything that you forward to it will appear in the Inbox. From there, you can turn it into a new enquiry and send a reply using one of your email templates.

Light Blue 8 added lots of email and text messaging enhancements to Light Blue. As well as streamlining existing features, we added powerful automation tools that allow you to schedule messages to be sent to your clients. For example, you can set up automatic reminders that cut down on frustrating no-shows. You could also use an enquiry workflow to automatically send follow-up messages to a prospective client.

We’re carrying out this work at 06:00 GMT on Saturday to minimise any disruption. We expect our servers to be offline for roughly 10 minutes.

Because Light Blue’s desktop and mobile apps can be used without an internet connection, most of Light Blue’s features will continue to work during the downtime.

Light Blue’s text messaging feature is popular with photographers all over the world. It allows you to stay in touch with clients, and to massively cut down on no-shows that cause your business to lose money and frustration for you! You can find out more about our text messaging service in this blog post.

We’re delighted to announce a new feature for everyone who’s using our text messaging service: automatic top-ups for your text message credits.

With this feature, you no longer need to keep an eye on the number of text message credits you have left. Just tell us when you’d like us to automatically top up your balance and we’ll take care of it for you.

If you’d like to take advantage of this new feature, get in touch and we’ll set it up for you.

Light Blue also offers an API that gives you more advanced options for sending information to your Light Blue account. You (or your website designer) could use the API to link a customised contact form to your Inbox, or you could use in combination with Zapier to link a variety of other services to Light Blue.

Online Scheduling tools

Using a powerful combination of our API and calendar publishing options, can be used to link Light Blue to popular online scheduling systems like Acuity Scheduling.

Online scheduling tools like Acuity can allow your clients to book shoots online, based on your availability. The customer can choose their own session without needing any input from you, and the details arrive in Light Blue without needing to type anything in.

This article focusses on how to set up an integration with Acuity using the middle-man service, Zapier, to send booking information into Light Blue for you.

Give Acuity your availability from Light Blue

Once you’ve created and set up your Acuity account, you’ll need to be able to tell their system when are (and aren’t) available for bookings. There’s a couple of different ways that you can do this, either by publishing events from Light Blue to a Google Calendar, or to your iCloud account. You can then authorise Acuity to synchronise with that calendar. Any events that have been added to Light Blue (like other shoots, meetings & time off) will now block out time that could be booked in Acuity and show that you’re unavailable, so you don’t get double-booked.

Using Zapier with the Light Blue API

The next step is to link Acuity back to Light Blue, so that new bookings are sent to Light Blue using our API and integration with Zapier.

Zapier is a service that acts as a middleman between a variety of web services, with some services providing triggers (e.g. “a new booking has been made via Acuity“) and other services providing actions. Zapier allows you to set up a number of “Zaps” that link a trigger to an action. We’ve written a Zapier action that allows you to send information to the Light Blue API in response to one of these triggers.

Requirements

As well as a subscription to our online services, you need a Zapier account. Zapier offers a variety of subscriptions (including a free one) but please be aware that each subscription level will only handle a certain number of tasks per month.

Setup

The Light Blue action for Zapier is currently a “private” action, so you need an invitation code to be able to use it. You can invite yourself to use the Light Blue action by clicking the following link: Light Blue on Zapier

Creating your Zap

The first step in creating your “Zap” is choosing which app or service will trigger the Zap to start running. Choose Acuity Scheduling from the list of apps and enter your account details.

When a new appointment has been created in Acuity, the Zap will be triggered.

Select the ‘Send to Light Blue API’ action

Now you can select Light Blue from the list of action apps. You might need to type “Light Blue” in the search field to find it.

Enter your Light Blue API key

When you’re prompted to select a Light Blue account, enter your Light Blue API key. You can find your API key by logging into the My Account section of our website.

Match up the data from your trigger app to Light Blue API parameters

Once you’ve set up the trigger app for your Zap and linked your Light Blue account to it, you need to associate data from the source app with parameters that the Light Blue API recognises.

To do this, you need to fill in the ‘Light Blue API Parameters’ section shown in the screenshot below. You type Light Blue API parameters in the left-hand column and select items from the trigger app in the right hand column. You can use the + button to add extra items.

You can find a list of the parameters that the Light Blue API recognises in the Supported Parameters section.

You should leave the ‘Type’ and ‘Source’ fields alone.

Working with dates and times

Different systems show dates and times in different formats, which other systems may not necessarily be able to read or understand. When adding the date and time for a shoot from Acuity to Light Blue, we’d recommend using the ShootStartTimestamp API parameter and linking it to the DateTime value from Acuity.

Test and then save your Zap

Once you’ve linked your Zap to parameters that the Light Blue API recognises, Zapier will ask you to test and save your Zap. If any errors occur (e.g. you don’t provide any parameters that the Light Blue API recognises) then Zapier should inform you and display an error message that you can send to us for further help.

Help & support

If you’re having problems setting up your integration with Light Blue’s API, we’d be delighted to help you. The most useful thing to do is send some screenshots of what you’re trying to do and/or where you’re getting stuck. Screenshots of the settings you’re using in your Zap are most helpful!