Light Blue 2022.1 available with new online scheduling features

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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.

Light Blue 2022.1 release notes

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Light Blue 2022.1 is a major update that introduces 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 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…

Continue reading “Light Blue 2022.1 release notes”

Light Blue’s guide to The Societies London Photo Convention 2022

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The Societies London Photo Convention is one of the highlights of our calendar and we’re so excited to be back in person for 2022!

We’re looking forward to talking to photographers during the extensive trade show on the Thursday, Friday & Saturday.

There’s a wealth of talks and masterclasses being held during the convention, with topics covering business, workflow, sales and technique. We’ve listed a selection that we think are well worth a visit!

Classes to catch on Wednesday 16th March

9:00 am – 10:00 am Gillian Devine Branding for Business Success and Profit
9:30 am – 11:00 am
Peter Morgan & Ross Grieve From Camera to Client
11:30 am – 1:00 pm Maria Michael Are you your own barrier to success?
11:30 am – 1:00 pm Neil Shearer Personal Projects for Commercial Gain
11:30 am – 1:00 pm Tianna Jarrett-Williams Introduction to Maternity Photography
11:30 am – 1:00 pm
Emma Collins & Alice Chapman The Art of Real Life
2:00 pm – 6:00 pm Elli Cassidy Sassy Sales
2:00 pm – 3:30 pm Magdalena Sienicka Editing boudoir and beauty portraits
2:00 pm – 3:30 pm
Antonina Mamzenko & Diana Hagues The No Posing Guide: How to work with clients to document real family life
4:00 pm – 5:30 pm Sean LeBlanc Composing intimate candid artistry and artwork design

Classes to catch on Thursday 17th March

11:30 am – 1:00 pm Maria Michael Introduction To Pet Photography
11:30 am – 1:00 pm Elli Cassidy Profitable Portraits – Increase Your Product Sales
11:30 am – 1:00 pm Tianna Jarrett-Williams Styling Maternity Photography on A Limited Budget
2:30 pm – 4:00 pm Helen Bartlett The Business of Family Photography
5:00 pm – 6:30 pm Sean LeBlanc How to Create the Ultimate Online Showcase and Studio to WOW Your Clients
5:00 pm – 6:30 pm
Darren & Rhian Whiteley Business of a Newborn Photography Studio
5:00 pm – 6:30 pm Neil Shearer Commercial Sports Portraiture – The Art of the Composite

Classes to catch on Friday 18th March

9:00 am – 1:00 pm Jocelyn Conway Full Newborn Session
9:00 am – 10:30 am Ronan Ryle Fill Your Photography Business All Year Round with Higher Paying Clients
11:30 am – 1:00 pm Gillian Devine The Business of Brand Photography
11:30 am – 1:00 pm Terrie Jones What are the Judges looking for?
2:30 pm – 4:00 pm Gary Hill The Simple Portrait – Nailing the basics for fantastic results
2:30 pm – 4:00 pm Michelle Szpak Mindset for Photographers
4:30 pm – 6:00 pm Paul Wilkinson Mastering In Person Sales

Classes to catch on Saturday 19th March

9:00 am – 10:30 am Annie Armitage Photography for profit? Surely not!
9:00 am – 10:30 am Panikos Hajistilly Designing, Building & Setting up Your Home Studio
11:30 am – 1:00 pm Damian McGillicuddy Business – do I REALLY need to do this, can’t I just take pretty pictures?
2:00 pm – 6:00 pm Sean LeBlanc The Art of Creating Bold and Dramatic Wedding and Portraiture Photography
2:30 pm – 4:00 pm Gary Hill Getting it right in camera – Shooting for workflow
5:00 pm – 6:30 pm Nina Mace How to not just survive but thrive with your photography business

Increase your average sales by nurturing your clients

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Increasing your average sale for every session that you shoot means reaching your business goals more quickly or by relying on a smaller number of clients. Newborn photographer Mhari-Clare of Flutterby Photography shared how she’s seen a 2.4x increase in average sales from her sessions with a few simple steps.

Continue reading “Increase your average sales by nurturing your clients”

Filling your diary with quality repeat clients

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We all work hard to find different ways of attracting new clients and bringing in new business, but how much untapped potential is there in the list of clients you’ve worked with before?

We spoke to Brentwood newborn photographer, Kristina Mack about how she was able to use her existing customer list to fill the diary.

Continue reading “Filling your diary with quality repeat clients”

Top Tips for a Professional Photography Email Signature

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When it comes to building your photography business’ brand, it needs to consistent across every touch point with clients and prospects.

From a slick website to a memorable logo and across every possible form of communication, cohesively conveying what your brand stands for is crucial.

But have you given much thought to your photography business’ email signature?

If not, read on for our top tips on how to get it right and why using a professional photography email signature can play its part in both attracting and retaining clients.

Continue reading “Top Tips for a Professional Photography Email Signature”

Christmas & New Year support

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We’re still here to help over the festive season, but we’re also going to be taking a bit of a break so won’t be answering emails quite as quickly as normal between Christmas and New Year:

  • We’ll be offering our usual support hours until 5pm UK time on Friday 24th December.
  • There’ll be no email support during the public holidays on Monday 27th & Tuesday 28th December.
  • We’ll be offering limited email support 29th-31st December.
  • There’ll be no email support during the public holiday on Monday 3rd January.
  • We’ll return to normal hours from Tuesday 4th January onwards.

Wishing you all the best,

Tom, Ian & Dani

Our new online scheduling calendars are available for testing

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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 2021.2.3 release notes

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We’ve just released Light Blue 2021.2.3, which is a minor update that adds new features and fixes bugs reported since we launched Light Blue 2021.2. It includes the following changes:

  • Added an “Import Custom Translations” button to the “Template Translations” section of the Preferences window, to allow you to import a set of translations that another Light Blue user has exported and sent to you.
  • Added more mail-merge tags to the “Insert Mail-Merge Tag/Value” feature.
  • Updated the links in the Help menu to match our new online help resources.
  • Fixes a bug that could prevent the “Prices Include Tax” checkbox in the Preferences window from saving properly.