Automated messaging makes it easy to keep your clients informed and organised, saving you time and creating a more professional experience. With Light Blue, you can set up simple workflows to send a confirmation message when a shoot or meeting is booked and a friendly reminder the day before.

This article offers an approachable introduction to automation with step-by-step guidance and ready-to-use templates. While workflows can achieve so much more, this guide is the perfect starting point to explore their potential!

Looking for a more comprehensive set of workflows? Check out our portrait workflow course, which also includes ready-to-use templates.

Installing ready-to-use templates

1. Download the setup file, here.
2. Unzip the file, if you haven’t done so already.
3. Open Light Blue.
4. Click on the “Records” menu at the top of the screen.
5. Click Import > Light Blue Templates.
6. Select the .XML setup file that you’d downloaded and click Done.
7. The templates will install in Light Blue.
8. Find the templates by opening Light Blue’s preferences window, and going to the Workflows preferences & Email Templates preferences.

Now that the templates are installed in Light Blue, you can choose which types of shoots & appointments will use them by default.

Using the templates for shoots

1. Open the Preferences window.
2. Go to the Workflow preferences.
3. Find the workflow that’s called “Simple Portrait Shoot Date Workflow”
4. You’ll see that the workflow contains one email that’s sent the day before the shoot – remember, we’ll cover how to tailor & customise this message & workflow later.
5. Click on the Set Defaults button.
6. Choose all the shoot types that you want to use this workflow for.
7. Wind the workflow that’s called “Simple Portrait Shoot Confirmation Workflow”.
8. You’ll see that the workflow contains one email that’s sent as soon as the shoot gets marked as Confirmed.
9. Click on the Set Defaults button.
10. Choose all the shoot types that you want to use this workflow for.

Now, when a shoot gets marked as confirmed, Light Blue will add both the Confirmation workflow and Shoot Date workflow. This will send the confirmation email right away, and schedule a reminder email 1 day before the shoot.

Using the templates for viewing sessions

1. Open the Preferences window.
2. Go to the Workflow preferences.
3. Find the workflow that’s called “Simple Viewing Date Workflow”
4. You’ll see that the workflow contains one email that’s sent the day before the viewing appointment – remember, we’ll cover how to tailor & customise this message & workflow later.
5. Click on the Set Defaults button.
6. Choose all the appointment types that you want to use this workflow for.
7. Wind the workflow that’s called “Simple Viewing Confirmation Workflow”.
8. You’ll see that the workflow contains one email that’s sent as soon as the viewing appointment gets marked as Confirmed.
9. Click on the Set Defaults button.
10. Choose all the appointment types that you want to use this workflow for.

Now, when a viewing appointment gets marked as confirmed, Light Blue will add both the Viewing Confirmation workflow and Viewing Date workflow. This will send the confirmation email right away, and schedule a reminder email 1 day before the viewing appointment.

Customising the templates

Change the wording within the messages by taking these steps:

1. Open the Preferences window.
2. Go to the Workflow preferences.
3. Find the workflow that you want to tailor the messaging for.
4. Right click, or double click on the email within the workflow, choose “Open Template”.
5. The email template that’s used within the workflow will open within the Email Templates preferences.
6. Make adjustments to the email as required – we’d recommend keeping the mail-merge tags that have been included within the templates.

Learn how to make your emails stand out using this guide.

Learn more about what else you could include within the workflows.

Adding the email templates to an existing workflow

If you already use workflows for certain shoots or appointments but haven’t added automated reminder emails, it’s easy to include our ready-to-use templates.

The setup file includes four templates:

• Simple Portrait Confirmation Email: Add to a shoot confirmation workflow.
• Simple Portrait Shoot Reminder Email: Add to a shoot date workflow.
• Simple Viewing Confirmation Email: Add to an appointment confirmation workflow.
• Simple Viewing Reminder Email: Add to an appointment date workflow.

Learn more about workflow types here.

To add an email template to an existing workflow:

1. Open the Preferences window.
2. Go to the Workflow preferences.
3. Find the workflow that you want to add a message to.
4. Click on the green plus to add a step to the workflow.
5. Choose “Email”.
6. Choose the email template that you wish to use.
7. Set the offset for the automated email (this is when the email will be sent).
   • For confirmation emails in shoot confirmation & appointment confirmation workflows, set the offset to 0 days after the shoot/appointment is confirmed, leave the time blank. The email will get sent as soon as the shoot/appointment’s been confirmed.
   • For reminder emails within shoot date & appoinment date workflows, set the offset to 1 day before the shoot/appointment date. The email will get sent the day before the shoot/appointment.

Installing the templates

1. Download the folder of templates, here.
2. Unzip the folder of templates, if you haven’t done so already.
3. Open Light Blue.
4. Click on the “Records” menu at the top of the screen.
5. Click Import > Light Blue Templates.
6. Select all of the .XML files that are within the folder you’d downloaded and click Done.
7. The templates will install in Light Blue.
8. Find the templates by opening Light Blue’s preferences window, and going to the Email Templates preferences.

Customising the templates

Add your own personal touches to the imported templates, add images, formatting, or completely reword them. To edit a template, open the Email Templates preferences, then select the template you want to make changes to.

Learn more about how to make your emails stand out.

How to use the templates

Learn more about how to use email templates, here.

Automating emails

Emails can be sent automatically as part of a workflow. Learn more about workflows & workflow messaging here.

When you’ve invested time and effort (and no doubt money!) in creating an appealing and recognisable brand for your photography business it’s important that it’s used in all aspects of your client communication; and correctly!

Your website and social media feeds are perhaps the more obvious areas. However, just as much attention needs to be given to the emails that you’re sending to maximise your brand’s impact.

There are various features you can use within Light Blue to make this aspect of your client communication stand out and create a great impression. In this help article we’ll cover a few different areas to give you some ideas; they can be used individually however if you really want to wow your clients combine a few together in your emails!

Overall branding

The first step in creating a great-looking, on-brand email is to add your brand to the Client Portal in Light Blue.

1. Log into your online account through the “My Account” tab you can see top right on our website and head to the “Branding” section within “Client Portal settings”. 👉 Follow this link to take you to the login page and then directly to the “Branding” section.
2. You can then customise the “Standard branding” option showing in the dropdown menu; as you scroll down the page you’ll see there are lots of different options however the main areas to focus on for email design are:
   • Fonts; Body font
   • Header images and alignment
   • Background colours
   • Text styling; Body text colour and Link text colour.

The screenshot below shows how each of these elements come together in the overall design of your email.

⭐️ Top tip: Think carefully about the aspect ratio of the Header image you use; simply adding your logo can sometimes create unexpected results the closer it is to a square. In our example we’ve used a narrow letterbox, 16:3.

Email content

Default settings

1. Head to the “Email” section of Preferences.
2. Enter your “Default Text Size” and choose your “Default Line Height” from the drop-down choices. NB. If required these can be overridden in individual emails or Email Templates.

Formatting

As you’d expect the usual formatting options, such as bold text, bullet points, alignment etc, are also available within Light Blue if you want to emphasise certain points of your email.

Images

It almost goes without saying that adding images to your email will make them stand out more; relevant images will add extra appeal to your email and help build a stronger connection with your client. These could be an image from the wedding venue that your potential client has mentioned in their enquiry, a seasonal family portrait image to tie in with your mini session offer or perhaps a personal brand image showing you at work with your client.

1. Simply click on the image icon in the email to add your images in.
2. Resize as needed; make sure it’s neither too big nor too small! 👉 This guide gives you more details about adding images to your emails.

Hyperlinks

Adding hyperlinks linking to extra information for clients is another way to include more value in the email without running the risk of the email becoming too long and not being read! They could be links to online galleries, FAQs or perhaps a blog post which answers some of their specific questions.

1. Simply highlight the link text in the email.
2. Then click on the link icon in the email to add the URL.

Clickable buttons

Using a clickable button adds another degree of professionalism to your hyperlinks; they’re easily created by adding a hyperlink to an image. You could use these for social media links, perhaps to your online booking calendar or simply if you want to draw attention to a hyperlink.

1. Simply highlight the image in the email.
2. Then click on the link icon in the email to add the URL.

Attachments

Similar to hyperlinks, adding attachments to your emails is great if adding all the detail to the email will simply make it too long! These could be documents such as a “How to prepare for your portrait session” guide or information on how to view their gallery and place their order.

1. Simply click on the “Add attachment…” link at the bottom of the email.
2. Locate your document and attach it to the email. 👉 This guide gives you more details about email attachments.

Email Signature

Adding a signature to your email allows you to include extra contact information, your website or indeed a headshot of yourself; be creative as you like!

1. In the “Email Signatures” section of Preferences, click on “Add Record”.
2. Create your signature. 👉 This guide takes you through all the steps to create your Email Signature in Light Blue.

⭐️ Top tip: If you’re using Light Blue’s built-in email system to send emails rather than your own server do make sure you’re happy with the ‘From’ name that appears in your emails. 👉 This help article shows how you can customise your @lightbluecustomermail.com email address.

Adding other Light Blue features

Scheduling Request

If the ‘Call To Action’ in your email is for your client to book a shoot, perhaps schedule a consultation call or even arrange a time to collect their order it’s an ideal opportunity to include a Scheduling Request in your email. Not only does this create a great impression with your client; the booking process is very straightforward and the booking form is pre-filled with all their information, but it simplifies the process enormously for you!
👉 This help article explains more about Scheduling Requests and how to use them.

Email Templates & Mail Merge Tags

If you find you’re regularly sending a particular email it makes sense to create an Email Template for it. These can then either be used as a starting point tweaked as needed or added as a snippet to an ad-hoc email. They can even be added to Workflows so they’re sent automatically. Adding Mail Merge Tags to your Email Template also allows you to personalise the email; perhaps with the clients’ names or the date of their session.
👉 This help article explains how to create Email Templates and insert Mail Merge Tags.
👉 This one covers how to use Workflows to automatically send emails.
👉 And if you’re lacking inspiration for which Email Templates you could create do read this blog post.
⭐️ Top tip: Light Blue’s “Duplicate Record” is a powerful way to create several variants of a base email; just remember to name them with a description that makes sense to you so you can easily find the one you want when you need to!

Putting it all together

As you’ll have now discovered there are quite a few things you can do within Light Blue to create stand-out emails!

If you’re wanting to use all our suggestions, here’s our recommendation for how to put it all together.

1. Set up your branding in the Light Blue Client Portal.
2. Decide which Email Template/s you want to create.
3. Write the contents concentrating on just the words at this stage.
4. Personalise the email using Mail Merge Tags.
5. Style the email by formatting, adding images, hyperlinks, attachments etc.
6. Send a test email to yourself to check how it looks.
7. Refine as required.
8. Repeat for each Email Template.

And there you have it! Fabulous stand-out emails being sent to your client that are guaranteed to attract attention!

For many Light Blue customers, Facebook plays a key role in their marketing with one of the most popular tools being Lead Ads to generate new leads for their business. They can be used in a variety of ways; for example, perhaps running a competition, offering a great promotion or maybe even providing an ebook/guide. If someone is interested in your ad, they simply tap on it and a pop-up form will appear already populated with their Facebook contact information.

But how do you get all these leads into Light Blue?

There are two couple of ways of doing this:

• For a ‘one-off’ marketing activity or campaign, importing a CSV file of the leads generated is the most straightforward.
• However, if you’re frequently using Facebook Lead Ads, spending a bit of time setting up Zapier to automatically add them to Light Blue is a worthwhile investment.

We’ll cover both in this help article.

Importing a CSV file

For a ‘one-off’ marketing activity or campaign the most straightforward way to add the Facebook Lead Ads data to Light Blue is to import a CSV file.

1. Download your lead data from Ads Manager. 👉 Here’s the link to Meta’s help article.
2. Click on “Records” in Light Blue’s main menu bar.
3. Choose “Import” followed by “Contact From CSV…” from the drop-down menus.

4. Add an identifiable name to the “Source:” box.
5. Map the CSV fields to the correct Light Blue fields.
6. Check the “Don’t Import First Record” box and click “Import.”
7. Individual Contact Records will now be created for each lead in the CSV file.

Using Zapier to connect Facebook Lead Ads to Light Blue

If you’re frequently using Facebook Lead Ads and generating a high volume of leads it makes sense to automate the process of adding this data to Light Blue.

We can do this by creating a zap in Zapier linking Facebook Lead Ads to Light Blue.

👉 If you’re not familiar with Zapier, here’s an introduction to how it works.

Currently, the Light Blue integration for Zapier is a ‘private’ action, so you need to click the following link to add it to your Zapier account (instead of searching for Light Blue in Zapier); simply click the “Accept Invite & Build a Zap” button.

👉 Invite to use Light Blue on Zapier.
👉 And if you’ve not already got a Zapier account, here’s their website where you can create one. NB. Zapier’s Facebook Lead Ads integration is a ‘Premium’ app, which means you’ll need to be on one of their paid plans.

Once you’re logged into Zapier there are two elements to the zap.

1. Creating the trigger; a new lead is created in Facebook Lead Ads.
2. Creating the action; adding the data to Light Blue.

Both elements need to be created for the zap to work, however, we’ve broken down the steps into the two elements to make the process a bit easier to follow.

1. Creating the trigger; a new lead is created in Facebook Lead Ads

1. Click the “+ Create” button and choose “⚡️ New Zap” from the drop-down menu.
2. Start to type “Facebook” in the search bar.
3. Choose “Facebook Lead Ads”.

4. We then choose the event that triggers the action so from the drop-down menu choose “New Lead”.
5. Click “Continue”.

6. You’ll then be asked to sign in to your Facebook Lead Ads account. NB. If you’ve previously created a Facebook Lead Ads zap, rather than signing in again you’ll be able to simply select the account that’s already connected.
7. Then we need to set up the details of the trigger; in the Page field choose your Facebook page which is running the ad.
8. And then in the Form field choose which form the ad is using.
9. Click “Continue”.

10. Click the “Test trigger” button; Zapier will then test the trigger and check it can find a new lead. NB. If you’ve not yet published your ad you can use the Facebook Lead Ads Testing Tool to create a test lead.
11. Once It’s been successful, click “Continue”.

2. Creating the action; adding the data to Light Blue

1. The next step is to connect Zapier to Light Blue; start to type “Light Blue” in the search bar.
2. A few Light Blue options will be given so make sure you choose the one labelled ‘Latest’ with the most recent version number.
3. Choose the Event “Send to the Light Blue API” from the drop-down menu.
4. Click “Continue”.

5. You’ll then be asked to sign in to Light Blue. NB. If you’ve previously created a zap using Light Blue, you’ll be able to simply select the account that’s already connected rather than having to sign in again.
6. A pop-up window will appear asking for your API key; this can be found in the “Light Blue API and integrations” area of your Light Blue account.
7. Once you’ve clicked the “Yes, Continue” button your Light Blue and Zapier accounts will be connected.

8. Then we need to set up the details of the action; complete the “Contact First Name”, “Contact Last Name” and “Contact Email” fields. NB. The greyed-out details are from the test trigger contact.
9. Scroll down and if your form has a message field add that to the “Message” field.
10. Add ‘ContactSource’ to the “Additional Parameter” field and give it a name so that you know they’re a Facebook lead.
11. Add any other Parameters that your form uses which you want to add to Light Blue. 👉 Here’s the full list of supported API parameters.
12. Click “Continue”.

13. When prompted, click the “Test Action button; Zapier will then test the action.
14. Once the test for the action has been successful we can give the zap a name and publish it.
15. Zapier will now automatically send new Facebook leads to Light Blue which will appear in your Light Blue Inbox; simply click on “Import”, followed by “Create New Contact”.

16. A Contact Record will then be automatically created for your Facebook Lead.

Quite often there can be a need to send your clients extra information that can’t be easily added to the body of an email; there’s simply too much detail to include!

For example, before you start to work together you may be sending them brochures and details of the packages you offer. In the lead-up to their session, there could be session guides or advice about what to wear. And afterwards, there could be specific instructions about viewing their gallery and how to order their products.

However, when using Light Blue it’s very easy to add these documents as attachments to your email.

Attaching a document

Documents can be attached to a standalone email or if it’s a document sent more regularly they can also be added to Email Templates; whichever you’re using the process is the same.

• Simply click on the “Add attachment …” link at the bottom of the email.
• Locate your document and attach it to the email.

• If you need to attach another, click on the “+” button.

• And if by mistake you’ve attached the wrong document, click on the document followed by the “-“ button!

Size limits for attachments

Large attachments are often rejected by email servers so Light Blue has set a total size limit for any attachments; if you’re using Light Blue’s servers the limit is 5MB and if you’re using your own, it’s 25MB.

If you’ve attached a file that’s too large to an Email Template the file name will appear in red.

And if you attempt to send an email with too large a file attached to it, a pop-up warning will appear and you won’t be able to send the email.

Sending large documents

If your document is larger than the maximum file size, you can host the document online, somewhere like Dropbox or Google Docs, and include a hyperlink to the file in your email.

Client portal emails

Attachments cannot be added to client portal emails; ie emails sent automatically as part of a Light Blue Form or Contract. However, you can still include a hyperlink to your file the same as you would for sending large documents as explained above.

If you use a third-party mailing list app in your business, it’s key that a contact’s opt-in status match in it and Light Blue. And whilst it’s possible to export CSV files from Light Blue and upload them to your third-party app or even make the individual changes yourself this is very much a manual process. To ensure complete synchronisation, creating a series of zaps within Zapier will automatically update a contact’s opt-in status across Light Blue and your mailing list app.

A lot of the time emails that you send. such as dealing with new enquiries, responding to questions from your clients, sending automated appointment reminders, and so on, are easily managed within Light Blue; those ‘everyday’ emails are exactly what it’s been designed to do.

However, for newsletters or other communications being sent to a larger group of contacts where the content is something that they may wish to opt out of receiving, you should be using a third-party mailing list app such as Mailchimp or Active Campaign. As well as giving them the ability to opt-out it also helps ensure your emails are received and protects your email account’s reputation.

This article will detail three different zaps you can use to automatically synchronise Light Blue and your mailing list app:

• Adding a contact to your mailing list app when you’ve checked the contact’s “Mailing List Opt-In” box in Light Blue or your contact has checked the “Mailing List Opt-In” box within a Light Blue form.
• Removing a contact from your mailing list app when they’ve said they no longer wish to hear from you and you’ve unchecked the “Mailing List Opt-In” box in Light Blue.
• Updating a contact’s “Mailing List Opt-In” box in Light Blue if they unsubscribe from your mailing list app.

You can of course perhaps only choose to set up the first zap, however creating all three will ensure Light Blue and your mailing list app are fully synchronised.

👉 Here’s an introduction to how Zapier works.
👉 And if you’ve not already got a Zapier account, here’s their website where you can create one.

NB. The Light Blue integration for Zapier is currently a “private” action, so you need to click the following link to add it to your Zapier account (instead of searching for Light Blue in Zapier); simply click the “Accept Invite & Build a Zap” button.

👉 Invite to use Light Blue on Zapier.

Adding a Light Blue contact to your mailing list

This zap will add a contact to your mailing list app when you’ve checked the contact’s “Mailing List Opt-In” box in Light Blue or your contact has checked the “Mailing List Opt-In” box within a Light Blue form.

1. Creating the trigger

1. In Zapier, click the “+ Create” button and choose “⚡️ New Zap” from the drop-down menu.

2. Start to type “Light Blue” in the search bar.
3. A few Light Blue options will be given so make sure you choose the one labelled ‘Latest’ with the most recent version number.

4. We then need to choose the event that triggers the action; from the drop-down menu choose “Updated Contact Mailing List Opt-In”.
5. Click “Continue”.

6. You’ll then be asked to sign into Light Blue; click the “Sign in” button. NB. If you’ve previously created a Light Blue zap, rather than signing in again you’ll be able to simply select the account that’s already connected.
7. A pop-up window will then appear asking for your API key; this can be found in the “Light Blue API and integrations” area of your Light Blue account.
8. Once you’ve clicked the “Yes, Continue” button your Light Blue and Zapier accounts will be connected.
9. To set up the details of the trigger, choose “Opted-In Contacts” from the drop-down menu.
10. Click “Continue”.

11. Click the “Test trigger” button; Zapier will then test the trigger and check it can find a new contact with the “Mailing List Opt-In” box checked.

12. Once It’s been successful, click “Continue”.

2. Creating the action

1. The next step is to connect Zapier to your mailing list app.
2. Start to type the name of it in the search bar and choose it from the options presented; in this article we’re using Mailchimp.

3. Choose the Event “Add/Update Subscriber” from the drop-down menu.
4. Click “Continue”.

5. You’ll then be asked to sign in to your mailing list app; in this case Mailchimp.
6. Click the “Sign in” button and follow the prompts to connect your account.
7. Once Zapier and your mailing list app account are connected, we need to set up the details of the action; start by choosing the mailing list you want to update in the Audience field.
8. Complete the Subscriber Email field. NB. The greyed-out details are from the test trigger contact.
9. Scroll down and complete the First Name and Last Name fields.
10. Click “Continue”.

11. When prompted, click the “Test Action button; Zapier will then test the action.
12. Once the test for the action has been successful we can give the zap a name and publish it; Zapier will now automatically add new Light Blue contacts with a checked “Mailing List Opt-In” box to your mailing list app.

Removing a Light Blue contact from your mailing list

This zap will remove a contact from your mailing list app when they’ve said they no longer wish to hear from you and you’ve unchecked the “Mailing List Opt-In” box in Light Blue.

1. Creating the trigger

1. Click the “+ Create” button and choose “⚡️ New Zap” from the drop-down menu.
2. Start to type “light blue” in the search bar and choose the one labelled ‘Latest’ with the most recent version number.
3. From the drop-down menu choose the event that triggers the action; “Updated Contact Mailing List Opt-In”.
4. From the drop-down menu, choose the Light Blue account you linked to Zapier in the first zap.
5. Then to set up the details of the trigger, choose “Opted-Out Contacts” from the drop-down menu.
6. Click “Continue”.

7. Click the “Test trigger” button; Zapier will then test the trigger and check it can find a contact with the “Mailing List Opt-In” box unchecked.
8. Once It’s been successful, click “Continue”.

2. Creating the action

1. The next step is to connect Zapier to your mailing list app; start to type the name of it in the search bar and choose it from the options presented; in this article we’re using Mailchimp.
2. Choose the Event “Unsubscribe Email” from the drop-down menu.
3. Click “Continue”.

4. From the drop-down menu, choose the mailing list app account you linked to Zapier in the first zap.
5. To set up the details of the action, start by choosing the mailing list you want to update in the Audience field; this should be the same as the one used in the first zap.
6. Complete the Subscriber Email field. NB. The greyed-out details are from the test trigger contact.
7. Set the Delete Member field to “False” if you want to unsubscribe rather than fully delete the contact from your mailing list app. If however, you want to delete them completely set it to “True”.
8. Click “Continue”.

9. When prompted, click the “Test Action button”; Zapier will then test the action.
10. Once the test for the action has been successful we can give the zap a name and publish it; Zapier will now automatically unsubscribe/delete Light Blue contacts with an unchecked “Mailing List Opt-In” box from your mailing list app.

Updating Light Blue if a contact unsubcribes from your mailing list

This zap will update a contact’s “Mailing List Opt-In” box in Light Blue if they unsubscribe from your mailing list app.

1. Creating the trigger

1. Click the “+ Create” button and choose “⚡️ New Zap” from the drop-down menu.
2. Start to type the name of your mailing list app in the search bar and choose it from the options presented; in this article we’re using Mailchimp.
3. From the drop-down menu choose the event that triggers the action; “New Unsubscriber”.

4. From the drop-down menu, choose the mailing list account you linked to Zapier in the previous zaps.
5. To set up the details of the trigger, choose the mailing list being used in the Audience field; this should be the same as the one used in the previous zaps.
6. Click “Continue”.
7. Click the “Test trigger” button; Zapier will then test the trigger and check it can find a recent contact on your mailing list who has unsubscribed.
8. Once It’s been successful, click “Continue”.

2. Creating the action

1. The next step is to connect Zapier to Light Blue; start to type “light blue” in the search bar and choose the one labelled ‘Latest’ with the most recent version number.
2. Choose the Event “Set Contact Mailing List Opt-In” from the drop-down menu.
3. Click “Continue”.

4. From the drop-down menu, choose the account you linked to Zapier in the previous zaps.
5. To set up the details of the action, firstly complete the Email field. NB. The greyed-out details are from the test trigger contact.
6. Then set the Opt-In Status field to “False” to uncheck the contact’s “Mailing List Opt-In” box in Light Blue.
7. Click “Continue”.

8. When prompted, click the “Test Action button; Zapier will then test the action.
9. Once the test for the action has been successful we can give the zap a name and publish it; Zapier will now automatically uncheck the contact’s “Mailing List Opt-In” box in Light Blue when they unsubscribe from your mailing list.

👉 If you’re interested in other ways you can use Zapier, this article explains how to add a specific set of Light Blue contacts to your mailing list app.

You may well have a newsletter that goes to all your subscribed contacts, however at times you might want to target a specific set of contacts with a particular marketing campaign; perhaps one to your VIP high-spend clients, maybe engaging with competition entries or potentially sending an invitation to past clients that you’ve not heard from in some time.

Now whilst Light Blue is designed to send ‘everyday’ emails to your clients and prospects (and is very good at doing so!) it is not intended to be used for marketing campaigns like these.

The great news however is that it’s completely possible to update your third-party mailing list app, such as Mailchimp or Active Campaign, with your specific set of contacts!

There are a couple of ways of going about this:

• For a ‘one-off’ marketing activity or campaign, exporting a CSV file of the specific set of contacts from Light Blue and importing it into your mail list app is the most straightforward.
• However, if you’re planning to continually add contacts to this specific set, spending a bit of time setting up Zapier to automatically add them to your mailing list app is a worthwhile investment.

We’ll cover both in this article.

Exporting/Importing a CSV file

This is a great option for a ‘one-off’ marketing activity or campaign you’re doing. It’s also ideal if you’ve already identified and perhaps tagged the specific set of contacts that you’re wanting to email. And the extra benefit is that it only needs your time to set it up!

1. First of all, you need to create the list of Contact Records that you want to include in the CSV file. This can be done by using the Query/Quick Queries feature in Light Blue. 👉 If you’re unsure about using the Query/Quick Queries feature do read this article. Any criteria can be used; perhaps identifying those contacts that have spent over a certain value in the last 6 months or you may have already assigned a Tag to the ones you’re wanting to email which you can then use in the Query. 👉 If you’re not familiar with how Tags work, this article explains how to use them.
2. Once you have the list, simply click on “Records” in the menu bar, then choose “Export” followed by “Email Addresses…” from the drop-down menus; in the example below we’ve used a Quick Query of Contact Records tagged with “Repeat client”.

3. This CSV file can now be uploaded to your mailing list app. Remember to add a tag to the contacts so the specific set can easily be identified and make sure the CSV columns match the correct contact information field in your mailing list app.
4. In the Mailchimp example below, the tag “Repeat client” has been added to the contacts. Then the first and last name and email address CSV columns are correctly matched to the mailing list fields.

Using Zapier to connect Light Blue to your mailing list app

If you’re continually adding contacts to a specific set of contacts, it’s worthwhile having a link between Light Blue and your mailing list app so that it’s automatically updated.

We can do this by creating a zap in Zapier to add to/update your mailing list app whenever the appropriate Tag is added to a Contact Record in Light Blue.

👉 If you’re not familiar with Zapier, here’s an introduction to how it works.

1. If you’ve not already got a Tag for your specific set of contacts add one in Tags in the Business Setup section in Preferences.
2. Click on “Add Record”.
3. Name your Tag and change the colour if needed.

NB. If you’ve already got Contact Records in Light Blue with the appropriate Tag applied to them and they are not tagged accordingly in your mailing list app, you will need to follow the steps in the ‘Exporting/Importing a CSV file’ section above first; zaps will only work for ongoing additions to the specific set of contacts.

Currently, the Light Blue integration for Zapier is a “private” action, so you need to click the following link to add it to your Zapier account (instead of searching for Light Blue in Zapier); simply click the “Accept Invite & Build a Zap” button.

👉 Invite to use Light Blue on Zapier.
👉 And if you’ve not already got a Zapier account, here’s their website where you can create one.

Once you’re logged into Zapier there are two elements to the zap.

1. Creating the trigger; a specific Tag is added to a Contact Record in Light Blue.
2. Creating the action; adding/updating the contact in your mailing list app.

Both elements need to be created for the zap to work, however, we’ve broken down the steps into the two elements to make the process a bit easier to follow.

1. Creating the trigger; the specific set of contacts Tag is added to a Light Blue Contact Record

1. Click the “+ Create” button and choose “⚡️ New Zap” from the drop-down menu.
2. Start to type “Light Blue” in the search bar.
3. A few Light Blue options will be given so make sure you choose the one labelled ‘Latest’ with the most recent version number.
4. We’re now going to choose the event that triggers the action so from the drop-down menu choose “New Tag Added to Contact”.
5. Click “Continue”.

6. You’ll then be asked to sign into Light Blue; click the “Sign in” button. NB. If you’ve previously created a Light Blue zap, rather than signing in again you’ll be able to simply select the account that’s already connected.
7. A pop-up window will then appear asking for your API key; this can be found in the “Light Blue API and integrations” area of your Light Blue account.
8. Once you’ve clicked the “Yes, Continue” button your Light Blue and Zapier accounts will be connected.

9. Then we need to set up the details of the trigger; from the Tag field choose the specific set of contacts Tag from your Light Blue account, in the example below it’s “Repeat client”.
10. In the Mailing List Opt-In field choose which Contacts you want to add; this is the “Mailing List Opt-In” checkbox in Light Blue.
11. Click “Continue”.

12. Click the “Test trigger” button; Zapier will then test the trigger and check it can find a new contact with the “Mailing List Opt-In” box checked.
13. Once It’s been successful, click “Continue”.

2. Creating the action; adding/amending the contact in your mailing list app

1. The next step is to connect Zapier to your mailing list app; start to type the name of it in the search bar and choose it from the options presented, in this article we’re using Mailchimp.
2. Choose the Event “Add Subscriber to Tag” from the drop-down menu.
3. Click “Continue”.

4. You’ll then be asked to sign in to your mailing list app. NB. If you’ve previously created a zap using this, you’ll be able to simply select the account that’s already connected rather than having to sign in again.
5. Click the “Sign in” button and follow the prompts to connect your account.
6. Then we need to set up the details of the action; start by choosing the mailing list you want to update in the Audience field.
7. Choose the tag from your mailing list app in the Tag field; in this case “Repeat client”. NB. This will only show tags that are already in your mailing list app. If the one you’re working on isn’t showing make sure that’s set up in your mailing list app before completing this step.
8. Complete the Email Address field. NB. The greyed-out details are from the test trigger contact.
9. Click “Continue”.

10. When prompted, click the “Test Action button; Zapier will then test the action.
11. Once the test for the action has been successful we can give the zap a name and publish it.
12. Zapier will now automatically add/update a contact when you add the “Repeat client” Tag to a Contact Record in Light Blue; simply click on “Select tags …”, check the “Repeat client” box and click “Done”.

👉 If you’re interested in other ways you can use Zapier, this article explains how you can use the “Mailing List Opt-In” box to add Light Blue contacts to your mailing list app.

Below is a workflow that you can add to your own Light Blue account and apply to all your upcoming shoots, which will then email your clients at the right time to update them on the progress of their images and remind them of your turnaround times. That means you don’t need to constantly answer questions about when images will be ready, saving you valuable time and energy.

Downloading and installing the workflow

1. Download the workflow bundle from here (download the entire .zip file)
2. Unlock/expand the .zip file and save the enclosed folder to your desktop
3. In Light Blue 2021.2 (or later) click Records > Import > Light Blue Template(s)
4. Select all of the files within the folder you saved in step 2.
5. Open Light Blue’s Workflow preferences and see that the “-sample editing progress update” workflow has been added to your workflows
6. Change the Type of the workflow to be a “Shoot Date Workflow” – these messages will be sent relative to the date of the shoot.
7. Read the steps below for customising the templates

Customising the templates to suit your business

The email templates within the workflow are written as a good starting point, but you should review them to make sure they are accurate for you (i.e. you may operate a different turn around time on your editing) and fit your tone of voice (the way that I write may not sound like the way you write).

Here’s how to check & customise the workflow & templates:

1. Select the “-sample editing progress update” workflow in your Workflows preferences
2. Double-click on the first email, which is scheduled for the day after the shoot, click on the “Open Template” button
3. Read through the email template, adjust the wording so that it sounds like it’s from you and the details about estimated delivery times are correct (different people have different turnaround times, so we’ve used a typical example)
4. Return to the Workflows preferences, select the “-sample editing progress update” workflow again
5. Double-click on the first email, currently scheduled for 10 days after the shoot.
6. Change the Offset if your clients are usually getting in touch for an update earlier than 10 days after the shoot, and/or your delivery time is shorter than 10 days. The point of this message is to contact your client before they feel like they need to contact you.
7. Click on the “Open Template” button
8. Read through the email template, again, adjust the wording so that it sounds like it’s from you and the details about estimated delivery times are correct.
9. You’re now ready to add the workflow to your existing shoots.

Adding the workflow to existing shoots

This workflow pack is specifically designed for wedding photography. If you shoot various different types of work, you may only wish to apply this workflow to your weddings.

The bundle you installed includes a query that finds all confirmed weddings that are happening after today. Here’s the steps to apply the workflow to all of those shoots:

1. Go to the Shoots section of Light Blue
2. In the left-hand column, at the bottom of the Saved Queries list, click on the query called “Confirmed Weddings after Today”
3. Check the list of shoots to make sure that it’s accurate
4. Click on the Records menu > Add to Found Set > Workflow
5. Single-click on the “-sample editing progress update” workflow – don’t double-click
6. Change the Relative to field to “Shoot Start Date”
7. Then click add
8. The workflow will now get added to all of your weddings that are confirmed and in the future, emails will be sent to your clients automatically the day after the shoot & 10 days after the shoot (or whenever you changed the offset to when customising the workflow).

Updating your existing shoot workflow for new bookings

To incorporate the email templates in to your existing shoot workflow, open your workflow preferences, select your existing shoot workflow and add the additional steps to the workflow using the email templates in the bundle.

Note that changing a workflow doesn’t affect shoots that already have that workflow applied. These changes will affect shoots that are booked after making the change.

Using email template snippets

The bundle also includes an email snippet which you can include in email conversations that you’re having with your clients. This is useful for delivering a consistent message to your clients without having to type the same thing again and again.

Check that the snippet’s wording is suitable by opening the Email Templates preferences, selecting the template called “-sample snippet editing turnaround” and then tweaking the template to suit you.

To use the snippet, create an email (or start replying to a client’s email) in Light Blue, start typing your message then click on the Insert Email Template button and choose the snippet.

Finish writing your email and hit send.

What are the limits?

Currently, these limits are:
• 50 emails/hour
• 75 emails/day

More details

Emails that are sent automatically by our services (e.g. any autoresponder you’ve set up for your contact forms, online contract signing notification emails, online invoice payments receipts, etc) do not count towards those limits.

We expect Light Blue users to ensure that they’re only sending high quality emails via our services and that their recipients are expecting to receive them, so these limits have proved to high enough for the vast majority of our customers.

Reaching the email sending limits

In the rare cases where a customer hits one of these limits, we work with them to understand the kinds of email that they’re sending and can either adjust the limit or recommend that they use a different tool to send some of their emails. For example, we recommend that in situations where you want to send the same email to a number of clients at the same time, you use a dedicated mass emailing tool such as Mailchimp or ActiveCampaign: using a dedicated mass mailing service for this type of message will be more reliable than trying to use your own mail server and avoids the risks of having either your email account or our servers flagged up as being a potential spammer.

You can add images to every type of email in Light Blue (including email templates), as well as to email signatures.

The basics of adding an image

To add an image, set your cursor to wherever you’d like the image to appear, then click on the “Insert Image button” in the toolbar.

Then you can choose a file from your computer to upload into your email/template.

Using your own hosted image

By default, when you add an image to an email, Light Blue will upload the image to our servers. If your image is already publicly available online elsewhere (e.g. on your own web server) then you can enter the URL for the image instead.

The image must be able to be accessed via that URL which will load just the image and nothing else. Services like Google Drive and Dropbox are not suitable for this.

Floating images to the side of some text

To add an image that you want to sit beside some text, perhaps in your email signature, follow these steps:

• Insert the image above the text you’d like it to sit beside
• Click on the inserted image
• Choose the left or right align option that appears over the image

A mail-merge tag is a special piece of text between a couple of % signs that can be added to a template (like an email, text message or contract) and will be replaced with information from Light Blue when the template is used.

For example, adding %ContactFirstName% within an email template will use the contact’s first name when the template is used.

Adding mail-merge tags

When adding mail-merge tags to emails, text messages and contracts, you’ll find an “Insert Mail-Merge Tag” button which presents a searchable list of tags that you can use.

Adding to emails

When designing an email template, add a mail-merge tag into your template by clicking on the “Insert Mail-Merge Tag” button below the email body and then searching for the tag that you want to use.

If want to add some information into a message that you’re currently writing, click on the “Insert Mail-Merge Value” button below the email body. Light Blue will add the relevant piece of information into your email to save you from leaving the email to search for it.

Adding to text messages

When designing a text message template, add a mail-merge tag into your template by clicking on the “Insert Mail-Merge Tag” button at the bottom of the screen and then searching for the tag that you’re interested in.

If want to add some information into a message that you’re currently writing, click on the “Insert Mail-Merge Value” button at the bottom of the text message window. Light Blue will add the relevant piece of information into your email to save you from leaving the email to search for it.

Adding to contracts & forms

To include a mail-merge tag in the text of your contract, click on the “Insert Mail-Merge Tag” button at the top of the contract template toolbar, then search for the tag that you want to use.

Note that contracts can use Contract, Shoot, and Contact tags.

Including a mail-merge tag in one of the email’s that are sent as part of the contract signing or form publication process is the same as adding a mail-merge tag to an email.

Adding to document templates

You should type mail-merge tags into your document manually, rather than copying and pasting from the list below.

Behind the scenes RTF documents can sometimes put formatting tags within the tags themselves, which will break the merge, but that’s made much less likely if you type the tags in manually.

Learn more about mail-merge documents, here.

Some helpful notes about mail-merge tags

We’ve got lots of mail-merge tags you can use, so getting information out of Light Blue and into an email, text message, or document is easy. 

Before we list them all, a few notes:

• To use any of these tags, put % signs before and after them (eg %ContactFirstName%).
• Tags that are presented in grey can’t be used in automated messages sent by our servers, such as workflow messages or online payment receipt emails.
• Tags marked with a * can only be used in table rows, and will repeat. The tag needs to be in the second or subsequent table row. 
• All financial tags will be preceded by the relevant currency symbol.
• When you’re adding Contact tags, preceding them with GroupHead: will use content from the relevant contact’s group head record.
• These tags are designed to be included in documents, emails & contracts that are created from Light Blue. If you want to send data into Light Blue via our API from an external source, you can read more about our API supported parameters here.

Tags which end with ‘Date’

Any tag which ends ‘Date’ can also end ‘DateText’. Using the ‘Date’ form of the tag will give you the short date; using the ‘DateText’ will give you the long date. As an example, %CurrentDate% could give either ’01/04/2013′ if you use dd/mm/yyyy format or ’04/01/2013′ if you use mm/dd/yyyy format, and on the same day %CurrentDateText% would give 1 April 2013.

Any tag which ends ‘Date’ can have maths applied to it, to add or subtract days, weeks or months. The format to add one day, month or year to CurrentDateText is %CurrentDateText;+1d%, %CurrentDateText;+1m% and %CurrentDateText;+1y% respectively; to subtract one day, month or year, it’s %CurrentDateText;-1d%, %CurrentDateText;-1m% or %CurrentDateText;-1y%.

Any tag which ends ‘Date’ can also end in ‘DateYear’, ‘DateMonth’ or ‘DateDay’ and will display just the year, month or day for that tag.

Contacts with roles in a shoot

When using an email, text message, form or contract template that’s linked to a shoot record, it’s possible to refer contacts who have different roles within that shoot.

The contacts must be added to the Linked Records panel of the shoot and have a role assigned to them.

Tags follow this format: %ContactRole:ContactRoleName:ContactMailMergeTag%

For example:

• %ContactRole:Mother:ContactFirstName%
• %ContactRole:Baby:ContactFirstName%
• %ContactRole:Partner:ContactFirstName%

Address tags

Any tag which ends ‘Address’ can also end ‘AddressCommas’. By default, an address will be separated by return characters; if you use ‘AddressCommas’ then you’ll get an address on a single line, with the elements of the address separated by commas. 

Currency tags

Mail-merge tags for currency values (e.g. ShootSalesTotal) are usually formatted with your selected currency value (e.g. £12.34, $12.34, €12,34).

You can append NoCurrencySymbol to the tag if you don’t want to include the currency symbol, e.g. ShootSalesTotalNoCurrencySymbol. You can append ZeroBlank to the tag if you want a value of zero to be blank instead of, for example, $0.00.

Mail-merge tags that can be used in Light Blue

Tags that can be used in any document

• BusinessName: Your business name, as set in Preferences.
• BusinessWebsite: Your business website address, as set in Preferences.
• BusinessAddress: Your business postal address, as set in Preferences.
• CurrentDate: Today’s date.
• CurrentTime: The time now.
• CurrentUserEmail: The email address of the user that’s currently logged in.
• CurrentUserFirstName: The first name of the user that’s currently logged in.
• CurrentUserFullName: The full name of the user that’s currently logged in.
• CurrentUserLastName: The last name of the user that’s currently logged in.
• CurrentUserPhone: The first phone number of the user that’s currently logged in.
• Section: The name of the section you’re on (such as Shoot, Contact etc.) 

Contact tags

These tags can be used when adding a document to a Contact, Shoot, Quote, Sale or Payment. Tags not marked * can also be added to contract templates. When used in a Shoot or contract context, the tags refer to the first contact linked to the shoot; when used in a Sale context, they refer to the billing contact. 

• ContactAddress: The first address of the contact (including company).
• ContactAgeNextBirthday: The contact’s age at their next birthday.
• ContactAgeWithMonths: The contact’s age.
• ContactBirthDate: The contact’s date of birth.
• ContactBirthDateDay: The day of the contact’s date of birth.
• ContactBirthDateMonth: The month of the contact’s date of birth.
• ContactBirthDateYear: The year of the contact’s date of birth.
• ContactCompany: The ‘Company’ of the first address of the contact.
• ContactEmail: The first email address of the contact.
• ContactFirstName: The first name of the contact, or the first names of the contacts listed as ‘Bride’ and ‘Groom’, if adding from a wedding shoot to which they’re linked.
• ContactFullName: The full name of the contact, or the full names of the contacts listed as ‘Bride’ and ‘Groom’, if adding from a wedding shoot to which they’re linked. 
• ContactIncomingPaymentUnallocatedSum: The sum of unallocated amounts from incoming payments for the contact. 
• ContactIsCompany: ‘Yes’, if the contact is a company.
• ContactJobTitle: The job title of the contact, or the job titles of the contacts listed as ‘Bride’ and ‘Groom’, if adding from a wedding shoot to which they’re linked.
• ContactLastName: The last name of the contact, or the last names of the contacts listed as ‘Bride’ and ‘Groom’, if adding from a wedding shoot to which they’re linked.
• ContactMaidenName: The maiden name of the contact, or the maiden name of the first linked contact specified as ‘Bride’ (if adding from a wedding shoot).
• ContactMailingList: ‘Yes’ if the contact is on the mailing list. 
• ContactMethod*: The phone, email address or website for the contact method.
• ContactMethodLabel*: The label for the contact method.
• ContactMethodType*: The type of contact method (‘phone’, ’email’ or ‘website’).
• ContactNameAddress: The name, company and first address of the contact.
• ContactNetPurchasesTotal: The net sum of all the purchases made from the contact. 
• ContactNetSalesTotal: The net sum of all sales made by the contact.
• ContactNextAppointmentDescription: The description of the next appointment on the contact’s Activity panel.
• ContactNextAppointmentEndTime: The end time of the next appointment on the contact’s Activity panel. 
• ContactNextAppointmentStart: The date and start time of the next appointment on the contact’s Activity panel.
• ContactNextAppointmentStartDate: The date of the next appointment on the contact’s Activity panel.
• ContactNextAppointmentStartTime: The start time of the next appointment on the contact’s Activity panel. 
• ContactNextAppointmentCompany: The company line of the address that’s associated with the next appointment linked to this contact.
• ContactNextAppointmentAddress1: The first line of the address that’s associated with the next appointment linked to this contact.
• ContactNextAppointmentAddress2: The second line of the address that’s associated with the next appointment linked to this contact.
• ContactNextAppointmentAddress3: The third line of the address that’s associated with the next appointment linked to this contact.
• ContactNextAppointmentCity: The city line of the address that’s associated with the next appointment linked to this contact.
• ContactNextAppointmentPostCode: The post code of the address that’s associated with the next appointment linked to this contact.
• ContactNextConfirmedAppointmentDescription: The description of the next confirmed appointment on the contact’s Activity panel.
• ContactNextConfirmedAppointmentEndTime: The end time of the next confirmed appointment on the contact’s Activity panel. 
• ContactNextConfirmedAppointmentStart: The date and start time of the next confirmed appointment on the contact’s Activity panel.
• ContactNextConfirmedAppointmentStartDate: The date of the next confirmed appointment on the contact’s Activity panel.
• ContactNextConfirmedAppointmentStartTime: The start time of the next confirmed appointment on the contact’s Activity panel. 
• ContactNextConfirmedAppointmentCompany: The company line of the address that’s associated with the next confirmed appointment linked to this contact.
• ContactNextConfirmedAppointmentAddress1: The first line of the address that’s associated with the next confirmed appointment linked to this contact.
• ContactNextConfirmedAppointmentAddress2: The second line of the address that’s associated with the next confirmed appointment linked to this contact.
• ContactNextConfirmedAppointmentAddress3: The third line of the address that’s associated with the next confirmed appointment linked to this contact.
• ContactNextConfirmedAppointmentCity: The city line of the address that’s associated with the next confirmed appointment linked to this contact.
• ContactNextConfirmedAppointmentPostCode: The post code of the address that’s associated with the next confirmed appointment linked to this contact.
• ContactNextTaskDescription: The description of the next task on the contact’s Activity panel.
• ContactNextTaskDueDate: The due date of the next task on the contact’s Activity panel. 
• ContactNotes: The notes for the contact.
• ContactOutgoingPaymentUnallocatedSum: The sum of unallocated amounts from outgoing payments to the contact.
• ContactPhone: The first phone number of the contact.
• ContactPurchasesTotal: The sum of all purchases made from the contact.
• ContactPurchasesUnpaidTotal: The sum of all unpaid amounts for purchases made from the contact.  
• ContactRef: The reference number of the contact.
• ContactSalesTotal: The sum of all sales made by the contact.
• ContactSalesUnpaidTotal: The sum of all unpaid amounts for sales made by the contact. 
• ContactSource: The ‘Source’ of the contact.
• ContactStatus: The status of the contact. 
• ContactTag: The tags linked to the contact, separated by commas.
• ContactTitle: The title of the contact.
• ContactVATNumber: The contact’s VAT number.
• ContactWebsite: The first website address of the contact.
• And any Contact Custom Fields that you’ve created:
  • ContactCustomAmountX (where X is 1 through 5): The value from the relevant custom amount fields for the contact. The labels for each custom text field are eg ContactCustomAmountLabelX.
  • ContactCustomDateX (where X is 1 through 5): The date from the relevant custom date fields for the contact. The labels for each custom text field are eg ContactCustomDateLabelX.
  • ContactCustomTextX (where X is 1 through 10): The text from the relevant custom text fields for the contact. The labels for each custom text field are eg ContactCustomTextLabelX.
  • 👉 If you’re not familiar with Custom Fields this article explains what they are and how they work.

Shoot tags

These tags can be used when adding a document to a Shoot, Quote or Sale. Tags not marked * can also be added to contract templates. 

• ShootAcceptedQuoteTotal: The gross total for all of the accepted quotes for this shoot.
• ShootBrideFirstName: The first name of the first contact linked to the shoot whose Role is “bride”.
• ShootBrideLastName: The last name of the first contact linked to the shoot whose Role is “bride”.
• ShootCancelledDate: The date the shoot was cancelled.
• ShootConfirmedDate: The date the shoot was confirmed.
• ShootContacts: A list of the contacts linked to this shoot.
• ShootEndDate: The end date of the last session linked to the shoot.
• ShootEndTime: The end time of the last session linked to the shoot.
• ShootEnquiryDate: The enquiry date of the shoot (eg 16/05/2009 or 05/16/2009, depending on your internationalisation settings).
• ShootEnquiryReferredBy: Who the shoot was referred by.
• ShootEnquirySource: The enquiry source of the shoot.
• ShootGroomFirstName: The first name of the first contact linked to the shoot whose Role is “groom”.
• ShootGroomLastName: The last name of the first contact linked to the shoot whose Role is “groom”.
• ShootLocation: The location of the shoot.
• ShootNetAcceptedQuoteTotal: The net total for all of the quotes that have been accepted for this shoot.
• ShootNetSalesTotal: The total net sales for the shoot. 
• ShootNextAppointmentDescription: The description of the next appointment linked to this shoot.
• ShootNextAppointmentEndTime: The end time of the next appointment linked to this shoot.
• ShootNextAppointmentStart: The date and start time of the next appointment linked to this shoot.
• ShootNextAppointmentStartDate: The date of the next appointment linked to this shoot.
• ShootNextAppointmentStartTime: The start time of the next appointment linked to this shoot.
• ShootNextAppointmentCompany: The company line of the address that’s associated with the next appointment linked to this shoot.
• ShootNextAppointmentAddress1: The first line of the address that’s associated with the next appointment linked to this shoot.
• ShootNextAppointmentAddress2: The second line of the address that’s associated with the next appointment linked to this shoot.
• ShootNextAppointmentAddress3: The third line of the address that’s associated with the next appointment linked to this shoot.
• ShootNextAppointmentCity: The city line of the address that’s associated with the next appointment linked to this shoot.
• ShootNextAppointmentPostCode: The post code of the address that’s associated with the next appointment linked to this shoot.
• ShootNextConfirmedAppointmentDescription: The description of the next confirmed appointment linked to this shoot.
• ShootNextConfirmedAppointmentEndTime: The end time of the next confirmed appointment linked to this shoot.
• ShootNextConfirmedAppointmentStart: The date and start time of the next confirmed appointment linked to this shoot.
• ShootNextConfirmedAppointmentStartDate: The date of the next confirmed appointment linked to this shoot.
• ShootNextConfirmedAppointmentStartTime: The start time of the next confirmed appointment linked to this shoot.
• ShootNextConfirmedAppointmentCompany: The company line of the address that’s associated with the next confirmed appointment linked to this shoot.
• ShootNextConfirmedAppointmentAddress1: The first line of the address that’s associated with the next confirmed appointment linked to this shoot.
• ShootNextConfirmedAppointmentAddress2: The second line of the address that’s associated with the next confirmed appointment linked to this shoot.
• ShootNextConfirmedAppointmentAddress3: The third line of the address that’s associated with the next confirmed appointment linked to this shoot.
• ShootNextConfirmedAppointmentCity: The city line of the address that’s associated with the next confirmed appointment linked to this shoot.
• ShootNextConfirmedAppointmentPostCode: The post code of the address that’s associated with the next confirmed appointment linked to this shoot.
• ShootNextTaskDescription: The description of the next task that is due for the shoot.
• ShootNextTaskDueDate: The due date of the next task that is due for the shoot.
• ShootNotes: The notes for the shoot.
• ShootOutstandingBalance: The total outstanding amount for all of this shoot’s invoices.
• ShootPaidTotal: The total amount paid for all of this shoot’s invoices.
• ShootPartner1FirstName: The first name of the first contact linked to the shoot whose Role is “bride”, “groom”, or “partner”.
• ShootPartner1LastName: The last name of the first contact linked to the shoot whose Role is “bride”, “groom”, or “partner”.
• ShootPartner2FirstName: The first name of the second contact linked to the shoot whose Role is “bride”, “groom”, or “partner”.
• ShootPartner2LastName: The last name of the second contact linked to the shoot whose Role is “bride”, “groom”, or “partner”.
• ShootRef: The reference number of the shoot.
• ShootRequest*: A shoot request.
• ShootRequests: All the shoot requests as a block.
• ShootResourceList: The list of abbreviations for the resources linked to the shoot.
• ShootSalesTotal: The total gross sales for the shoot.
• ShootSchedule: All the schedule items for the shoot as a block.
• ShootScheduleAddress*: The address for a schedule item.
• ShootScheduleDate*: The date for a schedule item.
• ShootScheduleDescription*: The description for a schedule item.
• ShootScheduleTime*: The time for a schedule item.
• ShootSessionCount: The number of sessions linked to the shoot.
• ShootSessions: The date for the shoot, taking into account sessions.
• ShootSessionsLong: The date for the shoot, taking into account sessions, formatted on one line with commas between sessions, with full details of each session.
• ShootSessionsLongParagraph: The date for the shoot, taking into account sessions, formatted with one session on each line, with full details of each session.
• ShootStaffList: The list of abbreviations for the staff linked to the shoot.
• ShootStart: The start date and time of the first session linked to the shoot.
• ShootStartDate: The start date of the first session linked to the shoot.
• ShootStartTime: The start time of the first session linked to the shoot.
• ShootStatus: The status of the shoot.
• ShootTitle: The title of the shoot.
• ShootType: The name of the shoot type of the shoot.
• ShootWebLogon: The name of the web gallery folder for the shoot.
• And any Shoot Custom Fields that you’ve created:
  • ShootCustomAmountX (where X is 1 through 5): The value from the relevant custom amount fields for the shoot. The labels for each custom text field are eg ShootCustomAmountLabelX.
  • ShootCustomDateX (where X is 1 through 5): The date from the relevant custom date fields for the shoot. The labels for each custom text field are eg ShootCustomDateLabelX.
  • ShootCustomTextX (where X is 1 through 10): The text from the relevant custom text fields for the shoot. The labels for each custom text field are eg ShootCustomTextLabelX.
  • 👉 If you’re not familiar with Custom Fields this article explains what they are and how they work.

Event tags

There are some special tags which can be used in workflow messages for when you’re wanting to send event reminders. You can also use tags from the record to which you’re adding the text message (eg Shoot tags if you’re adding it to a Shoot, Sale tags if you’re adding it to a Sale, and so on.)

• EventType: The type of event (‘session’ or ‘appointment’)
• EventStartDate: The start date of the event.
• EventStartTime: The start time of the event.
• EventStart: The combined start date and time of the event.
• EventEndDate: The end date of the event.
• EventEndTime: The end time of the event.
• EventStartAndEnd: The start date and time and end date and time of the event.

Contract tags

These tags can be used in Contract Templates.

• ContractSignatoryFirstNames: the first names of the signatories for the contract.
• ContractSignatoryFullNames: the full names of the signatories for the contract.
• ContractSignatoryLastNames: the last names of the signatories for the contract.

Quote tags

These tags can be used when adding a document to a Quote. See also Shoot tags and Contact tags.

• QuoteBalanceDueDate: The due date for the balance for the quote.
• QuoteBalanceGross: The gross amount of the balance.
• QuoteBalanceNet: The net amount of the balance.
• QuoteBookingFee: The gross value of the booking fee.
• QuoteBookingFeeDescription: the booking fee description.
• QuoteBookingFeeGrossTotal: The gross total of the booking fee.
• QuoteBookingFeeName: The name of the booking fee.
• QuoteBookingFeeNetTotal: The net total of the booking fee.
• QuoteBookingFeeTaxName: The tax name of the booking fee.
• QuoteBookingFeeTaxTotal: The tax total of the booking fee.
• QuoteContactAddress: The address of the contact linked to the quote.
• QuoteContactCompany: The company of the contact linked to the quote.
• QuoteContactName: The name of the contact linked to the quote.
• QuoteContactNameAddress: The name and address of the contact linked to the quote.
• QuoteDate: The date of the quote.
• QuoteDescription: The description for the quote.
• QuoteDiscountAmount: The discount amount for the quote.
• QuoteDiscountDescription: The description for the discount for the quote.
• QuoteDiscountPercentage: The percentage of the discount for the quote. 
• QuoteGrossTotal: The gross total for the quote. 
• QuoteLineDescription*: The description for the quote line. 
• QuoteLineExcludeFromDiscount*: ‘Yes’ if the ‘Exclude from discount’ box is ticked for the quote line.
• QuoteLinePrice*: The price for the quote line.
• QuoteLineProduct*: The product on the quote line. 
• QuoteLineQuantity*: The quantity on the quote line. 
• QuoteLineTaxName*: The name of the tax or tax package applied to the quote line. 
• QuoteLineUnitPrice*: The unit price for the quote line.
• QuoteNetTotal: The net total for the quote. 
• QuoteNotes: The notes for the quote. 
• QuoteReference: The reference number of the quote.
• QuoteShootTitle: The title of the shoot linked to the quote.
• QuoteShootType: The shoot type of the shoot linked to the quote.
• QuoteTaxInclusive: ‘Yes’ if the quote is tax inclusive.
• QuoteTaxSummaryName*: The name of a tax applied to the quote. 
• QuoteTaxSummaryRate*: The percentage rate of a tax applied to the quote.
• QuoteTaxSummaryTotal*: The total of a tax applied to the quote.
• QuoteTaxTotal: The total of all taxes applied to the quote. 
• QuoteVATNumber: The contact’s VAT number.
• QuoteUndiscountedNetTotal: The net total of the quote before any discounts are applied.

Sale tags

These tags can be used when sending a message from or adding a document to a Sale. They’re also used in the automated receipt emails that are sent when a client pays an online invoice. See also Shoot tags and Contact tags.

• InvoiceHeading: The heading for the invoice, as set on the Finances panel of the Preferences pane. 
• SaleBillingAddress1: The address 1 for the billing contact for the sale.
• SaleBillingAddress2: The address 2 for the billing contact for the sale.
• SaleBillingAddress3: The address 3 for the billing contact for the sale.
• SaleBillingAddress: The billing address for the shipping contact for the sale.
• SaleBillingCity: The city for the billing contact for the sale.
• SaleBillingCompany: The company for the billing contact for the sale. 
• SaleBillingCountry: The country for the billing contact for the sale.
• SaleBillingCounty: The county for the billing contact for the sale.
• SaleBillingTitle: The title of the billing contact from the sale
• SaleBillingFirstName: Our best guess at the first name of the billing contact from the sale, split out from the full name. 
• SaleBillingLastName: Our best guess at the last name of the billing contact from the sale, split out from the full name. 
• SaleBillingName: The name of the billing contact for the sale. 
• SaleBillingNameAddress: The name and address of the billing contact for the sale. 
• SaleBillingPostcode: The postcode for the billing contact for the sale.
• SaleBillingVATNumber: The VAT number for the billing contact for the sale.
• SaleCartRef: The cart reference for the sale.
• SaleClientRef: The client reference for the sale.
• SaleCourierRef: The courier reference for the sale.
• SaleDiscountAmount: The discount amount for the sale.
• SaleDiscountDescription: The description of the discount for the sale. 
• SaleDiscountPercentage:  The percentage of the discount for the sale. 
• SaleGrossTotal: The gross total for the sale. 
• SaleInvoiceDate: The invoice date of the sale.
• SaleInvoiceNumber: The invoice number of the sale.
• SaleLegalText: The legal text for the sale, as set in the Preferences window.
• SaleLineDescription*: The description for the sale line. 
• SaleLineExcludeFromDiscount*: ‘Yes’ if the ‘Exclude from discount’ box is ticked for the sale line.
• SaleLineImage*: The picture for the sale line.
• SaleLinePrice*: The price for the sale line.
• SaleLineProduct*: The product on the sale line. 
• SaleLineProductPicture*: The product on the sale line, followed by the picture filename for the sale line in brackets.
• SaleLineQuantity*: The quantity on the sale line. 
• SaleLineTaxName*: The name of the tax or tax package applied to the sale line. 
• SaleLineUnitPrice*: The unit price for the sale line.
• SaleNetTotal: The net total for the sale. 
• SaleNotes: The notes for the sale. 
• SalePaidTotal: The total of all incoming payment allocations to the sale. 
• SaleNextPaymentDueDate: The due date for the next unpaid instalment for this sale.
• SaleFinalPaymentDueDate: The due date for the last instalment for this sale. 
• SalePaymentReceivedText: The payment received text for the sale, as set in the Preferences window. 
• SalePaymentText: The payment details text for the sale, as set in the Preferences window. 
• SalePlacedDate: The date the sale was placed. 
• SalePurchaseOrderRef: The purchase order reference for the sale.
• SaleQuoteRef: The quote reference of the quote linked to the sale.
• SaleReadyDate: The date the sale was ready.
• SaleReference*: The reference number for the sale. 
• SaleReferenceLabel*: The label for the reference number for the sale.
• SaleShippedDate: The date the sale was shipped. 
• SaleShippingAddress1: The address 1 for the shipping contact for the sale.
• SaleShippingAddress2: The address 2 for the shipping contact for the sale.
• SaleShippingAddress3: The address 3 for the shipping contact for the sale.
• SaleShippingAddress: The shipping address for the shipping contact for the sale.
• SaleShippingCity: The city for the shipping contact for the sale.
• SaleShippingCompany: The company for the shipping contact for the sale. 
• SaleShippingCountry: The country for the shipping contact for the sale.
• SaleShippingCounty: The county for the shipping contact for the sale.
• SaleShippingTitle: The title of the shipping contact from the sale
• SaleShippingFirstName: Our best guess at the first name of the shipping contact from the sale, split out from the full name. 
• SaleShippingLastName: Our best guess at the last name of the shipping contact from the sale, split out from the full name. 
• SaleShippingName: The name of the shipping contact for the sale. 
• SaleShippingNameAddress: The name and address of the shipping contact for the sale. 
• SaleShippingPostcode: The postcode for the shipping contact for the sale.
• SaleShootTitle: The shoot title of the shoot linked to the sale.
• SaleShootType: The shoot type of the shoot linked to the sale.
• SaleTaxInclusive: ‘Yes’ if the sale is tax inclusive.
• SaleTaxSummaryName*: The name of a tax applied to the sale. 
• SaleTaxSummaryRate*: The percentage rate of a tax applied to the sale.
• SaleTaxSummaryTotal*: The total of a tax applied to the sale.
• SaleTaxTotal: The total of all taxes applied to the sale. 
• SaleUndiscountedNetTotal: The net total of the sale before any discounts are applied.
• SaleUnpaidTotal: The total unpaid on the sale.

Purchase tags

These tags can be used when adding a document to a Purchase.

• PurchaseAddress1: The address 1 for the contact for the purchase. 
• PurchaseAddress2: The address 2 for the contact for the purchase. 
• PurchaseAddress3: The address 3 for the contact for the purchase. 
• PurchaseAddress: The address for the contact for the purchase. 
• PurchaseCategory: The category of the purchase.
• PurchaseCity: The city for the contact for the purchase. 
• PurchaseCompany: The company for the contact for the purchase.
• PurchaseCountry: The countryfor the contact for the purchase. 
• PurchaseCounty: The county for the contact for the purchase. 
• PurchaseDate: The date of the purchase.
• PurchaseDescription: The description for the purchase.
• PurchaseFullName: The full name for the contact for the purchase.
• PurchaseGrossTotal: The gross total for the purchase.
• PurchaseInvoiceDate: The date of the invoice relating to the purchase.
• PurchaseInvoiceReference: The reference number of the invoice relating to the purchase.
• PurchaseItemDescription*: The description for the purchase item. 
• PurchaseItemGrossAmount*: The gross amount for the purchase item.
• PurchaseItemName*: The name for the purchase item.
• PurchaseItemNetAmount*: The net amount for the purchase item.
• PurchaseItemShoot*: The title for the shoot linked to the purchase item.
• PurchaseItemTaxAmount*: The tax amount for the purchase item.
• PurchaseNameAddress: The name and address for the contact for the purchase. 
• PurchaseNetTotal: The net total for the purchase.
• PurchaseNotes: The notes for the purchase.
• PurchasePaidTotal: The total of all incoming payment allocations to the purchase. 
• PurchasePaymentDueDate: The due date of the purchase.
• PurchasePostCode: The post code for the contact for the purchase. 
• PurchaseReference: The reference for the purchase.
• PurchaseTaxTotal: The tax total for the purchase.
• PurchaseUnpaidTotal: The total of all outgoing payment allocations to the purchase. 
• PurchaseVATNumber: The contact’s VAT number.

Payment tags

These tags can be used when adding a document to a Payment (called ‘Transactions’ in Light Blue 4 and 5). See also Contact tags.

• PaymentAllocatedTotal: The total amount allocated to Sales or Purchases.
• PaymentAllocationAmount*: The amount of the allocation.
• PaymentAllocationBillingContact*: The Billing Contact (Sale) or Contact (Purchase) of the Sale or Purchase linked to the allocation.
• PaymentAllocationInvoiceDate*: The invoice date for the allocation (taken from either a Purchase or a Sale).
• PaymentAllocationInvoiceGrossTotal*: The gross total of the invoice linked to the allocation (taken from Sales only)
• PaymentAllocationInvoiceNumber*: The invoice number for the allocation (taken from either a Purchase or a Sale).
• PaymentAllocationOutstanding*: The outstanding amount of the Sale or Purchase linked to the allocation.
• PaymentAllocationPurchaseGross*: The gross total of the purchase linked to the allocation (taken from Purchases only)
• PaymentAllocationShootTitle*: The title of the shoot linked to the invoice linked to the allocation (taken from Sales only)
• PaymentAmount: The amount of the payment.
• PaymentContactAddress1: The address 1 for the contact for the payment.
• PaymentContactAddress2: The address 2 for the contact for the payment.
• PaymentContactAddress3: The address 3 for the contact for the payment.
• PaymentContactAddress: The address for the contact for the payment.
• PaymentContactCity: The city for the contact for the payment.
• PaymentContactCompany: The company for the contact for the payment.
• PaymentContactCountry: The country for the contact for the payment.
• PaymentContactCounty: The county for the contact for the payment.
• PaymentContactFirstName: Our best guess at the first name for the contact for the payment, split out from the full name.
• PaymentContactLastName: Our best guess at the last name for the contact for the payment, split out from the full name.
• PaymentContactName: The name for the contact for the payment.
• PaymentContactNameAddress: The name and address for the contact for the payment.
• PaymentContactPostCode: The postcode for the contact for the payment.
• PaymentDate: The date of the payment.
• PaymentMethod: The method of the payment.
• PaymentPaidInDate: The paid in date for the payment.
• PaymentPaymentReference: The ‘payment reference’ for the payment (from the ‘Payment Reference’ field).
• PaymentReference: The reference for the payment (Light Blue’s own internal reference).
• PaymentType: The type of the payment (incoming or outgoing).
• PaymentUnallocatedTotal: The total amount not allocated to Sales or Purchases.
• PaymentVATNumber: The contact’s VAT number.

Keeping in touch with your clients is important, but it doesn’t have to take ages! Light Blue’s email and text message templates save you time and mean that you don’t forget to say the important things. There’s no need to type the same messages out again and again, and our powerful mail-merge tags automatically personalise your messages with the relevant details.

Email templates are useful because they can save you a lot of time sending out standard responses to your clients’ queries, help you to use consistent wording, and present yourself with a professional image. You can use email templates whenever you create an email to a client from Light Blue, and you can also use them in workflows to send automated messages to your clients: for example, to remind them about a booking. 👉 Find out more about automating messages in this help article.

This guide will help you to:

• Send an email from a template
• Create a new email template
• Format your emails to include styling, images & links
• Add attachments to your emails
• Include mail-merge tags to personalise your email and message templates
• Use example email templates that will give you a head start

We’ll also look at:

• Sending text messages from a template
• Creating new text message templates

Need more help? Book a free 1:1 session.

Sending an email from a template

To send an email using a template from a shoot record, go to the “Linked Records” panel of the shoot, then click on the “Email” button and choose to create email from template, then choose the template that you wish to use.

Alternatively, hover your mouse over the details of a particular contact in the “Linked Records” panel and then click on the small email icon.

If you’d like to send an email from within a contact record, click on the email icon that appears when you hover your mouse over the contact’s email address.

Creating a new email template

You set up your email templates in the “Email Templates” section of the Preferences window. You can add a new template by clicking the “Add Record” button, then give the template a name, a subject line, and typing the content of the message.

Formatting your emails

Our email templates include formatting options that allow you to control the look of your emails. The formatting bar at the top of the message body includes buttons for setting bold, italic, or underlined text, as well as fonts and text sizes. Do be careful about using fonts though, because if you choose a font that the recipient doesn’t have then your email might not appear quite like you’d expect.

⭐️ Top tip: And do make sure you add your branding to your Light Blue Client Portal to enhance the look of your emails even further. 👉 Details of how to do that can be found here.

Links

You can add links to your emails by selecting the text that you want to add a link to and clicking the link button, then typing in the URL that you want the link to go to, and clicking the “Save” button.

Images

Photography is obviously a visual product, and you can include images in your emails to show off your work or add more branded elements. To do that, select where you want the image to go and click the “Insert Image” button. 

From there you can choose an image that will get uploaded to our servers and be included in your email. Make sure that the image is scaled to a sensible size.

Adding attachments

The “Add Attachment” button at the bottom of the email window will allow you to choose any attachments that you wish to include with your email template.

Including mail-merge tags to personalise your messages

When you’re creating an email template, you can make use of Light Blue’s mail-merge tags to personalise the message and include relevant information about your clients and their shoots.

Light Blue’s mail-merge tags consist of special text that appears between a pair of % symbols. For example, to insert your client’s first name, you’d type a % symbol, then the tag, ContactFirstName and then the closing % symbol.

You’ll find a comprehensive list of Light Blue’s mail-merge tags in the knowledgebase on our website.

To add a mail-merge tag into your email template, click on the “Insert Mail-Merge Tag” button in the toolbar and then search for the tag that you’re interested in.

When you use the email template to create a message, the tag will be replaced with the relevant information (e.g. your client’s name or the date of the shoot).

Example email templates that will give you a head start

We’ve prepared a few example email templates that you can download and install into your own copy of Light Blue to save you some time. You can then personalise the templates to suit your own tone of voice. 👉 And here’s a blog post covering the ten essential email templates for photographers.

⭐️ Top tip: Email Templates don’t have to be a full email. You can create Templates for ‘snippets’ of text that you can add to any email; perhaps to give an update on your editing turnaround time or other bits of information that might be useful for certain clients. Simply click on the “Insert Email Template” button when composing your email.

Sending text messages from a template

Like sending emails, it’s also possible to send text messages using templates. They’re a really helpful way of sending quick reminders to your clients in plain text.

To send a single text message to someone, go to a Shoot record for someone who’s got a mobile number, click on the “Linked Records” panel, then click on the “Text Message” button.

Alternatively click on the smaller text message icon which appears next to the contact’s details when your mouse hovers over them.

If you’re viewing the contact record, you can click on the text message icon which appears in the contact record when you hover your mouse over a phone number.

Creating new text message templates

You can create a new text message templates in the “Text Message Templates” section of the Preferences window. To create a new template, go to the “Text Message Templates” section, click on the “Add Record” button in the toolbar and then start writing your message. You can include mail-merge tags within text message template to automatically personalise the messages.

Webinar

An hour’s webinar running through the key email points in the article above and providing some specific template ideas for different photography genres:

00:00 – Introduction
01:05 – Email Templates: What are they and why use them
02:45 – Using Email Templates: Overview including use of ‘snippet’ Templates
06:15 – Using Workflows to automatically send emails
11:00 – Creating an Email Template
14:10 – Using Mail-Merge Tags to personalise emails
17:25 – Enhancing emails: Formatting and adding clickable links and images
20:00 – Email signatures including adding clickable links to images
23:55 – Adding your branding to emails through Light Blue’s Client Portal
27:15 – Creating variants of Email Templates
33:10 – Ideas for Portrait Photography Email Templates through all stages of the client journey
38:25 – Then for Wedding Photography
47:20 – Some extra ideas for Newborn Photography 👉 More details in this blog post.
48:50 – And finally for Corporate/Commercial Photography
50:50 – Tips for the Email Template creation process

When you’ve only got one or two shoots in your diary, it’s easy to remember all of the important things that you need to do. However, once you’re at the stage where you’re dealing with multiple jobs that are all at different stages, keeping track of what needs to be done next can be a headache!

Whether or not you’ve planned it that way, every successful photography business has a series of steps that you need to go through to make sure that you’re delivering the best possible service to your clients. Light Blue’s powerful workflows can add a list of tasks and automated messages based around the date of the shoot (or another important date), so you are reminded with a task when you need to do something and important emails and text messages are sent automatically.

👉 Need more help? Book a free 1:1 session.

Get a guided walkthrough with some starting templates

Designed to be taken at your own pace, there are eight bite-sized modules to go through, and we’ve included several templates to shortcut that process even further for you!

👉 Follow the Workflow for Portrait Photographers course, here.

What is a workflow?

A workflow is a list of tasks and messages that are based around an important date. Tasks can become due, and messages scheduled to be sent, a set number of days before, on or after an important date.

You will have several different important dates for a shoot, so you can set up a different workflow to be based around each of them.

For example, you may have:

• An enquiry workflow based on the date that your client first got in touch with you. 
• A confirmation workflow based around the date that your client confirmed that the shoot was definitely going ahead.
• A shoot workflow based around the date that you are taking the photos. 
• Product or marketing workflows based around any date you like.

Workflow types

When adding workflows to shoots and appointments, Light Blue will show the workflows of the relevant type so can choose the workflow that’s right for the situation.

👉 Learn more about the different types of workflows that you can use in Light Blue here.

Setting up a simple workflow

You can set up workflows in the Preferences window, in the Workflows section. If you want to create a new workflow, click the ‘Add Record’ button in the toolbar. You can add new steps to a workflow by clicking the plus button, and edit an existing step by double-clicking it.

In this example, there’s a workflow called Enquiry, and within that, two tasks: the first is ‘respond to enquiry’, and the second is ‘follow up enquiry’, a week later.

Different items that you can include in a workflow

Tasks

Tasks are the most basic part of a workflow. These are reminders that would appear on your to do list as tasks to be completed.

Name: A short description of the task that you wish to complete. For example “check equipment“, “edit images“ or “ make follow-up phone call“

Offset: The number of days before or after the important date that the workflow is based around when this task will become due. 

For example, if the workflow is going to be based around the date of the shoot and you want the task to be due the day before the shoot, the offset would be -1. If the workflow is going to be based around the enquiry date (the date that you received the enquiry) and you wish to have a task due one week later, the offset would be 7 days.

Staff: Tasks can be assigned to specific staff members within your team. If a certain staff member always undertakes a certain task, for example you have a dedicated editor, then the task can be assigned to them. If you’re not sure, leave this blank.

Category: You can group your tasks into categories. This is helpful when you want to concentrate on a particular type of work (for example doing all of your post production at once). You can create as many task categories as you like. Some typical examples would be post production, marketing, admin, or phone calls.

Emails

When you include an email in a workflow, the template message will be scheduled and sent automatically. If your email template uses mail-merge tags, then light blue will use the most up-to-date information from the shoot and contact record when sending the message. This means that if you’ve changed some details about the shoot between and in the workflow and the message getting sent, the right details will be included in the message that goes to your client.

👉 Want some inspiration? Read our guide on sending automated messages to your clients.

Email template: The email template that you want to use. 👉 Read more about email templates here.

Offset: The number of days before or after the important date that the workflow is based around, that you want the message to be sent. For example if you want to send a reminder email to your portrait clients a couple of days before the shoot, the offset would be -2. If you want to send a follow-up email a few days after the enquiry, the offset could be 5 (five days after the enquiry). If you wanted to send a confirmation email on the day that your client confirmed the booking, you could set the offset to 0. 

Time: if you want the email to be sent at a particular time of day, then you can set a time here. We will use your local time zone to send the message. If you leave this time blank, then we’ll send the message at 9am.

Text messages

Similar to emails, it’s possible to schedule text messages to be sent as part of a workflow as well. All of the same principles that apply to emails also apply to text messages in workflows.

👉 Want some inspiration? Read our guide on sending automated messages to your clients.

Forms

New in Light Blue 2023.1

You can also include forms in a workflow, which allows you to automate double-checking your clients’ details and requests in the run-up to a shoot. For example, you could include a “check wedding schedule” step in your workflow a month before the wedding, or a “check the family’s details” a week before a family portrait session. The workflow would automatically email one of your forms to your client on the date that you’ve chosen and when they fill it in it will appear in the Inbox in Light Blue.

Light Blue’s forms are pre-filled with the information you already have about your clients and shoot, which makes it really easy for your clients to fill out because they only need to type in new or updated information.

To include a form in your workflow:

1. Add a step.
2. Set the “Type” of the step to “Form”.
3. Select one of your form templates.
4. Use the offset and scheduled time settings to tell Light Blue when to send the form to your client.

Adding workflows to shoots

You can add the enquiry workflow to it by clicking the workflow icon next to the enquiry date. You’ll see that the two tasks have been added to the Activity panel.

If you’re creating a new shoot, there’s an option to choose the enquiry workflow that you want to add to the shoot once it’s created.

If you change the status of a shoot from “Enquiry” to “Confirmed”, Light Blue asks you if you want to keep or remove any uncompleted tasks and unsent messages from your enquiry workflow. After all, you may not want a reminder to follow up an enquiry that has already been booked!

Light Blue then asks if you want to add the tasks from both the shoot confirmation workflow, which will be based around today, and the weddings workflow, based around the shoot date. 

Looking on the “Activity” panel, you’ll see all of those tasks in there. They’re also showing up on the Home screen in the task manager, which is where you can see all of the tasks that are due from all of your shoots.

Read on to learn how to set default workflows so that the right workflow is always used at the right time, without you needing to make a choice.

Setting default workflows

Once you’ve created your workflows, you can make sure that they’re used at the right time by setting them as default workflows.

If all your shoots will use the same workflows, you can do this in the “Shoots” tab of the “General” section of the Preferences window. 

Here you can see that the “General Shoot Date” workflow is set as the default shoot workflow and will be added relative to the date of the shoot. 

The “General Shoot Confirmation” workflow is set as the default confirmation workflow, this workflow will be added relative to the date that the shoot changes from an enquiry to a confirmed shoot. 

The “General Enquiry” workflow is set as the default enquiry workflow, and will be the first choice when I click on the add workflow button next to the enquiry date in a should record.

If some shoot types will use a different set of workflows then you can set different defaults for each shoot type, in the shoot types preferences.

In the example above there’s a different set of workflows that are used for portrait shoots, so these have been set separately in the Portraits shoot type. When working with a portrait shoot, Light Blue will use these workflows instead.

Also note that the enquiry workflow is set to “Default” – that means it’ll use the workflow that’s set on the “General” preferences.

Example workflows

To help you to get off to a good start, we’ve prepared some example workflows for you to use. 🗄 You can download them from here.

However, when you’re interested in sending a message to a large group of contacts at once (we’re defining “large” as anything more than about 20 contacts in this context) then specialist marketing tools are a better fit for making sure that those messages reach your audience. Sending lots of marketing emails from your own email address risks damaging the reputation of your email account, making it substantially less likely that your prospects (or paying clients) will receive your messages, that’s why it’s best to use a tool that’s designed for the job.

Mass marketing tools like Mailchimp & Active Campaign put a LOT of effort into establishing best practices and building a reputation with the major email providers. They’ve got teams of engineers working on this stuff every day. That means that the major email providers know that what’s being sent via a tool like Mailchimp or Active Campaign probably isn’t spam, and that if any of their users report it as spam Mailchimp and Active Campaign will sort it out really quickly.

Some of the major email providers (especially Hotmail, Outlook and Gmail) are getting a lot stricter about what they consider to be spam and even one bulk email could affect your ability to deliver emails to your clients both now and in the future. Using a tool that won’t leave your email address (and our servers by association) on a blocklist is essential!

Setting up Mailchimp or Active Campaign is really easy to do, and worth doing even for sending out a single important message like this.

How to export your client’s email addresses for use with a mass emailing tool

Light Blue’s mailing list opt-in feature and querying tools will help you to make sure that you’re not sending emails to clients who might report your message as spam.

After you’ve found the records that you’re interested in by using Light Blue’s querying tools, you can export a list of those email addresses. Simply click on the Records menu, choose ‘Export’, then ‘Export Email Addresses’ – you will then be able to save a CSV file which can be uploaded into your mass marketing tool of choice to get the message to your clients.

As always, we’re here to help so please get in touch if you need any help from us with contacting your clients.

Light Blue’s built-in email system is very easy to use and comes all setup and ready for you to use ‘out of the box’.

All the elements are automatically created using the information that you provided when you first signed up to Light Blue.

Your “Business Name” creates the username of your Light Blue email address and the “From’ name. And the email address for your Light Blue account creates the ‘Reply-to’ email address.

Business Name: My Photography Business

➡️ Light Blue email address: MyPhotographyBusiness@lightbluecustomermail.com

➡️ ‘From’ name: ‘My Photography Business’.

Light Blue account email: jenny@example.com

➡️ ‘Reply-to’ email address: jenny@example.com

If you subsequently decide that you’d like to change these it’s very straightforward to do so.

Changing your Business Name and ‘Reply-to’ email address

• Log into your account through the “My Account” tab on the top right of our website.
• Click on “Client Portal settings” and the “The Basics” section within that.
• Make the changes you want.
• Click “Save changes”.

Changing the username of your Light Blue email address

• Log into your account through the “My Account” tab on the top right of our website.
• Click on “Client Portal settings” and the “Email” section within that.
• Click the link to change your @lightbluecustomermail.com email address.
• Type the new username and click “OK”.

Using your inbuilt Light Blue email account comes all set up and ready for you to use ‘out of the box’. Emails appear to come from you, replies not only go to your own email address but also to Light Blue’s Inbox, and you have the ability to see which of your emails are read and which links have been clicked.

However, you may prefer that emails to your clients come from your own email account. Or indeed you may have several email addresses that you use in your business, perhaps for the different genres of photography your offer and want to use the appropriate one in your emails.

Whatever the reason the good news is that this is entirely possible and there is no limit to how many email servers you can add! You’ll still be able to create Email Templates and add them to Workflows, though you won’t be able to take advantage of Light Blue’s open-and-click tracking feature; this is only possible when you use Light Blue’s servers.

Adding your own server

Adding a Gmail or G Suite account

1. Log into your account through the “My Account” tab on the top right of our website.
2. Click on “Client Portal settings” and the “Email” section within that.
3. Click the “Add a new Gmail account” button.
4. Enter your Gmail address.
5. In the next screen that appears, select the account that matches that email address.
6. You’ll then be asked to confirm that you want to give Light Blue access to your account and we’ll then automatically set up all of the other details for you.
7. Test that it all works properly by clicking on the link.

Adding an SMTP server

1. Log into your account through the “My Account” tab on the top right of our website.
2. Click on “Client Portal settings” and the “Email” section within that.
3. Click the “Add a different type of email account” button.
4. Give it a description.
5. Enter the details that you’ve been given by your email provider.
6. Click the “Add new mail server” button at the bottom of the page to save these details.
7. Test that it all works properly by clicking on the link.

Setting up the default email server within Light Blue

In the “Email” section of Preferences choose the server you’ve just set up from the “Default Email Server” options.

Changing the default email server for different Shoot Types

If you have several email addresses that you use in your business and want to make sure that you use the correct one each time, it’s very easy to use different default email servers for different Shoot Types.

1. In the “Shoot Types” section of Preference pane click on the Shoot Type you want to change.
2. Go to the “Email & Client Portal” tab.
3. Choose the server you want to use from the “Email Server” options.

Just like email opens and clicks, bounces and complaints can only be tracked for emails sent via our servers. If you try to send an email to an address that’s on your suppression list, you’ll be warned and the email address will automatically be removed if you ignore the warning.

You can remove an email address from your suppression list by going to the relevant contact record and using the cog menu that appears when you hover your mouse cursor over the email address.

Enabling email tracking features

When you send emails from Light Blue’s email servers, you can track whether those emails have been opened or if the links in them have been clicked. This is optional, and you can turn the feature on by:

1. Opening Light Blue’s Preferences window, going into the “Email” section and making sure that you’re opting to send emails via Light Blue
2. Ensuring that you’re sending emails via Light Blue’s email servers (tracking information is only applied to emails sent from Light Blue’s email servers)
3. Choosing one of the options from the “Track Emails Sent Via Light Blue’s Servers” menu.

If you turn on email tracking, emails sent via Light Blue’s email servers will have tracking information embedded into them. When your clients read your emails or click on any links contained in them, this tracking information will be sent to us and visible in Light Blue.

Viewing tracking information

To see whether an email has been opened or a link clicked, open it up from the Outbox or the relevant Activity panel. You’ll see whether the email has been opened or any of its links clicked, and you can show on the “Show details” button to find out:

1. When the event happened.
2. Which IP address triggered the event.
3. The user agent that triggered the event (i.e. which browser or email client was used).

It’s important to note that email open tracking might not be 100% accurate, for a variety of reasons. For example, some email providers and email apps can block email open events from being reported back to us. We’ve also heard of email open events being triggered by some automated content filters.

If you CC or BCC yourself into emails, be careful not to trigger open or click events yourself! You can tell Light Blue to BCC normal emails to yourself via the “Email” preferences panel, and you can also turn off having client portal notifications (e.g. when a contract is signed or an online invoice is paid) CCed to your email address by un-ticking the “Automatically CC Client Portal Emails To Yourself” option.

Using Light Blue for your emails is great for keeping all your correspondence with your clients together in one place; any emails sent to them and all replies received will be linked to the correct Light Blue Record. Sometimes though you may receive emails in your own email account that you’ll want to forward into Light Blue and this guide will show you how to do so.

Forwarding an email to Light Blue

1. From your email app or webmail simply forward the email to your in-built Light Blue email address. If you’re not sure what this email address is, go to the “Email” section of Preferences and click on the “Copy My Unique Email Address To The Clipboard” button.

2. Paste your email into the email that you want to send to Light Blue, send it and it will then appear in your Light Blue Inbox.
3. You can link incoming emails to an existing Light Blue Contact or Shoot Record using the “Link to Existing Record” button at the bottom of the Inbox.
4. Or alternatively, you can “Create Contact”/“Create Enquiry” for new contacts/enquires.

NB. If you use Airmail, an email app available for macOS, and want to use it to forward emails to your Light Blue account, you need to enable it’s “Extended Headers” option to make it include the information that Light Blue needs to extract the correct part of the email and match it to information in your account. To do this, simply enable the “Extended Headers” option in Airmail’s preferences window before forwarding a message to your Light Blue account.

Forwarding an email to a specific Light Blue Record

1. To get a Record’s unique email address, go to its “Activity” tab.
2. Click on the cog and choose “Get This Record’s Unique Email Address” from the dropdown menu which copies it to your clipboard.
3. Paste your email into the email that you want to send to Light Blue, send it and it will then appear in your Light Blue Inbox but will be linked to the Record automatically.

Automatically ensuring emails and replies are in Light Blue

If you’re using Light Blue for your emails this will happen automatically!

All emails sent from Light Blue can be viewed in the Activity Panel of the Record they were sent from and all replies are automatically linked to the correct Light Blue Record. This is done by including the Record’s unique email address as a ‘Reply-to’ field in the original email. This feature is already set up on your account so as long as you don’t turn it off everything will happen seamlessly!

👉 Learn more about how to use Light Blue for your emails here.

As well as being able to send emails and text messages right away, subscribers to our online services can also schedule them to be sent at a specific time in the future.

This article shows you how to schedule messages manually. You can also set up Light Blue to automatically send messages for you as part of a workflow, and that’s covered in this article.

To schedule an email or text message:

1. Create your message, either by using a template or typing it out.
2. Instead of clicking the ‘Send’ button, click the ‘Schedule’ button instead and enter a date and time.

Your scheduled message will appear in the ‘To Do’ section of this shoot’s Activity panel and it will also appear in the Outbox along with any other scheduled messages you might have.

The message will be sent automatically on the date and time that you set. Light Blue doesn’t have to be running for this to happen, because it’s all taken care of by our servers. Once a scheduled message has been sent, you’ll see its status change in the Outbox, and it will move to the ‘History’ section of its linked record’s Activity panel.

Whilst you undoubtedly have your own email account did you know there’s the option of sending emails and receiving replies from within Light Blue too?

And there are lots of benefits; doing so allows you to:

🗄 Be organised: All the emails linked to a Light Blue Record (both sent and received) are kept together and readily available.

✨ Stand out: You can create great-looking on-brand emails with Light’s Blue branding features and rich formatting.

📋 Be efficient: You can include your Email Templates in Workflows allowing them to be sent automatically saving you time.

🔍 Gather insights: If you choose to use the in-built Light Blue email account, you have the ability to examine which emails are opened and which links have been clicked.

Setup

Sending emails right away

Your in-built Light Blue email account comes all set up and ready for you to use ‘out of the box’ so you’re able to send emails right away. Using this email account also gives you the ability to see which of your emails are read and which links have been clicked. And there’s the added reassurance that Light Blue has taken care of the ‘behind the scenes’ technicalities to ensure good deliverability of your emails.
The username of your email address will be the Business Name that you’ve provided Light Blue with, followed by @lightbluecustomermail.com; e.g. MyPhotographyBusiness@@lightbluecustomermail.com.
👉 If you want to customise your email username this guide explains how.
👉 This guide explains how email tracking works within Light Blue.

Using your own email account

Of course, you may prefer that emails to your clients come from your own email account; even if it means some setup before you can send them and that you lose the ability to track your emails.
👉 This guide explains how to set up your own email account in Light Blue.

Further setup

There are a few other areas you may want to review before beginning to use Light Blue for your emails. NB. If you haven’t already set up your branding and email signatures within Light Blue you probably want to do that first. 👉 Guide to setting up your branding here. 👉 And your email signature here.

1. Head to the “Email” section in Preferences.
2. Choose the default branding you want to use from the “Default Branding” options.
3. Choose the default signature you want to use from the “Default Signature” options.
4. If you want a copy of every email sent from Light Blue to also go to your own email address, add this to the “BCC Normal & Scheduled Emails To” field.
5. If you want to receive the emails that are sent to your clients when they’re using features like our online contract signing service, or paying an online invoice, tick the “Automatically CC Client Portal Emails To Yourself” field to be copied in.

How to send emails

You can send emails from each of Light Blue’s main Records and they can either be created from scratch or you can choose an Email Template as a starting point; simply choose the option you want when presented with the drop-down menus in the steps below. You can even schedule the email to be sent later. 👉 Details of that here. And once an email has been sent it can be viewed in the Activity Panel of the Record it was sent from so you can refer back to it when needed.

From a Shoot Record

Whilst there are a few ways you can send an email from a Shoot Record, the method below allows you to not only choose whether your start point is a blank email or from an Email Template, but also whether it goes to just one Contact Record linked to the Shoot Record or all of them.

1. From the Linked Records tab, click on the “✉️ Email” button to the right of the cog. NB. If you only want to send the email to one of the linked Contact Records and they’re not the top Record, make sure you’ve clicked on their details before the “✉️ Email” button.

From a Contact Record

Again whilst there are a couple of ways you can send emails from a Contact Record the method below is the most straightforward. NB. If the Contact has a linked Shoot Record, we recommend sending the email from the Shoot Record to keep all correspondence in one place and for your Shoot mail merge tags to work. Though only of course if the email is referencing that Shoot and not another subject!

1. In the Email field, hover over the email address you want to send to and click on either the mail or cog icon that appears.

From a Sales Record

Emailing from a Sales Record allows you to send a PDF of the Sale (whether it’s been invoiced or not) or a link for Online Payment to your client.

1. From the main menu bar choose “File” and “Print/Send” from the drop-down menu.
2. If the Sale has not yet been invoiced tick the “Create Invoice” box if you want to create one. NB. If the Sale has already been invoiced this option won’t be given.
3. Choose how you want to send the invoice; either “Email as PDF” or “Email Link for Online Payment”.

1. If the Sale hasn’t yet been invoiced you can also click on the “Create Sale” button, which will take you to the same “Print/Send” dialog box with the “Create Invoice” box checked.

1. Or if you need to resend an invoice you can click the “Reprint Invoice” button.

From other Records

Emailing from the Quote and Purchase Records allows you to send a PDF of the Record to your client/supplier.

1. As well as the “Print/Send” option explained above, you can also click on the cog to the right of the “Bill To” field (Quote) or “Supplier” field (Purchase). NB. This method also works in the Sales Record.

Receiving emails in Light Blue

All emails that you send from one of Light Blue’s main Record types have an automatic ‘Reply-to’ email address added to them. This is the clever bit ensuring that as well as going to your own email inbox, all replies go to your Light Blue Inbox and are linked to the correct Light Blue Record; basically, each Record has its own unique number/letter suffix added to your in-built Light Blue email address. This is already set up on your account and, whilst we don’t recommend it, you can turn it off if you don’t want to take advantage of this feature.
👉 If you do turn it off but want to manually forward an email into Light Blue this guide explains how.
⭐️ Top tip: If you want to keep all email correspondence in one place make sure you reply to clients’ replies from Light Blue!

Email Templates & Workflows

Light Blue gives you a huge amount of flexibility in how your Email Templates look. The overall design, format and signatures are all customisable to your brand and by adding images, including links and using different fonts and colours, the possibilities are endless to create a stand-out email experience for your client.

And whilst you can send an Email Template through your own mail app it’s not something we’d recommend. All the hard work that you’ve put into creating a great-looking email will be lost when you open the Template in your own mail app; whereas sending it from Light Blue it’ll look exactly as you designed it.
👉 Guide to creating email templates.
👉 Tips to help make your emails stand out.

And if you use Light Blue to send emails, you can also include Email Templates in your Workflows which are automatically sent. This allows you to keep on top of your client communication, giving them great customer service without having to think about it!
👉 Using Workflows to automate your emails.

Bulk Emails

Light Blue is designed to send ‘everyday’ emails to your clients which they are expecting to receive either in reply to their enquiry or about the session they’ve booked with you.

However in situations where you want to send the same email to a number of clients at the same time; effectively a bulk email campaign with the required ‘unsubscribe’ button, you should use a mass emailing tool like Mailchimp or Active Campaign. Using that sort of tool will be more reliable than trying to use your own mail server and avoids the risks of having either your email account or the Light Blue servers flagged up as being a potential spammer.

The following help articles will guide you through our recommended approach.
👉 How can I send an email to lots of contacts
👉 Zapier: adding a specific set of contacts to your mailing list
👉 Zapier: creating zaps to update a contact’s mailing list preferences