Blogging as a Newborn or Family Photographer: Client Survey Questions
Here at Fotoskribe, our main goal is to help photographers run successful businesses. Whether your specialty is capturing stunning weddings or adorable baby milestone sessions, we know that your needs as a creative entrepreneur are as unique as your images. We also know that sitting down, week after week, coming up with compelling and interesting content on your blog can be difficult. One way to make sure you tell unique stories every time is by using client surveys.
Recently, we talked about questions for wedding photographers. But in this post, we’ll look specifically at what you can ask your clients for newborn and family sessions.
Why Use Client Survey Questions?
Using client questionnaires and client surveys is a wonderful way to make sure that each blog provides a unique and individual story about your session. Wedding and engagement sessions often provide a fairly easy outline in which to tell a story. You have a love story, or a wedding timeline. With newborn sessions, although every sweet picture of chubby baby feet and soft baby skin is adorable, how can you write an interesting story without saying the same things over and over again? If you photograph families, kids, or high school seniors what do you talk about on the blog other than their cute outfits? Here are some questions to use to build a client questionnaire.
Newborn photographer Melissa Layton has made client surveys an integral part of her business.
“I find client surveys invaluable in providing not only content but a more personal source for info for my blog posts – much more so than I could come up with on my own. I typically get the most amazing feedback from clients as to how the session went and how it is to work with me – I feel these direct quotes come across more genuine, and prospective clients definitely look at these blog posts. Parents often chat with me at their sessions that they read my blog posts and felt more of a connection to me and the desire to book with me. I always take 3 minutes at the end of a session to tell clients about the survey and tell them how it makes for a much more personalized blog post to really feature their beautiful baby!”
Questions For Newborn and Maternity Sessions:
We know that client privacy is always a concern, especially when it comes to children. One way to use these surveys is in conjunction with the parent’s permission to use the photos on your blog. When asking them to sign consent forms, you can also include this questionnaire. You can also check if parents prefer you not use their last name, or maybe even not use full names at all. These questions can be used for newborn and maternity shoots.
“How Did You Find Out You Were Pregnant?”
Every parenthood story is unique and touching. This is the chance for your client to tell you about it. For some couples, it was a surprise. But for others, it might have been a long time coming. This might be their fifth child, or if might be their first. They might have just started trying or they might have been trying for ten years. Whatever the story, it is always unique.
“How Did You Announce Your Pregnancy?”
These can be some of the funniest and most touching stories to share on your blogs. We have seen parents who told their small children they were going to be big siblings by getting them “big sister/brother” tee shirts; parents who have told the future grandparents with a gift-wrapped pair of baby shoes; and parents who simply took a picture of the positive test to send to everyone.
“How Did You Find out the Gender?”
Gender reveal parties can be a blast and are always fun to write about. Did they pop a balloon to see blue or pink confetti come out? Cut open a cake with differently-colored icing inside? Have the doctor write down the results after the ultrasound and put it in an envelope?
What about big sisters and big brothers? Did they want a baby brother or sister? Did they get excited or upset when they found out what they were getting? Or did they decide to wait until the baby arrived to find out what they were having?
“How Did You Pick out the Baby’s Name?”
Often, baby names have a specific meaning, and they might even have a story behind them. Is the name a family name? Did the parents choose the name for its specific meaning or simply because they both agreed that it sounded beautiful? Does the baby have a middle name that has significant meaning as well? If the parents are willing to share the story, it’s a sweet story to accompany those beautiful pictures.
“What Hospital/Birthing Center did you use?”
This might seem like an odd client survey question, but this is a key opportunity to link out to an external source. In baby blogs, there aren’t venues or florists to link to. Unless there are props from etsy, you don’t have a lot to link out to. By linking to the hospital, other mothers giving birth there might see your adorable sessions when they are internet searching. And that’s the goal, right? Consider including a link to the hospital on your baby session blog.
“What Milestones has Baby Reached?”
This question obviously applies more to milestone sessions than to newborn photography, but when you’re shooting a 6-month-old or a cake smash birthday session, you should give the parents the chance to brag about their kids. Maybe their little girl just said her first word, or their little boy just took his first steps. These are huge moments in any parents’ lives—let them be excited for their kids!
Questions For Family and Senior Sessions:
Family sessions are always interesting and often unique—even as the session goes on. Wrangling toddlers, keeping teenagers from rolling their eyes, making sure that everyone sits still without wriggling… each session is its own adventure. Then again, when it comes to senior sessions, what story do you tell? How do you figure out what to share on your blog? Here are a few client survey questions for family sessions.
“Where will the session take place?”
If the family has a background or a special connection to the park or area where you’ll be having your session, share it on the blog! Also, talking about the location is really helpful for your SEO because you can snag that local link to a park, forest, museum, farm or marina.
“What school do you attend?”
This one is at the parents’ discretion for younger kids but it is SEO gold for senior portraits. Being able to link yourself to a specific high school makes it easy for future students (and their parents) to find you in internet searches. A related question for seniors would be what college they plan to attend.
“What are your favorite things to do together as a family?”
This is just a really nice, warm way to personalize a session. If you know about it ahead of time, it might even give you inspiration and talking points with the kids. Do they love going to the movies? Maybe grab a few shots by the local movie theater. Do the boys love baseball? Include some pictures of them throwing the ball around. Asking this can help to personalize a session to make it something families will love to share.
These are just a few questions that you can use for your baby and family photography blogs. If you choose to use client surveys for your blogs, we think you’ll be surprised by easily they can inspire you to get those 300-500 words on the page! Let your clients’ creativity shine and highlight their story without the stress of trying to remember all of those details yourself.
Give it a try! And of course, if you need help in crafting these survey answers into a regular and consistent blogging strategy, make sure to contact us for more information on how to make Fotoskribe a part of your business.