The best CRM for photographers makes managing a photography business quicker and easier, leaving more time and energy for perfect pictures.
Photographers are usually seen as folks who capture the moment. The average photographer is always with a camera, capturing the moment, and making clients happy.
But there is more to the photography business. Work is done behind the scenes, and the work done behind the scene determines, to a large extent, if the client’s needs are to be met.
Here’s the thing, photography, just like other creative work, is an art — It’s also a business.
The business side involves reaching out to clients, taking calls, networking, managing finances, and attending several industry meetings.
As a professional photographer, one of the keys to your success boils down to how you organize your workflow and meet your client’s expectations — and that’s where customer relationship management (CRM) comes to play.
Whether you are a professional photographer or a newbie in the industry, here are the best CRM that could help you organize and get more work done.
Best CRM for Photographers
Honeybook
Automation is vital in the photography business. You would need to find and followup clients, create contracts and sign these contracts.
These processes are not easy, especially if you have many numbers of clients for your business.
With Honeybook, you are sure of following up on your clients without much hassle.
Most photographers find it challenging to book clients and keep a record of the clients booked.
Honeybook eliminates the stress as it provides a streamlined process that allows photographers (and creatives) to book an endless number of clients without feeling a thing.
The platform comes with a client’s portal, which gives you the feel of it all together.
As a professional, creating a workflow may be daunting. However, you can lessen the difficulty by merely using the custom workflow templates found on the Honeybook platform.
Also, the task management tool is out of this world.
Imagine having over fifty clients per time as a professional photographer. That would be tough work to handle. But your work can be made easy with Honeybook.
One more thing…
The contact form is easy to use, and it can be embedded on a website.
Let’s face it; every photographer wants a professional website — and the contact form from the Honeybook platform would help you achieve just that.
Pros
- Accepts credit cards
- Helps to organize your workflow
- Good payment processing system.
Cons
- Somewhat steep learning curve.
Zoho
Zoho is well known in the industry for providing solutions to small and medium-sized businesses.
The CRM tool offers a wide range of solutions like contact management, lead management, and sales force automation.
One fascinating thing about the platform is the performance management feature. The feature provides a way to make an accurate forecast and displays a game-like interface that encourages team members to complete tasks quickly.
Here’s how it works…
Trophies and badges are rewarded when a task is completed. This way, everyone in the team would be propelled to perform and reach their targets.
The platform has built-in artificial intelligence, which helps you to manage your lead conversion. The AI (known as Zia) follows past trends and helps identify qualified leads.
When such qualified leads are identified, the AI suggests the best possible followup on such leads. The followup process could be quickly done via email or phone.
One more thing…
The Zia AI is designed to help you send marketing emails to new leads — this process is automated.
Pros
- Easy to use platform
- Lots of integration
- Quick lead generation from social media
- Excellent email marketing system.
Cons
- Payment plans are quite pricey
- Customer service is available only during weekdays.
Hubspot
Anyone who has not heard about Hubspot is probably living under the rock. As one of the industry leaders today, Hubspot has revolutionized the way modern marketing is done.
They’ve got an incredible reputation as a leading vendor in the marketing technology industry.
The Hubspot platform is also leading in social media campaign management, marketing automation, and CRM.
The best part…
The CRM tool is an all-in-one tool that handles all your business needs.
One exciting aspect is the user interface. It’s just the right fit for everyone.
Also, the Hubspot CRM integrates well with other products out there. Therefore, you are sure of having a robust marketing software for your business.
Don’t get it all wrong!
Hubspot CRM is different from Hubspot. Yes, both products are from the same company, but Hubspot primarily offers digital marketing services.
On the other hand, Hubspot CRM offers features like web forms, lead generation tools, bots, and live chats. You can also get advertising and email marketing tools on the platform.
Even if you are on a budget, you’ve got no need to fret. The Hubspot CRM is free, and it can be fully integrated with other business applications and systems.
Pros
- A free version is available
- Great email integration
- Intuitive user interface.
Cons
- Allows one email address per contact.
ActiveCampaign
It’s easy to write-off ActiveCampaign as an email marketing tool, but the platform is much more than that.
ActiveCampaign is an all-in-one platform that provides both email marketing and CRM services.
Here’s the thing; CRM software is usually complicated and not so easy to use.
ActiveCampaign, however, is not just a regular CRM software. The simplistic design makes it an excellent fit for photographers looking for a reliable platform to manage their leads.
Fun fact: If you are familiar with Trello, getting your head around ActiveCampaign won’t be a great deal.
Imagine having software that manages your complex sales process. And you get to categorize deals into various stages and pipelines — that would be a dream come true!
Another feature that puts ActiveCampaign on the top of the list is the deal pipeline.
To build a deal pipeline, you must break down the complex sales cycle into steps or milestones. This way, you get to know each deal’s exact stage(s) before completion.
If you are particularly interested in automating regular communications and tasks, then the ActiveCampaign CRM would be an ideal fit for you.
Pros
- Variety of features for behavioral automation, marketing automation, and essential email marketing
- The lead scoring promotes efficiency among team members
- An incredible customer support team.
Cons
- The features are quite extensive and overwhelming.
Agile CRM
Agile CRM is relatively new in the industry. Although new, the company focuses on how companies do business in the modern era.
Yes, there are some glitches here and there, but it’s pretty much a reliable platform that can help small and midsize business owners manage their customers and marketing process.
If you are on a tight budget, you can try out the free version.
Here are a couple of features that make the Agile CRM stand out in the marketplace.
First, contact management!
As a professional photographer, you know that contacts are one of the lifelines of your business. And to keep everything rolling, you’ve got to manage it well — and that’s where Agile CRM comes into play.
The platform lets you store your customer information, customize it, and manage how they communicate with your brand.
Also, the project management feature is impressive.
If you’ve got a relatively large team, the project management feature lets your team be in sync. This way, everyone gets to monitor the project without miscommunication or confusion.
One more thing…
Having a strong social media presence is of utmost importance. You get to quickly reach out to your customers with a click of the button.
Agile CRM has a built-in social CRM which integrates with several social media channels and also helps you to form a more meaningful connection with your customer base.
Pros
- Easy integration with other programs
- Intuitive interface
- Excellent customer support.
Cons
- Ideal for photographers with a team of ten or less.
Bloom
Let’s face it; what brings in the money in any photography business are the clients — and clients want good quality pictures.
To deliver such amazing pictures to the clients, the photographer has to be more than just the dude that captures the moment — organization and administration make up a big piece of the puzzle. That’s where platforms like Bloom come into play.
If you use separate tools to capture leads, track leads, communicate, process payment, and deliver images, you are doing it all wrong.
That’s spending quality time on administrative tasks. To eliminate this, you’ve got to opt for a platform where you can handle all your tasks all in one place.
It not only saves time, but it also boosts your productivity.
Bloom is the ideal choice for photographers who are looking for how to manage their administrative work all in one place.
Whether you are a new photographer who is searching for a reliable way to manage your lead generation or are an established professional looking for a way to automate your business, Bloom is the ideal choice for you.
Pros
- Website chat messenger to help you manage your communication
- Comes with image galleries and a website builder
- Easy to use interface.
Cons
- A mobile app is not available for Android users.
Dubsado
Handling invoicing, contracts, questionnaires, and other administrative responsibilities is not fun, but with the Dubsado tool, you are pretty much sure of managing all these responsibilities without losing sweat.
First off, there is a lead capture form that can be embedded on your website. The form lets you get vital information from clients who visit your site.
Also, you can automate things like sending invoices and contracts with the workflow.
The best part…
There is a contract feature that comes with a drag and drop form builder. This feature helps professionals like you to send contracts, tailor-made for a specific client.
Furthermore, the invoicing tool helps you to create sleek invoices for your clients. This way, they get to make payment either with their credit cards or e-checks.
Aside from the invoicing and contract tools, an email integration feature makes it easy to send emails to clients.
One more thing…
Folks who are not good with creating high converting emails can make good use of the email template. The template helps you to save more time while sending and receiving emails from clients.
Pros
- A client portal keeps everything organized
- A drag and drop form builder
- Superb customer support
- No Dubsado branding or logos.
Cons
- No mobile app.
What to Look for in the Best CRM for Photographers
- Usability
User experience is everything in CRM. If the tool has an intuitive design and is easy to use, you are sure to get more administrative work done with less hassle.
- Integration
Is the CRM tool integratable to your email account, phone, and photography website? If yes, then you’ve got a tool for your photography business.
If the CRM is not integratable with other platforms, it’s probably time to find better alternatives. After all, such CRM won’t do you any good in the long run.
- Tracking
A good CRM should be able to track your revenue. If you cannot keep track of your revenue and data, then the tool is of no good.
Therefore, look out for the tracking feature. How good is it?
- Security
Trust is everything in business — and a good CRM should have a data encryption feature. This way, your data would be safe.
If there is a leak of any sort, then it’s time to make a change.
- Data collection
An excellent CRM tool shouldn’t just retrieve and store data; it should also analyze complex patterns.
Here’s the thing; growth is inevitable. And when you’ve experienced growth in your business, it would be hard for the CRM tool to keep up with lead generation, campaigns, and contact.
At this point, you would have to switch!
- Automation
Managing a photography business is hard work — there is too much work to be done.
You can lessen the workload by going for a CRM tool that can automate some of the cumbersome processes.
- Sleek visual interface
CRM tools are designed to do lots of administrative work. It can be messy — and a sleek visual interface would come in handy.
Let’s face it; having clustered data all over the place could lead to an eyesore.
Therefore, going for a tool with a simple yet sleek interface would go a long way to lessen the burden.