a pregnant woman is reclining on a couch during a maternity photo session in a Minneapolis studio with Ann Marie of AMG Photography

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Maternity photography is a wonderful way to meet the emotional needs of your clients while also contributing to the growth and sustainability of your family photography business by providing opportunities to attract new clients, enhancing your creativity and portfolio, and fostering long lasting relationships with families. As you serve couples from the very beginning of starting their families, you will receive a sustainable stream of business as their go to family photographer who meets all of their photography needs for years to come from annual family photos, to newborn sessions, and even senior portraits when those kiddos graduate from high school. They will also become your greatest source of new clients as they share your beautiful work and refer you to others.

Maternity Photo Shoots Establish Your Relationship with Families from the Very Beginning

a family of three is laughing and playing by West Medicine Lake in Plymouth, MN during a maternity photo shoot with AMG Photography

Maternity photography sessions can be a blessing to your photography business for several reasons. First, they provide you with the opportunity to connect to expecting parents who are often looking for newborn photo sessions. By offering maternity photo sessions, you are able to market yourself to clients who are seeking to preserve memories of this pivotal life experience from the very beginning of their family journey. This provides you with a wonderful opportunity to offer clients the chance to preserve their baby’s complete story from before they are born and beyond. In fact, this sets the stage for you to establish a relationship with clients that can potentially last for years! From maternity, to newborn, to baby’s Milestones, and annual family pictures, the opportunity to provide a single family a wide range of services for years to come is vast. Your maternity session opens the door for you to form a lasting relationship with clients and thus establish your “client family”.

Second, maternity sessions set the stage for a trusting and personal relationship with clients before baby arrives, thus improving the experience you have together during a newborn or future family photo session. A maternity session can make their newborn photo shoot more comfortable as you already have had the chance to get to know each other. Building a trusting relationship with your clients is the key to a successful business. A new mom will feel much more confident and relaxed on her newborn session day if she already knows the person who is photographing her baby setting the stage for a more enjoyable and relaxing session that will result in more authentic and beautiful images.

Third, maternity sessions can lead to referral opportunities. Satisfied moms and dads are love to share their experiences with friends and family as they showcase their beautiful images of their pregnancy and sweet baby! This has the potential to provide you with a sustainable source of new clients who are looking for their own go-to family photographer.

Enhance Your Business Through a Milestone Collection

As photographers, we preserve memories and we are also storytellers. A maternity session is the first chapter in a child’s story. There is nothing that my girls love more than seeing what I and my husband looked like before they were born and especially when I was pregnant with them. Your maternity sessions can be marketed to your clients as a means to tell a child’s story from the very beginning and then beyond through a Newborn Milestone Program. In my Newborn Milestone Program, families receive three to four sessions in one year from which we create a beautiful, layflat photobook with images from each session. It is essentially Baby’s First Year Photo Book and tell’s baby’s story from momma’s pregnancy, newborn photos, 3-6 months old, and one year old. Families are invited to include special words to their baby which we incorporate into the book’s design. By offering maternity sessions as a part of a Newborn Milestone Program, you are able to offer clients an incredible way to preserve their story from pregnancy and beyond! How many moms feel the pressure of creating a first photo book, but never get the chance to do it? A Newborn Milestone Program fills this need for your clients!

Increase Your Marketing Potential through Community Partnerships

As service providers, photographers add incredible value to communities as they bless the lives of families who live there. As a former non-profit executive, there is nothing I understand better than the truth that the strongest communities are those in which service providers support each other. It not only benefits them as businesses or organizations, but it blesses community members tremendously. As you think about the types of sessions you offer, what types of service providers around you serve the same clientele? From boutiques to chiropractors to yoga studios to IVF clinics, there are a wealth of service providers whose focus is on pregnancy or new parents. Reach out, invite someone to coffee, or, if you are a client at any of these places, just ask how you might help each other. For me, I have a wonderful relationship with Vaida Wellness in Wayzata, MN. My images are framed in their lobby and we make referrals to each other. I am also a referral partner with Better Beginnings MN which provides birth and post-birth doula care. These relationships not only help to establish my reputation in my community, but are also businesses that I care about and love to support. This allows us to both better support the moms and families in our shared communities.

Help You Grow Artistically

As artists, maternity photography can showcase your skill set and creativity. Capturing the beauty and emotion of pregnancy allows you to display your ability to connect with women during one of the most life changing moments of their lives. By creating intimate, meaningful portraits of pregnancy and motherhood you are able to create art out of the most intimate and profound moments in people’s lives.