The Pet Photographers' Journal

Meta Ads for Pet Photographers: What Actually Converts, with Monica Koudsy In February, Ina spent $688.80 on a Meta ads competition for National Love Your Pet Day. It brought in 191 leads and 13 bookings. That's a 6.8% conversion rate, which sounds low until you see the sales: a total of $35,326. Before that, she tried Google Ads for about three months, spent two to three thousand dollars, and got...

How to Sell Pet Photography Without Feeling Salesy, with Shelley Janes Selling feels salesy. Emailing your list feels spammy. Posting your offer twice feels like bothering people. That's what Ina hears from pet photographers over and over, so she asked a sales psychologist about it. Shelley Janes says if you're scared of turning into the pushy person who gave you the ick, that fear is evidence you...

Your Pet Photography About Page: How to Find Your Real Story, with Andrea Shah When Ina built her first website, her About page said she loved photography and had done darkroom in high school. Copywriter Andrea Shah hears a version of that story from almost every photographer she works with. She wants to hear the one that's actually yours. In this episode, Ina sits down with Andrea Shah, a US copy...

Sharon Canovas used to charge $75 for a session with around 40 photos, and it was turning into a very expensive hobby. Today her average sale is around $2,000, and she has booked out spring, summer and autumn in a row. She did it while working full time as a stunt woman, and while recovering from a concussion. In this episode, Ina sits down with Sharon, a pet photographer in Hamilton, Ontario, who...

In April, Aubri Poon wrote down her dream result: another successful calendar contest, and $10,000 donated to dog rescues. By August, the beer can label contest she ran with a Calgary brewery had raised $87,341 for the Calgary Humane Society. A separate campaign, a birthday giveaway she launched during the Marketing System Workshop, had booked 14 sessions and filled her calendar into October. In t...

Kaity Hartley has said the thing most pet photographers think and never say out loud. She wants to be the photographer everybody can afford, because she genuinely believes everyone should be able to have beautiful photos of their dog. She is also a full-time mum with bills to pay, and three families a month at her entry package comes to $1,500. In this live coaching call, Ina works through what th...

Two of my clients have been on television recently. Neither of them paid a cent for it. They both sent a press release. In this episode I'm talking about press releases, which I think is the most underused free marketing available to pet photographers. I'll walk you through what my clients actually did, what it produced, and the part almost everyone skips: being featured doesn't get you booked unl...

Erin Ollila spent years comparing wedding photographers before her own wedding, and she still remembers ruling one out. Everyone in her area loved them. She looked at their website and thought she would probably get in trouble if she did not smile correctly. In this episode, Ina sits down with conversion copywriter Erin Ollila to talk about pet photography website copy, and why beautiful images ar...

Michelle Marchant used to be flat out for two months, then drop off to nothing. Leads were never her problem. She had them coming in, she just did not know what to do with them once they landed. Now she has eleven bookings sitting in her calendar for August and September, a three week holiday booked over the top of them, and no stress about either. In this episode, Ina sits down with Michelle Marc...

For years I did what everyone tells you to do. I posted consistently, I showed up on social media, I made sure my website was SEO optimised. And I was still sitting there waiting for the bookings to come in. Last year, more than half my bookings came from campaigns I deliberately launched. Book projects, giveaways, being physically present at expos and markets, and the business relationships I bui...

I spent $688.80 on Facebook ads over 13 days. That turned into $33,495 in sales. I keep hearing that nobody's spending right now, and that giveaways don't work because all they attract is freebie seekers. So in this episode I'm breaking down my National Love Your Pet Day campaign start to finish. What I ran, what it made, and the part I got wrong. Facebook ads for pet photographers can absolutely...

When someone tells me AI content all sounds the same, I don't argue. I agree, somewhat. Most people are giving AI basic prompts and getting generic AI slop back. In this episode I'm sharing the difference between AI slop and AI that amplifies your actual voice, and exactly how I use it across my pet photography business and my coaching business with a human-first approach. My brain-dump workflow (...

A disappointing ordering appointment usually looks like one of a few things. They don’t show up. They turn up and say, my gosh, this is so expensive, or I thought this included all the digitals. Or you relied on them to book it in, and they ghosted you. It feels like it fell apart on the day. It didn’t. Something was broken earlier in the process, before the session ever happened. In this episode...

Back when I charged around $250 a session, my marketing sounded like every other pet photographer's. Pet photography pricing works differently now, and generic AI content can do the same damage that generic marketing always did: it makes you impossible to tell apart from anyone else. In this episode I'm breaking down why generic content, including lazy AI-generated content, makes you blend in with...

Not long ago, Stacey Sherman's pet photography business still felt like a hobby. It wasn't the real, paying business she wanted, and it frustrated her. A self-described procrastinator who struggled hugely with confidence. Today she's opening her second studio. In this episode, Ina sits down with Stacey Sherman of BarkHop Studio, a founding member of the Consistent Bookings Mastermind, for an hones...

If you've ever felt like you're posting and posting and still staring at an empty calendar, this one's for you. In this episode I'm sharing a small change to the podcast (more solo episodes, and moving to fortnightly), and why that decision is actually the exact lesson I want to talk about: doing more isn't what gets you booked. Doing the right things, on purpose, is. I break down the difference b...

Have you ever scrolled past a shelter dog and thought "that photo doesn't do them justice"? Adam Goldberg had the same thought, and he did something about it. Adam is the founder of AGold Photos and the creator of Second Shot, a mission-driven adoption photography programme placing professional photographers inside shelters to give animals a real chance at being seen. What started as weekend volun...

In one week, it will be a year since I released the very first episode of The Pet Photographers' Journal. I honestly didn't know if I'd still be here doing this. I didn't know if I'd stay consistent. I didn't know if it would matter to anyone. But here we are. Over 5,000 downloads later, and I get messages from photographers telling me these episodes have genuinely helped their businesses. That me...

When Kirstie McConnell found out she was moving back to Australia after six years in Italy, she had six months to prepare. By the time she landed in Melbourne, a city where she knew almost no one professionally, she had 26 sessions already booked. Her first three shoots were four days after arriving home. In this episode, Ina sits down with Kirstie, one of Australia's original pet photographers an...

What if you could run four campaigns a year, spend around $40 to acquire each client, and predict exactly how many sessions you'd fill? That is exactly what Jason Krieger-Baum has built at Fido Photo in Toronto. He has been photographing pets for over 17 years, and in this episode he pulls back the curtain on the giveaway-based lead generation model that now drives his entire business. No organic...

Right now I've got 16 sessions booked for May, ordering appointments to run, editing to get through, and prints to deliver. And I'm still marketing. I know that probably sounds like a lot. This episode is about what that actually looks like, and why having a system already in place means marketing doesn't have to stop just because life gets full. I also share the moment that changed how I think ab...

I'm recording this right at the start of my busiest month. Sixteen sessions in May. And almost every single one of them was booked from campaigns I ran back in January and February. That gap between when the marketing happens and when the bookings land is the thing most photographers miss. And it's exactly what this episode is about. If you're in a busy season right now and you're not thinking abo...

Why You Can't Make Yourself Show Up Online (It's Not a Confidence Problem) with Miss Marissa You know what you should be doing. Post more. Show up consistently. Put yourself out there. And yet something keeps stopping you. In this episode, I sit down with Marissa, a personal brand therapist, coach, and former national TV hypnotist who works at the intersection of neuroscience, subconscious rewirin...

How I Know What a Client Will Spend Before They See Their Photos If you've ever had a client ghost you after the session, or show up to their ordering appointment completely shocked by the pricing, this episode is going to hit close to home. Because here's the thing: the problem usually isn't the ordering appointment itself. It's everything that came before it. In this solo episode, Ina walks thro...

If you've ever thought about offering end-of-life sessions, or you already do and you want to do them better, this episode is for you. In this conversation, I sit down with Angela Schneider from Big White Dog Photography for an honest, emotional and deeply practical discussion about what it really takes to photograph families during one of the hardest chapters of their lives. Angela is an adventur...