16 AMAZINGLY USEFUL productivity tools for photographers!

Organize your photography business & get more done with these unbelievably helpful productivity tools!

Today we’re looking at 16 unreal productivity tools for photographers that you simply shouldn’t live without. These amazingly useful web tools cover everything from batch emailing & auto scheduling your photoshoots to website seo and putting your social media on autopilot. If you’re a photographer looking for productivity hacks to run a more profitable photography business in less time, todays video is a MUST WATCH.

Here’s A Quick Recap Of The 16 Productivity Tools:

Gmail – Send email from multiple accounts, easy sync with calendar, use google extensions

Google Chrome – Chrome Extensions bring an entire world of extra features

Boomerang – Email Scheduler / Reminders

Google Snippets – Insert Email Templates

Scheduler Chrome Extension – Auto Schedule Shoots, Meetings & Events w/ Clients

Adblock / Adblock plus – Prevents Ads On Sites (Including Youtube Vids!)

Pinterest Automatic – Auto pin your wordpress post images to pinterest!

Yoast SEO – Setup website SEO quickly and easily, with active suggestions for improvement.

Hello Sign – FREE Digital Contract Signing

Paypal Invoicing – Free professional invoicing for instant client payment

Google Forms – Easily gather client information for timelines & photoshoots

Google Drive – Share client guides, photos & backup your projects to the cloud

Pixieset – Beautiful photo delivery via online gallery. Sell prints at the same time!

Latergram – Auto Schedule all your social content in advance

Google Calendar – Keep track of all your projects & bookings simply and easily

Gmail Undo – Undo sending of emails to fix mistakes & take back those words you never should have said!

Which tool is your fav? Did we miss one on our list that you can’t live without? Let us know in the comments below

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Hey guys, Ryan here at Signature Edits
and today we are going to go over the
16 productivity tools I could not
live without in my photography business.
Hey if you are looking to get more
productive and more organized in your
business today is going to be for you.
Let’s get into it
[Music]
all right so we are going to get started
here I have a list of productivity tools
that absolutely I use every single day
and they make a huge difference in my
business so without further ado let’s
hop into productivity tool number one
which is Gmail slash Google Chrome now I
could not operate my business without
using Google Chrome and Gmail and by the
end of this video I’m pretty sure you
will switch over if you aren’t using it
already let me show you why I love Gmail
so much the first thing is that it syncs
with my calendar so I can actually
create events here and sync everything
with my calendar with my drive I have
access to maps and YouTube everything
syncs together with my one Google
account and that is amazing I can also
send and receive from multiple emails if
I compose a message you’ll see that I
can send emails from a variety of
different people info inquiries my
photography email my studio corporate
email my film email and some of our
associate photographers I can send
emails on their behalf when necessary it
is so great to be able to do that on one
platform without having to switch
between a bunch of different inboxes now
possibly the greatest feature of using
Gmail and Chrome together is the ability
to use Chrome extensions which basically
add extra functionality to your email
it’s something you won’t find anywhere
else let me show you in productivity
tool number two which is boomerang for
Chrome boomerang for Chrome is a gmail
extension that allows you to schedule
emails for later and remind yourself to
follow up on different emails whether
it’s an inquiry a bride a follow up with
a client who needs to pay an invoice it
lets you do that and stay on top of your
emails so per easily so let me show you
what I mean I’ve got an inquiry here
from Karen I’m going to open it up and
it is now 1013 p.m. at night so I’m not
going to want to respond to this email
until the morning well that’s easy I can
go in here I can say hi Karen here’s
your info type out that email go down
here to send later and I can actually
click that and schedule it for tomorrow
morning and just like that that message
will be sent tomorrow morning at 9:30 8
a.m. and I will no longer look like an
email stalker for sending emails in the
middle of the night now possibly the
best part about using boomerang is the
ability to remind you
self to send emails so for instance I
have this inquiry from Christine and
she’s asking what package details are
available now let’s say I went in here
and I’ve gave her details and I typed
those out and then I clicks in now
normally I would forget to follow up
with Christine if I didn’t hear back
from her I would just sort of forget and
move on and possibly never hear from her
again now the beauty of actually using
boomerang is if I want to I can go up
here and I can go
let me just undo that before we send
Christine an email that makes no sense I
can go up to boomerang and go if no
reply if I don’t hear back from
Christine remind me in two days put it
back in my inbox in a week or two weeks
or a month or tomorrow morning whatever
it is and at that time that email will
surface right into my inbox as an unread
message and it will notify me hey you’ve
got to follow up with Christine now
what’s really really cool about this is
I can actually go through and let’s go
back here to Christine’s message I can
actually go through and when I boomerang
it I can add a little note here to
remind me what exactly the reason is for
being reminded and what I need to follow
up about which is amazing all of a
sudden I have the ability to follow up
with my clients with an email sequence
should I not hear back from them so when
I first write them I give them this
package info then two days later I said
a boomerang and I hear back from them or
I don’t if I don’t hear back from them I
have a two days later email if I don’t
hear back then I have a four days later
etc all the way down to about seven days
later and 95% of people get back to me
by that point whereas previously when I
was just sort of following up sometimes
forgetting I would hardly ever hear back
from people after the first couple of
days so that is an amazing tool that you
have to try it allows you to have ten
messages boomeranged for free as a
starter and then you can upgrade from
there if you need to so definitely add
that to your chrome you can get that in
the Chrome extensions the next
productivity hack is Gmail snippets now
this goes hand in hand with boomerang as
I mentioned I have a sequence of emails
I send my clients and Gmail sneek
snippets allows me to do that so let’s
go back here to Christine and her info
request again I can go in here hit reply
and now that I’ve actually added
snippets you just download that Chrome
extension you get this little more
options here
I’ve got canned responses
and I can insert any of these emails
depending on what the bridegroom inquiry
has actually asked from me so in this
case she wants in for info for both film
and photography packages so I can go in
there it inserts my pre-written message
and I can just switch in hi Christine
add a little bit of info about her venue
I go through I adjust her dates and just
like that we’ve got this beautiful
pre-written
email sent out it’s consistent from
bride to bride and you’ve got a process
that saves you so much time responding
to emails and again once I sent this I
would boomerang it for two days later
then I would go through and I’ve got my
canned response here follow up one
follow up two three four all the way
down in the row when they decide to book
I have a booking email when they decide
when I want to confirm their booking I
have a confirmation email and afterwards
after the wedding after the event I have
a here are your photos email and then a
follow-up requesting a review and if you
are not using follow ups to get reviews
this will change your entire business
because reviews drive customers like
crazy and it makes such a big difference
so definitely check those out there is a
couple different options there’s Gmail
snippets and then there is also canned
responses so you can just google that in
the Chrome Web Store and add canned
responses as well or instead whichever
you prefer okay let’s jump over to
productivity tool number five which is
scheduler again this is a Google Chrome
extension which has changed my flippin
life so let’s say that Christine
actually booked and she’s booked her
wedding and she wants to have an
engagement session now previously this
would be 1015 emails back and forth it
does this date work for you how about
this date no that doesn’t work for me
how about this time what time works for
you
exactly you get the point and this gets
old really fast especially when you’re
juggling multiple clients it can get
very complicated and confusing and you
can make mistakes with your booking as
well no longer once you add let’s close
some tabs here so we’re under control
once you add the scheduler for Gmail
Gmail meeting scheduler it is so easy to
set up a meet meeting all I have to do
is hit this little calendar button
when I’m not logged in of course so
we’re going to switch my other account
and just to make this faster let’s say I
was emailing Christine I would hit this
calendar button and up pops availability
for invite I can say ok I’m available
Tuesday and I want it to be around
sunset so 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. and I go
through I’d fill in my availability for
different shoots during the week and
then I would go insert link with my
availability and I can enter my
different info in here or set up our
engagement shoot insert link and just
like that I would have a nice little
button here BAM and I can send later
tomorrow morning using my boomerang
plugin ok
the next one we’re going to look at is
adblock plus and adblock I actually run
both of these on my computer because I
hate ads so much but one or other will
work for you once you install this you
will never go back every single ad that
you see on the internet that pops up and
gets in your way adblock plus actually
prevents that from happening and the
most magical majestical part of this
whole thing is it works on YouTube so
once you install adblock plus of for
Chrome you can watch whatever videos you
want on YouTube forever and ever and
ever and not a single ad will pop up
it’s a beautiful thing
trust me install it moving on to
productivity tool number seven this is a
game changer it is hello sign now when I
came across hello sign my mind was blown
why because it allows you to sign
contracts on line this saves you so much
time and headaches with your clients not
only that it makes booking easier for
them now what is the number one
frustrating thing about having to sign a
contract as a client you have to get it
you have to print it you have to find a
scanner you have to upload it again and
then you have to send it back to your
photographer now that’s a lot of
roadblocks and a lot of time for you to
reconsider your decision by having
hellosign and online contracts you can
simply send booking info to your clients
and they can do it right away without
having to think about it trust me this
will increase your bookings hellosign
all right
productivity to
number eight goes hand in hand with
hellosign making the booking process as
easy as possible guys it’s super simple
and it makes all the difference in the
world to booking more gigs more weddings
more photoshoots whatever it is you do
you will do more of it by making the
process easy for your clients so PayPal
actually allows you to invoice your
clients which is so important because
they can then pay by credit card or
whatever method they want is totally
secure totally simple totally easy to
set up you can do that I use this all
the time and they do charge a small fee
I think it’s three or four percent and
yes three or four percent of three grand
for a wedding or something like that it
really does suck
however it’s better than not booking the
wedding to begin with so I normally do
this for my initial booking and then the
later payments I can make that a little
more complicated have them do it by II
transfer or venmo or whatever works but
PayPal is easy it’s secure it’s trusted
you will not go wrong by using this tool
okay moving on to productivity tool
number one is it number nine we are
moving on to Pinterest automatic pin
WordPress plug-in now this one is a
little more specific if you’re using
WordPress for your website which I
overall suggest because it allows you to
have a lot of control customisation and
we’ll see one of our other tools here
also uses WordPress Pinterest automatic
pin changed my Pinterest life because
Pinterest if you are using it as a
photographer which you probably are you
have to upload your pins one at a time
so let’s say that I had a wedding and I
wanted to upload some different images
from Pinterest you know the drill you
have to hit Plus create pin I go I grab
my image I upload it great that’s
perfect that’s not mine
not my image I go in I’d write my
description I’d link my U or URL to my
post and then I’d choose a board to pin
it to it’s a process right so it takes
10 20 30 seconds for you to make one
single pin now imagine doing that
hundreds of times it adds up and it
takes a long time so you can only pin so
many images Pinterest for WordPress
changes your life because it allows you
to automatically pin all of your images
from a post to whatever board you
specify
automatically and it’s amazing because
it actually spaces them out so here I’ve
got a post from a wedding in the town
where I work it’s in Vernon the venue is
called der alle Villa and so what I do
is I go pin this post Pinterest
automatic is installed here and I can
actually in select whichever images I
want to pin I can do that selectively or
I can scroll down here bear with me and
just go select all hit modify pin
variables and that will allow me to
adjust the pin text so I’ve got the post
title which is automatically going to be
whatever this title is I can adjust and
put tags in there I will have the post
link in that description as well as
whatever keyword I want to have in there
which is Kelowna wedding photography the
city I want to rank for and this is the
beautiful part guys I can pin to
whatever board I want it automatically
syncs to my Pinterest profile and what I
actually do little SEO hack here is I
create a Pinterest board for every venue
that the wedding is at so this wedding
was at Doral e villa so I would go
through and I would select Torelli Villa
wedding and that’s been a while since I
actually went through here there we go
and then I would hit update and
automatically Pinterest WordPress plugin
is going to go through and not post all
these all the time because that would
look spammy and you might get banned
it’s going to pin one of these whatever
you set it for so I think mine is set
for every two or three minutes it will
pin in the image over and over and over
again until it has pinned all of these
to that board and now I have all of my
images with descriptions with links to
my website on Pinterest game changer
okay moving on to productivity tool
number 10 we are headed into Yoast
territory SEO for everybody now this is
also a wordpress plugin and it works
pretty much the same as pinterest plugin
in that it works right in your post so
once you have a wordpress site you
simply scroll down to the bottom once
this plug-in is enabled there’s a lot of
images in here obviously once we get to
the bottom here Yoast looks just like
this it gives you a snippet preview of
what your search what your post will
actually show up like in Google and it
lets you optimize it and actually scores
you on how well you’re doing in the SEO
world so for instance I would go through
here and they say what Keeffe a key
phrase do you want this to rank for when
people search in Google what do you want
this post to show up under
and I have Durrell evil of Vernon
wedding because that’s where this
wedding took place now it goes through
and it says okay your keyphrase actually
showed up so many times you’ve got good
links you’ve got internal links you’ve
got keyword length keyword density is
how many times that pops up so basically
gives you a score and allows you to
optimize your own website for SEO very
quickly and effectively it’s an awesome
tool highly recommend all right moving
on to productivity tool number 11 we are
on Google Forms Google Forms has blown
my mind I mean all of these tools are
amazing so if you don’t get the point
all of these tools blow my mind but
Google Forms makes things so much easier
for me and adds that extra little realm
of professionalism to my client
experience I have questionnaires that
I’ve created in Google Forms and you can
actually even buy these templates on our
site if you want or make your own and
basically you go through here and this
is what the client sees except for this
little edit button of course and I get
all of the info I need for my wedding
day I send this to the bride and the
groom or just the bride and she’ll go
through and she’ll complete all of the
info that I need to make a timeline for
the day
now I have another one here oh this is
the backend just to show you how easy it
is so I get my answers here and I can go
through depending on the bride I have
access to all of my questionnaires for
the entire season in one spot and I can
go through and really quickly and easily
and it whatever it is
bridegroom and their dog I can add
questions I can make checkboxes I can
even do client surveys after the fact
Google Forms going to change your life
so I have one of those for weddings one
for families one for maternity you name
it you can check out the templates on
signature edits calm these door shops
signature edit com we’re gonna move on
to productivity tool number I believe it
is 12 which is Google Drive now I’ve
mentioned Google Drive in the past and
of course this might go without saying
you might already be using Google Drive
if you’re not you should and how do I
use Google Drive well I use it for
everything I have photos on there I have
documents on there but the main thing I
use it for is inquiries when a bride
actually contacts me and they want to
info I would say okay here’s my info for
next year’s photography I go through hi
Christine is great to hear from you
below is our packages and here in Google
Drive I can actually automatically have
this in gay
Stylebook be attached so i give them
this little booklet that goes through
talks about our pricing has some
portfolio work some suggestions so i
have one of these with our pricing in it
I have one with our engagement guide in
it and I have another one for getting
ready for the wedding day with some
sample timelines and this makes a huge
difference in the client experience and
actually sets us apart because we’re one
of the few photographers who actually
give our brides something a little bit
nicer than just an email with some
information in it so Google Drive is
super fantastic and super quick for that
I also use it for just keeping my photos
backed up and for sending wedding videos
so I have all of my client videos in
here and this is dual-purpose because on
one hand I can deliver the clients their
videos like this no more USB or CD to
worry about but I also at the same time
have these backed up forever on the
cloud without having to worry about
having a harddrive fail on me anything
like that backups are a good thing
moving on to productivity tool number 13
we have pixie set pixie set has
absolutely changed my life like every
other tool on here I’m saying that way
too much pixie set allows you to make
beautiful photo galleries and deliver
your photos in a way that is absolutely
stunning whether it’s on mobile or on
desktop it’s it’s just Bala that’s all
it is so here I have all of my weddings
my engagements every single session gets
sent to the client like this and right
from within the session I can go through
and click share enter any emails I want
to send it whether it’s the client the
clients parents enter subject I can use
snippets again email templates once they
have their photos I have a pre-written
template in here I just hit Send I can
include a deep download pinafore I want
or I can not and another beautiful thing
is I can actually set pixie setup to
automatically sell print so once the
client actually looks at the link so
here’s an example gallery for you if in
a recent engagement session so they get
this link and they get a look at their
photos and then they can go through and
once it’s set up you can actually order
prints right from within this gallery or
they can rather so pixie set is awesome
and again at the same time it is giving
me backups of all of my weddings all of
my engagement shoots which is fantastic
okay moving on to tool number what is it
now we’re on tool number 14 we
is later Graham later Graham is the
social platform of the century it has
you guessed it changed my life why is
that because later Graham allows me to
schedule out all of my Facebook
Instagram Twitter and Pinterest posts
now of course I’m actually using a
Pinterest plugin but for Facebook and
Instagram it’s amazing to be able to
plan out an entire month of content in
like five minutes so I can go through
here I’ve uploaded images from my
portfolio and I can just grab and drop
them onto different days so I would put
this one on the 19th and I can write my
caption in here and I have my hashtag
that sort of thing I can actually save
captions hashtags suggestions but for
now I’m just going to show you how quick
and easy this is go through and just
drag and drop images wherever I want add
my captions and schedule all of my
content this makes it so much easier now
what actually happens is this app syncs
to my phone and at the specified time it
will pop up with a notification on my
phone saying post awaiting and I can
automatically just in a couple of clicks
click click click and it’s uploaded and
done complete with my caption no more
typing that fiddling around on my phone
it’s easy as pie and I can do this for
Facebook Pinterest and Twitter which is
fantastic
got two more productivity tools for you
number 15 we have Google Calendar me the
simplest way to keep track of my Studios
bookings all of my personal life
everything syncs and what I love love
love love love about it is how simple it
is and how it syncs automatically with
Gmail you already saw how I can schedule
a meetings with it but what I love is I
can actually track all of my weddings on
here it’s very easy go through and for
me simple as best if I were scheduling
thousands of appointments every single
month and I needed to track clients for
months at a time I’m sure I would be
using something a little more
complicated but for me it’s really as
simple as I go in here and when the
client pays their deposit I put in how
much they paid when they booked when the
wedding is a little bit of info but
who’s photographing the wedding that
sort of a thing and that’s all tracked
and easy to sync with my other
photographers I can send them
invitations to confirm and make sure it
is calendar rather it just allows me to
really synergize all of the different
bookings across all the photographer’s
who work with us and keep track of
things quickly simply and efficiently
and it’s free it’s awesome and it’s easy
and for me
is best whenever possible now tool
number 16 this one is a lifesaver let’s
say I send this info to Christine and
Christine asked for photo packages but
instead I thought that she was my cousin
and said uh-huh look at this quick cat
video and I hit Send and then I go oh
crap I did not mean to send Christine a
video of cats well with this tool the
undo tool for Chrome actually for Gmail
it will change your life because it will
prevent you from making stupid mistakes
like I do all the time so to enable that
you just go up to settings undo sent and
we can actually just apply however long
we want to have that on for I set it to
as long as possible because I tend to
make stupid mistakes and not realize
about it until it’s too late so this
helps me a ton there’s so many times
that I send the wrong info or I miss
type or I misspell a name and this has
saved my butt so you need that one just
to cover yourself alright so those are
the 16 top productivity tools that
absolutely I use every single day in my
photography business hey if I missed one
please leave it in the comments below
which one is your favorite please let me
know in the comments below let’s do a
poll and hit this like button if this
video was useful for you don’t forget to
subscribe if you want more great content
and I will see you in the next one!
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