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Ola Simplifies 3 Sessions and Triples Her Bookings as a Newborn Photographer

Published on Reviewed & Edited by Niaj A A Khan

Ola Osei Solo Newborn Photographer Des Moines, Iowa, USA

Newborn photographer services example doodle with five flower package names crossed out, an arrow to three plain sessions with starting prices and a 3x bookings badge

Most of these case studies come from emails my readers send me. With their permission, I share them with the names changed. I do this so that others can learn from what worked and what didn't. Have a story of your own? Share it with me.

  • 3xnewborn bookings a month, from 2 to 6
  • 7 to 1price-only questions a month
  • 620words on the new page, down from 1,400

It took Ola’s sister eleven minutes to find the price. She never did find it. She found a contact form instead.

Ola timed her on purpose. That timer started the change in Ola’s newborn photographer services in Des Moines, Iowa.

Ola photographs newborns in clients’ homes and in a small studio above her garage.

Plenty of parents found her page. Very few booked.

Three months after a rewrite, her bookings tripled, with no new photos and no price changes.

The problem

Ola’s services page had five packages, each named after a flower. Lily, Peony, Rose, Orchid and Lotus.

Each package had a long, dreamy paragraph. None had a price. Every one ended with the same line.

Contact me for a custom quote.

The page ran to 1,400 words. Her safety promise sat in the very last paragraph, under a story about her first camera.

MeasureBefore, per month
Inquiries from the services page9
Inquiries that asked only “How much?”7
Sessions booked2
Inquiries that went quiet after a price5

The flowers didn’t say anything

Parents couldn’t tell Lily from Lotus without reading every word. Was one at home? Which one had siblings?

One mom asked if Orchid was the hospital session. It wasn’t. There was no hospital session.

Another asked which flower meant she could stay in her pajamas. Ola laughed, then realized the answer wasn’t anywhere on the page.

Hiding the price cost her twice

Almost every inquiry was a price question. Ola spent about four hours a month answering them.

Then most of those parents disappeared once they saw the number. They weren’t her clients, and the page had no way to tell them sooner.

The good fits suffered too.

A mom who could afford her happily might still pick the photographer who showed a price, simply because it felt easier.

Ola had assumed mystery made her look high-end. To tired parents, it just looked like homework.

The solution

Ola decided the page would answer every common question before a parent had to ask.

She cut five packages to three and gave each a plain name.

Newborn at Home, from $425.

Sleepy Studio Session, from $375.

First Year Set, from $895.

Each session got the same four short lines. Who it’s for, where and when, how the day feels and what you get.

She moved two safety lines right under the first photo. A second adult stays within arm’s reach, and the room stays warm.

She added a small table of quiet worries, like a messy house or needing to feed. Each had one kind answer.

She kept her best photos, but cut the gallery on that page from 30 images to 8. The services page was for deciding, not browsing.

The new page came to 620 words.

She wrote it in two evenings, using the plain language guidelines as a quick checklist for short words and short sentences.

The process that worked

Before she published, Ola ran the new page through four small tests. Each one changed something.

The sister test

She timed her sister again. The price took four seconds this time.

Her sister also asked a new question. “Can my toddler be in it?” Ola added one line about siblings to every session.

The partner test

Ola’s husband read only the top of the page and said, “So it’s about $400 and you come to us?”

That was the goal. She added a five-line summary box near the top, for the parent who skims.

The night test

She read the page on her phone at 11 p.m. with the lights off. Two paragraphs felt like walls, so she split them.

She also made the button bigger and moved it up, right after the first session.

The words changed too. “Hold my due-date week” replaced “Submit inquiry.”

The stranger test

She asked a mom from her prenatal yoga class, who had never hired her, what would make her hesitate.

“I’d worry about my house being a mess.” That line went straight into the quiet worries table, near the top.

How Ola’s newborn photographer services paid off

Ola compared three months before the change with three months after.

Measure per monthBeforeAfter
Inquiries from the services page98
“How much?” only inquiries71
Sessions booked26
Hours spent on price emails4Less than 1

Inquiries dipped a little, and that was fine. The parents who wrote now already knew the price and wanted the session.

Four extra bookings a month at about $400 each came to roughly $1,600 more a month.

What we learned from here

The lesson from Ola’s story is that clear beats pretty, every single time.

The flower names felt special to Ola. To parents, they felt like a puzzle with no answer key.

Showing the price didn’t scare good clients away. It saved time for everyone and brought in parents who were ready.

She also learned to test with real people.

Her sister, her husband and a stranger each found a gap she couldn’t see after staring at the page for a week.

Each test took five minutes and cost a coffee at most.

The quiet worries table surprised her most. Three new clients mentioned the messy-house line in their first message.

She now writes every page about her newborn photographer services in the order parents ask. Safety, fit, contents, price and proof.

Here’s what made the page clearer and what made it murkier.

Made it clearerMade it murkier
Plain session namesFlower names
A starting price for each“Contact me for a quote”
Safety lines under the first photoSafety in the last paragraph
Four lines per sessionA long, dreamy paragraph
A quiet worries tableHoping parents would ask

One change didn’t help. She tried a big comparison table of all three sessions, and parents on phones had to scroll sideways.

She swapped it for the five-line summary box within a week. On a phone, five lines beat a wide table every time.

She also kept one flower. Her newborn wrap is still called the Lily, and parents love asking about it in person.

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