Maternity Photographer Press Release Example, 3 Easy Wins

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.

0 to 3news stories, plus a TV segment
22new maternity inquiries
9sessions booked

Forty maternity gowns hung in Nell’s spare room for three years. Most had been worn once.

They became the story in Nell’s maternity photographer press release from Tucson, Arizona.

Nell is a solo photographer who shoots maternity sessions in the desert at sunrise and sunset.

She’d written press releases before, and nobody had answered.

Then she changed the subject, from her studio to something her whole town could use.

Three outlets ran the story within two weeks.

The problem

Nell had sent two press releases in two years. Both went to every newsroom email she could find.

The first announced her studio’s fifth birthday. The second announced a spring discount on maternity sessions.

Neither got a single reply. Not even a “no, thanks.”

Her news wasn’t news

Looking back, she could see why. A birthday and a sale matter to her, not to readers.

Both releases opened with “We are thrilled to announce,” and both were mostly about prices and packages. To an editor, they read like ads.

She sent them to everyone

Her list had 46 addresses, including sports desks and a farming magazine. Nobody on it had been chosen on purpose.

Measure	Before
Press releases sent	2
Replies from editors	0
Stories published	0
Website visits from news sites	0

The solution

Nell asked herself one question. What could she do that a reader would tell a friend about?

The answer was in her spare room. Expecting moms spend a lot on gowns they wear once. She had 40, in sizes 2 to 24.

She decided to lend them free to any expecting mom in Tucson, whether or not they booked her.

To make it bigger, she teamed up with a prenatal yoga studio two streets away. Together they planned a free Saturday morning event.

A short yoga class for bumps, a gown try-on and a free mini portrait for every mom who came.

That was something new, local, timely and human. It passed the test her old releases had failed.

The process that worked

Nell built the release in one evening and sent it the following Tuesday morning.

The release

The headline said exactly what happened. “Tucson Photographer and Yoga Studio Open Free Maternity Gown Library.”

The first paragraph covered who, what, where and when. The details listed sizes, try-on hours and the event date.

The quote came from a real memory. “At 31 weeks I cried in a changing room because nothing fit. I don’t want any mom here to feel that.”

The yoga teacher added a second quote about how few free events exist for pregnant women in the city.

The photo

She didn’t send client photos. She sent a horizontal picture of herself beside the gown rail and a vertical one of the yoga room.

Both were sharp, unwatermarked and captioned with names spelled out.

The daily paper used the gown rail photo across three columns. The editor later said the picture sold the story to her boss.

The list

She cut 46 addresses down to 7.

The family editor at the daily paper, a local parenting website, two morning TV producers, a radio host and two neighborhood newsletters.

She found most names on each outlet’s contact page. For two, she simply called the front desk and asked who covered family stories.

Each got a short pitch by first name with the release pasted below. The subject line began “Story idea.”

The follow-up

Five days later, she sent one short note to the four who hadn’t replied. One TV producer answered within the hour.

The TV segment

The producer asked to film at the yoga studio on the morning of the event.

Nell had three lines ready. What was happening, why she started it and how to join.

She talked about the moms, not her camera. The segment ran for 2 minutes and 10 seconds.

Afterward, she added the story to her Google Business Profile posts, her website and her next client email.

What Nell’s maternity photographer press release brought in

She tracked results for six weeks after the event.

Measure	Before	After 6 weeks
Replies from editors	0	4 of 7
Stories published	0	3, plus a TV segment
Moms at the event	–	38
Gowns lent out	–	31
New maternity inquiries	–	22
Sessions booked	–	9

Nine bookings at about $390 each came to $3,510. The event cost her one Saturday morning and $60 for coffee and pastries.

What we learned from here

Nell’s results show that the story is the strategy.

A good story with an average release beats a polished release about nothing.

The gowns were never a sales tool. Most moms who borrowed one didn’t book her.

But the story put her name in front of thousands of local families at once. That reach would have cost far more as ads.

The partner doubled everything. Two quotes, two networks and two sets of social shares made the story feel like community news.

The yoga studio gained new students from it too, which made them happy to plan the next event together.

The short list worked better than the long one. Seven chosen people beat 46 random ones.

She now writes every maternity photographer press release by interviewing herself first, out loud, with a notebook.

Here’s how the old and new releases compared.

Got a call back	Got silence
A free gown library for the whole town	A fifth studio birthday
A headline that said what happened	“We are thrilled to announce”
A real memory as the quote	A line about passion and magic
Seven chosen editors, by first name	46 addresses copied from websites
A photo of her with the gown rail	A watermarked gallery of clients

One thing fell flat. She pitched a follow-up story a month later about the most borrowed gown.

Nobody bit. Second stories need their own news.

The gown library itself kept working, though. Moms kept finding it through the newspaper story online, months after it ran.

Next spring she plans to invite a children’s book author to read at the yoga event. That’s a new angle, and a new reason to write.