Wedding Photographers, who are still selling wedding albums for a profit, know that the choice of photo book they sell, determines whether their album selling is successful, so it is critical that they choose the right album that will aid, and not frustrate, their success. If the wrong book is chosen, the result is either no sales at all, or sales at such a low price, that there is no financial reward and therefore no point in selling the album in the first place.
The first step in making the right photo book choice is to understand your competition. The competition you must know about to help you make the right album choice first time, are not fellow wedding photographers, but are the big department stores and shopping centres. This is because the Australian chain store giants have made a serious push into the wedding album market, and have been successful in capturing coffee table book sales. The retail moguls machine print albums fast, on mass, at the lowest prices, and they promote and inform wedding couples of their books, in store, online, and in print, radio and television media. Wedding Photographers who are still selling photo books for a profit, know this, which is why when it comes to choosing the right album to sell, they immediately eliminate Coffee Table Books. In fact, based on this knowledge, they immediately eliminate all books that can be machine printed, because chain stores have this market sown up, and a photography business cannot compete against a chain store giant, and there is no point trying.
In knowing your big and powerful competition, you now know the type of books you can never successfully sell for a profit, and knowing the books not to sell, brings you half the way to knowing the right book to sell and profit from. You now know that the book you need to sell, must be a wedding album the chain stores cannot quickly machine bind and sell as cheap as chips.
So, what type or types of albums are off limits to the chain stores?
Before answering this key question, it is essential that you understanding some important features of the wedding industry, in particular, the album market, and how and where different albums fit in the wedding market place. An example from the food industry may help you see the album market and the consumers' perspective, more simply and clearly. This knowledge will help you avoid the disappointment of wasting your resources on bad album choices that will return you no profit.
Most of us have chosen Fast Food at a Take-Away, and most of us have eaten in a comfortable sit down restaurant. Let's look more closely and compare the two choices and experiences.
Fast Food is quick, cheap, and made to a price, while the restaurant is an experience you remember because of the food, the people with you, and the service. The restaurant costs more, but you get so much more. The Fast Food is fast, but the restaurant meal is worth the wait. The Take-Away meal is so quick and efficient, it looks and tastes like it was made in a factory by a robot, The restaurant meal you chose from a menu, and it is prepared as a one-off by a Chef who most likely personally selected and purchased the ingredients at the markets early that morning. More thought and care went into your restaurant meal, which is the reason why it looks, smells and tastes delicious, and why it costs more and is worth more. Fast Food has its purpose, and is great for the kids or if you are in a rush, but for a special occasion, for a romantic one-on-one precious time to remember together, you will choose your fine restaurant every time.
When successful Wedding Photographers choose the right photo book to sell, their considerations are similar to choosing between a Take-Away meal and a meal at a restaurant. If they choose a Coffee Table Book, it is like choosing the Take Away Fast Food. Yes, it is cheap and quick and has pictures in it, and it will do for the kids birthday, but it pales when compared side-by-side with a beautiful wedding album that satisfies the expectations of wedding couples and also lives up to what is expected of a family heirloom for future generations.
Besides the Coffee Table Book being unsuitable to play a role as a true wedding album, it never was a profitable book, as you cannot add a reasonable profit, because its low price was always a factor in couples choosing the Coffee Table Book, so there was never real profit to be gained by Wedding Photographers selling it. Now of course, there is no point in selling them, because shopping centres can retail them to couples for $50 to $200.
So now, let's discuss the album choice that can profit you, which has to be an album that shopping centres cannot make by fast machine binding.
The type of photo book that is still profiting Wedding Photographers is known as the Compression Page Album, and it can only be hand bound, so you are not competing on price against the books printed by the retail giants. Compression Page Albums still provide photographers a profit niche protected from the big retailers. These albums are in a class of their own, looking nothing like machine bound books, and instead they have a charming elegance and style, a little like the comparison between the bustle of a drive-through at your local take-away, and the romantic ambiance that sets the scene for intimate and private sharing between a man and a woman.
From first glance, you know you've discovered a book that is completely different to the common crowd of photo books. A book set apart from the rest, not just because of the look, but also because of the quality that runs deep. Similar to the restaurant Chef who chose the ingredients for your delicious meal which wasn't simply eaten but instead savoured and remembered as exquisite, so the expert hand binders chose the glues, papers, cardboards, vinyl colours and textures, carefully creating the permanent library bound strong spine to last, so the Compression Page Album looks gorgeous for many long years.
In case you have never heard of Compression Page Albums, let me define this class of photo book.
Firstly, they are named due their compression page, which begins life as thick cardboard, before being compressed under many tons of pressure for a 12-hour duration. This pressure achieves a strong stiff and long lasting page. Before the compressed pages are ready to be used by the binder, they are hand trimmed and sanded until the page edges are smooth and flat. The smooth and flat edges make it possible to colour the page edge. The pages edge make an important contribution to the overall look and style of these albums, which is not possible in other types of photo book.
Of course, couples who are looking for a special wedding album and are prepared to pay accordingly, desire additional photo book features too. Features that attract couples to pay more for a photo book include, understated elegance, hand bound professional quality, compression pages, flush mount, stiff pages, lay flat spreads, no cut photo centre, professional photo paper, finger touch photo protection, richer colours and blacker blacks in image quality, long lasting album durability, and long 5-year replacement guarantee on binding strength. A photo book that looks rare, distinctive, and unique is also more likely to be perceived by couples as being worth a higher price.
Because of the proliferation of common machine bound photo books sold cheaply today, the Compression Page Album shines all the brighter, giving the discriminating wedding photographer a golden opportunity to capitalise and still earn good profits in 2012.
The stiff page makes the best showcase for a wedding photographer's work, while also being synonymous with luxury and superior quality. In fact, these photo books are the strongest form of binding and the longest lasting type of albums.
Wedding photographers also get far more word-of-mouth referral from compression page photo books, because just like the ease of remembering a delicious dish, comfortable decor, and charming service for far longer than queuing for your Take-Away, so it is that these albums make a lasting positive impression. Be sure to include your logo and web address in your closing design page, because friends of the brides will not forget this album, and your business will experience more growth.
Smart photographers know that the cheap albums now sold in their millions through big retailers, are not an enemy to profits, but are actually a friend and the biggest profit opportunity for many years, because most photographers today are either giving up and leaving the industry, or are capitulating to shoot and burns and making no profit from album sales. Compression page albums give photographers a greater opportunity to profit.
To profit from this absence of photographers selling wedding albums, you will have to work harder and smarter, because more than ever before, Brides have to see your albums to see the difference in your albums compared to common machine bound albums. This means you will show your compression page albums on your home page so that Brides know the instant they arrive on your website, that you sell unique albums. You will make your first impression as a photographer, by photographing your photo books to show off their class, style, and elegance. The smart profiting photographer today, prompts a huge 'WOW' response in the first second the Bride enters their website and sees their album product. After all, everyone who makes a profit out of photography has to sell a product, and the photographers' product is their photo book. A wedding photographer is in commerce, so don't waste your website, get commercial. Product comes first and makes the first impression. If you sell cars you show cars on your website, and the same applies to those who sell houses, flowers, coffee, or anything. Second, be proud of your prices. Have two or three albums featured on your home page showing album features and prices. Have images on your website that show your albums both inside and out, along with your album prices.
Your photography should take second place to your photo books. Show a few of your best shots from a few of your best weddings. Don't overdo your number of photographs. The best 'WOWs' are achieved from the first few images. Remember that you are only whetting the Brides appetite for your photography, so don't turn a tempting taste tease into an all-you-can-eat pig-out, or it will cost you big time. You want the Bride's experience on your website, to be a small and delicious taste of what is to come in your Photographic Studio.
Be sure to include some 'WOW' page designs, but again, not many. Remember, your website is an important savouring exercise, designed to elicit phone calls or emails requesting appointments in your Studio.
In your Studio, have two or three amazing Compression Page Albums. Never have more albums than that and never have any other type of album in your studio if you want to make profit from photo book sales. Display a few 'WOW' wall prints, but not many or you will dilute their impact.
Display your very best 'WOW' album in a premiere position on the far wall of your studio, placing it on a distinctive album stand under a light that attracts all eyes to it.
At the Studio appointment, first seat your couple, go through the formalities and the courtesies, and have bubbly already poured in two unusually attractive glasses. Have soft lighting, gentle music playing quietly in the background, and seat the couple on a comfortable lounge. Your two other 'WOW' albums should be on a coffee table in front of the couple.
After your introductions and indicating their drinks, let them know your will leave them for a few minutes to give them a little time to relax and settle, and invite them to watch some of your work. Set the display of your work in motion on a big screen. All the while the couple will have the feature album on the stand catching their attention and developing their interest. The five-minute view of your work should progress at a relaxing pace and needs to include some romantic wedding photography, some photo book spread designs, and finish with some product shots of your albums in the hands of couples. On the coffee table, also have swatches showing samples of available album cover choices.
That initial five minutes for the couple to be alone, is important because it allows them to relax and settle after their drive to find you, and as they make themselves comfortable, they are making themselves feel at home, and feeling at home, helps them connect to your work, connect to your albums, and connect to you.
When you return to the couple, ask them about themselves and what they are hoping for their wedding day. Take a friendly interest in their choice of gown, shoes, hair, makeup, etc. It is important to chat and share with them like a friend about location and date. It is also very important to compliment the bride and bride's mother about personal things that will look beautiful in your photographs. The bride and bride's mother must know that you feel that they are photogenic and the photographs you will take will look beautiful.
Ask them if they saw anything on your website that they liked, and ask them if they have had time to see your photo books, and invite them to walk over to view your feature album. It is important to have your feature album positioned so they walk over to it and stand as they view it. Always have all your albums closed so your couples are the ones who open them to view them.
At this point, tell them you will leave them again for a few minutes to view your wedding books privately. Give them five minutes alone, return with some finger food, and refill their glasses without being invited (if they decline, offer juice or water). While they enjoy your finger food, talk about your albums, describing the available choices, album features, print and binding qualities, describing to them what a Compression Page Album is, and informing them of the many benefits it means to them.
Remember to emphasise the benefits in everything you do and sell. Display on your website a standard 10% discount if they book a photography and album package, and the 10% discount should be presented showing 10% off the photography and 10% off the album so it sweetens the package. In your Studio, reward couples with a 20% discount if they book and deposit immediately before they leave, and again the 20% discount should be presented showing 20% off the photography and 20% off the album, so it sweetens the package.
Present the 20% discount offer at the end of the Studio appointment, and excuse yourself for five minutes, letting them know you want them to have the privacy to discuss their decision together. On your return, simply ask the couple what decision they have reached.
Never make the mistake of talking technically or going into detailed descriptions of your camera and lens equipment. Simply let the couple know that all your cameras and lenses are professional quality and produce impressive quality photographs, and you have enough back-up equipment on the day so equipment failure will not be a concern on their big day.
If you exhibit at wedding fairs, make your display look similar to your studio. Remember that less is definitely more. Always show only what will deliver an instant knockout 'WOW,' but don't overdo it, or you will reduce the impact you're wanting to generate.
Promote and exhibit your albums everywhere you can, and always work in a manner that delivers a service experience that exceeds couples' expectations.
Don't pressure sell or up sell. Great albums sell themselves. It is more about setting the scene as described above. Once you have everything in place, then it all hinges on you. Be friendly. Be helpful. Be nice. Don't waffle. Have a simple step-by-step process as described above.
You can expect to pay $500~$1,000 (AUD) wholesale for a compression page photo book from a supplier, and depending on how well you execute the advice in this article, will determine to what degree you profit, because retail prices set by Australian wedding photographers range from about $2,000~$5,000.
You can profit in 2012, just like other wedding photographers, but it does not happen by chance.
I hope this wedding album selling advice will help you to increase your profits from your wedding photography in 2012.
