March 25th, 2009 in Darlene raised another good point about my album-marketing posts. (I’d suggested that you split the wedding sales process into two stages, the process of booking the wedding and the process of selling the photographs. Stage 2 comes after the wedding, and often involves showing your clients an album you’ve pre-designed, or even designing the album with them then and there.)
Darlene’s point was that I was promoting pre-design, but my advice was no help to photographers who have “no time to do that”.
She’s right, but I can’t see what can be done about it. Pre-design requires the ability to edit the design, and for that you need the designer in the room!
In a nutshell, that’s why we sometimes describe PJ Remix as a sales tool, not a design tool.
On the face of it people who “don’t have time” to design their own albums run the risk of leaving money on the table. It’s worth thinking about this:
- If you’re contracting out your album design, do it so you can get back to “shooting pictures and selling them”, where the profit is.
- If you’re designing your own albums, treat it as design job and a sales job.
Of course Stage 2 (selling the photographs) could be just that, a sales session to encourage your clients to buy more images for their album, but I wouldn’t assume it will save you much time. And you won’t have the ability to show them what their album could look like.
Cheers, Ian
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