We are struggling with the marketing thing. We have been in business since May and have booked many weddings. It is truely a blessing. We love booking weddings but, as you all know, we NEED to sell prints and albums. Currently our hi-res disc is included in our top package however most brides opt to buy it a la carte. What we are finding is if they purchase the disc(s), which they always do, our print sales are minimal. The same thing is happening with our e sessions.

We are getting ready to reprice our packages for 2008 and need to figure out what to do about the hi res disc. Should we include it, should we raise the price, just how do we attempt to get more print sales if the hi-res disc seems to be slowing print purchasing down?

Is your a la carte price the same or higher than your average print sales?

I also offer the disc with my higher packages, but my a la carte price for the disc is the same as the average of my print sales. So, if they buy the disc, I'm not worried about losing money from print sales.

However, I'm also no longer with Pictage, partially because of this fear.

Ksenia

I think this is pretty common.

I include high res jpegs in all of my packages, but I don't give them to brides until I deliver the album. This seems to help with print sales a little.

Sean

It is about average, but we are losing sales from friends and family. When you release your hi-res does it give your clients permission to print for friends and family?

By the way, thanks for your input!

That's the way it works nowadays.

Set your package pricing high enough so you are not "needing" print sales. Then the prints that you do sell are just gravy.

I haven't been doing weddings long enough to offer advice, but I have a question along these lines: I attended a mentor/marketing session with a respected photographer and also have talked to other high-end photographers in my local community, and they each do the same thing which is offering the CD as part of every package, but ONLY releasing after a year - no a la carte options. While some clients may wait out the year for their free CD, it is rare. This made perfect sense to me, it seems to be working for them. What are your guys' thoughts on doing it this way?

i include the dvd after 1 year or if an album is purchased.

I deliver hires disc with the album if they get it. It definitely helps my print sales, although some do wait it out.

It really depends on how you word the release. If you give them the copyright, they can do whatever they wish, and in fact YOU would ahve to have permission to use. If you give them a realease to print for personal use, you retain copyright and they can print for gifts but they cannot sell them or publish them.Now, as far as what to do....Do what YOU want to do. If you don't want to offer the disks as a part of the package, then don't. (I don't).If you want to offer them for purchase, then do. You can make it a year later, or with album, or immediately. I personally get about double what we average in reprints or a little more. So, if they buy, I really don't care if there is another print sold or not.It's your business. Set the policies YOU want and go with it. What everyone else does should not determine what you do.JMO,MarkNot really. If you set your minimum get out of bed fee high enough to pay you what you need, then you don't have to depend on anything else after the wedding.We charge a fee for shooting, and a pre-paid album fee. The two combined give us what we have determined to be the minimum profit we must have.If no one bought a single thing after the wedding, we would still be in business with gorceries on the table.We LIKE resales and upsells, but our fee structures are such that we are guaranteed to make the minimum we need regardless.Depending on resales bites you about wallet high when they dont come through.Mark

Hey Scott!

Price your a-la-carte disc higher than any print order you've ever received and release it for personal use only. Specify that copies of the digital images cannot be distributed. Create email-able sizes of all images and grant them permission to send these to others. Give a holla to becker too. He prices his packages high enough to cover any difference in cost, and he only gives out the original...unedited...images.

What is the value of your images? When people buy prints, they're not only buying a piece of paper with any old printed picture on it and some fancy packaging. Go to Wal-Mart...they can get the same thing there...minus the fancy packaging of course. When people buy prints from you, they are buying the time you invested in giving them the best images possible for a lifetime of memories.

Keep using Pictage even if you find that people are just buying the disc. It is an awesome resource and if you educate the client enough in advance, they too will realize that it is a service to them (even if they don't order prints) as they don't need to worry about taking orders from all their family and friends.

i actually wonder the same thing...

i noticed that you are including a LOT in your package(s).

you certainly are creating value - in fact you are creating too much value. you are losing money. what is that disk worth to you? really. it is worth the value YOU place on it. if you give it away it is worth nothing - you have devalued it. the stuff on it then has no value...

all i can do is give you an example...
my coverage includes... well... my time and talent and very little else. if people want that album, they pay for it. if they want prints, they pay for them. and if they want the disk... well, sorry, it's not for sale. that is the value i place on it. it is priceless. (well, actually not priceless, it's $50 for all raw files shot at the wedding - so it's about $140000. no one has bought one, yet) people will say that it cannot be done - but i do this. NO DISK. and it's really funny, once they see their album design, they don't even care. and at the end of the day - once somene pays for their album, if they STILL wanted the disk, i'd burn them one.

there is no trickery, there is no secrecy - i manage my clients' expectations as best as i can. i am very up front about the costs and how we work. i value my work highly. i may work less than others - but when my albums alone AVERAGE $3750+, i don't need book as many. (yes that is an average) i'm not trying to impress you, just impress upon you that you can make very significant sales AFTERWARD, you don't need to give the disk away, and you can STILL have people rave about you - and it is ALL about the rave.

now back to pictage... good for some - doesn't fit my model. my focus is on the coverage and albums. print sales are bug dust to me. i host my own gallery. my print sales are BIG print sales - not 4x6 or 5x7 purchases. they are usually large, formal prints. the small ones i do at no charge and if someone needs a bunch, i just print them up. i choose not to focus on the 'small' stuff. i know the little sales add up, but i have to choose my focus - i can't be everywhere at once. my focus is on bigger ticket items.

bottom line...
charge more up front
create value
focus your attention on what you want to grow
manage expectations so that they rave!

hope this helps.