Your a wedding photographer, you’ve ordered your free test prints, you’ve got your sample album, you’ve worked out your pricing and you’ve personalised the brochure, time for those photo album orders to roll in right?
Oh… wrong??
Don’t worry, sadly we’re no longer in a time where every client is asking for an album. However, here’s the thing, that doesn’t mean they don’t want one! They just need to know why they should have one.
This blog post is going to take you through managing and overcoming client objections from your clients when it comes to wedding albums.
3 top client objections to photo albums and how to overcome them
1. They’re too expensive.
Yep wedding albums are expensive. The ones worth having are anyway. But are they too expensive? Clients will absolutely feel this way if they don’t know why they should have one. Once clients understand the many benefits of an album, their perception of value is much higher and therefore makes them more receptive to price.
Weaving those benefits into your marketing and sales strategy can easily help you to overcome this pricing barrier. It takes on average 11 touch points, over 7 hours, across 4 locations for someone to reach a decision making moment to buy something. You wouldn’t expect to sell your photography service without marketing, so jumping out with “wanna buy a photo album?” isn’t going to work either.
Here are some ways you can easily begin achieving those touch points:
- Including albums as part of your social media marketing is a great way to plant the album seed. Clients will be drawn to your beautiful product shots and can begin romanticising over sharing a wedding album of their own.
- Feature albums on your website, create a page dedicated to albums or feature them as part of your pricing page. Brides and grooms need to be able to clearly see what you have to offer in terms of print products.
- Talk about them in your discovery call. Simply ask clients “have you thought about how you’re going to enjoy your images?” This will allow you to begin sharing all those benefits of a wedding album, remember to speak passionately!
Throughout all these touch points make sure you’re talking about the benefits, not the features. They need to know why their life is better with an album than without, it’s important for their memories.
2. We’re happy with the digitals thanks.
Digitals are great for immediate sharing, but leaving precious image files in this format is risky. Your clients are likely to be millennials, who have spent the majority of their lives not printing images. And that’s fine, but these aren’t just any other images. The photographs you’ve taken for them are precious wedding memories, which deserve to be treated way better than any other image they’re storing on their camera roll.
We can send reminders about backing files up, but what if this is done on a USB? Which only has a storage of 5-10 years… eek. Or what if they are backed up to the cloud but then something corrupts or gets accidentally deleted… eek again. There’s a real practical element to getting a wedding album which your clients have possibly not considered, or are even aware of.
There’s also another issue with digitals. We all have nostalgic stories of discovering old prints and albums, perhaps with parents or grandparents. If we don’t print our images now, we’re going to lose our sense of nostalgia and no longer be able to create these stories. Hindsight is a really difficult thing to sell! And we don’t want to emotionally blackmail anybody! But the fact remains, that if we don’t print now, we won’t be able to create this sense of nostalgia in the future. Wedding albums create the most precious heirloom, just like jewellery or even a family favourite recipe.
Learn more about how you can use nostalgia to increase album sales.
Here are a couple of ways you can convey this to your clients without a hard sell:
- Share your personal stories around old photographs and photo albums, you can bet they have their own similar stories. Creating an opportunity to think about how precious old photographs are to them, leads to how important an album will be for them too.
- Suggest ways clients can use their wedding images so they realise digital files aren’t the last step. A great way to do this could be in a brochure before the wedding or an email whilst they’re waiting for the full gallery, with suggestions for how to use their images. For example: wedding thank you cards, wedding thank you gifts for parents/grandparents/bridal party and of course in a wedding album.
3. We’ll do our own photo album.
I hate to be cynical but, this is just really unlikely to ever come to fruition. Ever. Why? Because everybody is so busy! By the time a couple have got married, been on honeymoon and thanked everybody for their gifts they’re done. They’re done with researching, organising, making decisions, everything! They get back to work, start the onslaught of changing their name and marital status everywhere and just move on with their lives.
This doesn’t mean they don’t want a photo album, it’s just not a priority, until it is. Until they lose their digital files, or the gallery expires. Or maybe even a circumstance has happened in their family where they just wish they had a photograph they can treasure and hold in their hands.
Here are some ways you can help them:
- Openly and visibly let your clients know the photo album options you have available. Take time to explain how you’re able to ensure they have their album, as it’s important for preserving their memories. This becomes a really desirable service to a busy, professional couple.
- Even choosing their favourite images can become a chore for them, so take the pressure off them by presenting them with a first draft. You’re busy too? Of course you are, you’re running an entire business on your own, and it’s important to manage your clients’ expectations!
- So use our perfect album design formula to make choosing the images easy and then hit up our free design service to make that first draft for you. Your clients will be relieved you’ve taken this off them and will also really appreciate and respect your choices, because after all you’re the professional.
- Share testimonials from other couples who have ordered albums and loved the process with you, to give further credibility to the wedding album service you can offer.
Take charge of protecting your client’s memories in print
Overcoming client objections to wedding albums isn’t about hard selling, it’s about education, storytelling, and positioning albums as an essential part of their wedding. By weaving album conversations naturally into your marketing, demonstrating their long-term value, and making the process effortless for your clients, you’ll help them see why a beautifully crafted wedding album is an investment worth making. The key is showing you care about your clients and preserving their most important memories. By simply doing this, albums will become an expected part of your client experience.
If you’re ready to confidently position albums as an essential part of your wedding photography service, our Success Programme is here to help.
For just £250+VAT, you’ll receive an initial planning session, six Zoom calls throughout the year, and expert guidance to refine your sales strategy. We’ll help you craft a seamless client journey, tackle objections with confidence, and boost your album sales. Plus, with £50 coupon codes for your first three client orders, you’ll recoup half your investment.
Take the next step in transforming your business and making albums an effortless, profitable part of your workflow.
If you want to learn more about why it is important that photographers offer albums and take care of protecting their client’s’ memories, click here.
Images by S6 Photography.
