What is nostalgia?
The feeling of nostalgia is a sentimental longing or wistful affection for a period in the past. It’s often sparked by listening to a meaningful song, revisiting a significant place, or most powerfully looking at photos and albums. Nostalgia has always been important, but it holds even greater value today because of the shifting emotional landscape in recent years.
Why nostalgia matters now
The upheaval of the past few years has made people more susceptible to nostalgia. Events like COVID-19, global conflicts, recessions, and the cost-of-living crisis have created widespread uncertainty. Yet even in tough times, happy moments stand out, offering comfort and connection.
For photographers, this makes nostalgia a vital concept. Our role isn’t just to take beautiful photos, it’s to educate clients on preserving memories so they can relive them. Nostalgia creates an emotional link between the past and present, and photography is one of the most powerful ways to build that bridge.
Nostalgia and market cycles
If you’ve noticed a resurgence in products and trends from the ‘80s, ‘90s, and ‘00s, it’s no coincidence. Nostalgia is always wanted, but the generation with significant buying power at a given time determines how it’s marketed. Right now, that’s Millennials.
Millennials: your key audience
Millennials are aged 28-43 and represent the largest generational group with significant buying power.
- They are at a life stage when people typically get married, start families, and create traditions, often evoking nostalgia for their own childhood memories.
- As parents, they often want their children to experience the same joys they had growing up, including flipping through physical photo albums and prints.
- This means Millennials, your primary audience, are craving the nostalgic feeling and actively seeking ways to preserve memories.
Why this matters to Photographers and album suppliers
Think about your own nostalgic memories of childhood, family photographs, and flipping through albums of old photos with loved ones. As photographers, we have the privilege of creating those moments for our clients. But to preserve those memories and help clients create nostalgic experiences for future generations, we need to print the images we capture.
When memories remain digital, they are vulnerable to loss and neglect. But when printed, they become tangible artefacts of emotion, connection, and history. It’s our responsibility to ensure clients understand the value of printed photographs and albums. That begins with a simple yet impactful question:
“Have you thought about how you’re going to preserve your images?”
Discover how this powerful sales question, and other proven strategies can elevate your workflow here.
How to market nostalgia
- Tell stories
If sales feel overwhelming, a good place to start is with your story, focusing on how nostalgia is a powerful tool in connecting with clients. Stories inspire, evoke a sense of emotion, and build connections. Share your own experiences with photographs and albums to show how they’ve enriched your life. Clients will see their own connections and resonate with your story.
- Use emotive communication
Use emotive communication to enhance the brightness of your storytelling. Emotion drives decision making. Wedding albums and printed photographs are inherently emotional products that give your photos a timeless quality. Feature client testimonials and case studies to highlight the impact of your work and create relatability.
- Help clients visualise
People want what they can picture. Showcase albums in relatable settings, for example, couples looking through them on a cosy evening or albums displayed in a family living room. Help clients see how these products fit into their lives.
- Repeat, repeat, repeat
Repetition builds familiarity, and familiarity fosters trust. High ticket items like albums often require multiple touchpoints before a sale. Consistently reinforce the importance of printing images through social media, client meetings, and marketing materials.
Looking to use nostalgia to drive album sales? Here are three expert tips for creating a marketing campaign that connects with clients and boosts sales.
Educating clients: the importance of print
While marketing nostalgia can boost your sales, it’s also an opportunity to educate clients on the risks of not printing their images. As experts, it’s our duty to inform clients about:
- The short lifespan of digital storage (e.g., USBs last 5-10 years).
- The longevity of fine art prints (museum-grade paper lasts 100 years).
- The ease with which digital files can be lost.
- The joy future generations will feel when holding a physical album.
Partner with us
To be the ultimate photographer, you must go beyond capturing memories, you must help preserve them. Offering printed solutions completes the service you provide, safeguards your clients’ memories, and ensures those memories stand the test of time.
By tapping into the nostalgia trend and offering albums and prints, you elevate your role from photographer to memory preserver, creating a sense of nostalgia for your clients. And in doing so, you don’t just meet expectations, you create legacies.
Ready to elevate your photography business and preserve your clients’ memories for generations to come? Register with Folio Albums today. Together, we’ll help you offer high-quality albums and prints that turn captured moments into cherished legacies.
If you found this article interesting, check out: Year of print: why professional photographers should offer albums.
