Has anyone ideas on how to provide wedding guests in advance (i.e. at the wedding venue) with details of the photographers website, gallery, link and password etc. where they can view and buy photos?
I'm not sure you'll receive the best answers in this "Weddings" forum. Would custom business cards with specific info for this event suffice? I would also check if this is acceptable to the B&G.
Matthew SavilleRegistered Users, Retired ModPosts: 3,352Major grins
edited August 16, 2014
For every one business model that says they've never made more than a few bucks a year on print sales, there are others that bring in tens of thousands of dollars per year on print sales. It REALLY just depends on what people are conditioned to in your area, and how you approach it. Some weddings you'll sell $0 in prints, and other weddings you'll get a couple $$K in orders.
So yes, it is worth trying. As Glort said, mainly your target should be family or the closest friends, not the random wedding guests, but you never know. If your shooting style involves obliging a lot of the random guests' "hey can you take our picture? I never get a chance to have all my kids in one place dressed up" ...then you might have something.
The easiest way to do this is to publicly publish all of your weddings, password protect them, and make the password something very default like the bride's family / last name. Simply state this on your business card, and pass 'em out. That way you won't have to invest much money at all in personalizing cards for each wedding, in case this effort doesn't pan out as much.
I would, by the way, also offer some sort of cheap digital download option, instead of only offering prints. Because otherwise, people will just right-click or screen-capture the photo and use that for facebook or even a 4x6... And in general, if you're new to this business, I'll warn you that it's pretty normal for a handful of guests to just not care about prints or purchasing, at all, and be perfectly happy with screen-grabbing your photos for their personal use. You can try to pursue them legally or watermark the crap out of your photos, but IMO the best business model today is to just move forward, focus on bride & groom satisfaction, and overall recognition as a great wedding photographer. You're not going to pay for your retirement by wasting hours each week trying to police your print sales...
I find that if I create a coupon for, say, 20% off prints plus free shipping with a certain order amount for the first week after a gallery is up, and include the code in the initial invitation to the bride and groom along with the encouragement to 'share this if you want to with family and friends, so they can save if they want to order anything', there are more purchases. Also, you have to set an expiration for the gallery, say a month or six weeks after it is posted. If you leave it up forever, no one will ever order anything. They put it off and figure they will do it later. (I'm with Zen though- not sure how it all works with SM with expiring galleries and coupons)
Just last night someone spent $189 on a bunch of 5 by 7 prints from an August 9th wedding, and the cost to me was $30 including shipping. It took about five minutes to check the crops and approve the order. Not bad profit for five minutes of work.
I am not high volume, but it adds up...In person sales will obviously yield the largest print orders, but even if you only do five weddings a year, if you try to take a nicely posed, flattering portrait with a clean background of every couple and family at the wedding, and watermark those photos in the viewing gallery, then it is likely that you will sell some prints from each wedding.
I've learned the hard way that the very worst photo included will be ordered as at least a 16 by 20, especially if the subject is a child. So if you don't want them to order it, and order it large, don't post it.
For reception cards, I used to use Moo and also Millers or Bay for e session photo of couple on one side, web address and password (their last name) on the other. That brought in less sales than the free email coupon code sent directly to the bride and groom, and cost about $25 per wedding.
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facebook.com/robertchenphotography
So yes, it is worth trying. As Glort said, mainly your target should be family or the closest friends, not the random wedding guests, but you never know. If your shooting style involves obliging a lot of the random guests' "hey can you take our picture? I never get a chance to have all my kids in one place dressed up" ...then you might have something.
The easiest way to do this is to publicly publish all of your weddings, password protect them, and make the password something very default like the bride's family / last name. Simply state this on your business card, and pass 'em out. That way you won't have to invest much money at all in personalizing cards for each wedding, in case this effort doesn't pan out as much.
I would, by the way, also offer some sort of cheap digital download option, instead of only offering prints. Because otherwise, people will just right-click or screen-capture the photo and use that for facebook or even a 4x6... And in general, if you're new to this business, I'll warn you that it's pretty normal for a handful of guests to just not care about prints or purchasing, at all, and be perfectly happy with screen-grabbing your photos for their personal use. You can try to pursue them legally or watermark the crap out of your photos, but IMO the best business model today is to just move forward, focus on bride & groom satisfaction, and overall recognition as a great wedding photographer. You're not going to pay for your retirement by wasting hours each week trying to police your print sales...
Good luck,
=Matt=
My SmugMug Portfolio • My Astro-Landscape Photo Blog • Dgrin Weddings Forum
Just last night someone spent $189 on a bunch of 5 by 7 prints from an August 9th wedding, and the cost to me was $30 including shipping. It took about five minutes to check the crops and approve the order. Not bad profit for five minutes of work.
I am not high volume, but it adds up...In person sales will obviously yield the largest print orders, but even if you only do five weddings a year, if you try to take a nicely posed, flattering portrait with a clean background of every couple and family at the wedding, and watermark those photos in the viewing gallery, then it is likely that you will sell some prints from each wedding.
I've learned the hard way that the very worst photo included will be ordered as at least a 16 by 20, especially if the subject is a child. So if you don't want them to order it, and order it large, don't post it.
For reception cards, I used to use Moo and also Millers or Bay for e session photo of couple on one side, web address and password (their last name) on the other. That brought in less sales than the free email coupon code sent directly to the bride and groom, and cost about $25 per wedding.