new to the album game? tips to get you started.
It’s been a motivating start to 2024 and I feel like I’ve been very considered with the energy. This season I’m shooting 16 weddings, focusing my time and energy on things that truly light me up and where I want to make a difference as an educator.
The past few months, I’ve been in the full swing of wedding season and have been working on my first ever online course The Art of Selling Albums.
It is exciting (and scary) to work on a course. I’m so invested in albums in my photography business, and I get asked about albums ALLLLL the time during mentor sessions. It made sense to me to share my process with more of you.
Whether you are a wedding photographer, newborn or family photographer the course will be relevant to you. If you’ve never sold albums before or have some experience but want to change things up, this course includes my approach step by step for selling and designing albums. The course is due to launch (mid-March) April, so for now here are 4 things to get you started.
This blog post is inspired a recent Life & Lens Podcast Episode, New To The Album Game? 4 Things To Get You Started. To listen to the full Life & Lens podcast episode, follow the link here.
Lei x
1. Decide Who You Are Selling To
You’ve probably set up your business and have decided who your target market is. Our ideal client drives everything in our business from marketing to pricing, branding, and client experience. You probably have mind-mapped their characteristics, likes, dislikes, lifestyle, professions, and values. In preparing your album offer, you can ask yourself these same questions:
Who is my client?
What album do they want? It is a luxury album or a cheaper album?
How much would they pay for an album?
What ado I want to offer?
Find out the answers to these questions and create a mood-board of the type of albums that you want to create. You may find inspiration in fashion books, photography books, architecture books and design books. Dissect the books that you love and note the design elements (ie, layouts, typeface, format) that make those books resonate with you, your brand and client.
Pro-Tip: When curating your album offer, consider the number of options you share with your clients. Too many options can cause buyer paralysis and confusion. Consider curating a selection of design cover and colour options that reflect your brand and that you know your clients truly want. Of course, if your clients want an option outside of your curated range you can work with them on a custom option.
2. Tools & Systems
Here are my recommended tools and systems that I use for my album designs in my business today.
Pixellu Smart Albums
If the thought of using InDesign to design your album spreads makes your eyes glaze over, I can recommend using Pixellu Smart Albums. You may have used Pixellu Smart Slides for your gallery slideshows, but have you tried their album software?
Designing your album is so easy with Pixellu Smart Albums. It’s intuitive to use and has pre-defined spread layouts making it easy to lay out your client’s hero images. The customer friendly cloud-proofing interface allows your clients to review your design online and leave comments with requested changes on each spread. My clients will often review their album over a few nights over a glass of wine and leave me their comments online.
If you’re not already using Pixellu Smart Albums and would like 15% off your first 12 months, use my code ‘leileiclavey’.
Pro-Tip: Whilst I think Pixellu Smart Albums cloud-proofing interface is easy for clients to navigate, if you notice clients asking the same questions consider filming a ‘walk-through’ video on Loom with a demo of how your clients can leave you feedback.
Album Cover Templates
They say ‘never judge a book by its cover’ but gosh, you and I both know that we fall in love with coffee table books based on their incredible covers.
“A beautiful, cloth-bound coffee table book that looks as though it’s been published by Assouline or Rizzoli!”
We judge the books by the colours, the typeface and feel of the cover and how it will look on our coffee table. I design my wedding albums to look and feel like coffee table books because I want my couples to think WOW when they receive their wedding album and keep it on display, rather than tucked away on a shelf. I like to imagine my couple’s wedding album stacked with their favourite art and design books (think Rizzoli New York or Assouline) on their coffee table. That way, their love story and favourite hero images can be shared with visiting family and friends.
You can design your own album covers using Canva Mockups or Photoshop. If you are looking for my modern and editorial look for your albums, my Editorial Album Cover Templates are available to purchase here.
From the left: Albums by Motta Weddings and Kyndel designed using my Album Cover Templates. Shop them here.
Find The Printer That is Right For You
Now that you have designed your album and cover art, it’s time to find the printer that is right for you. To me, it was most important to look for a printer that provided exceptional customer service and has an eye for detail. My search took me to an international printer based in the US but there are also exceptional local printers delivering a great product. I recommend Vision Art who are fantastic (flies and all!). I absolutely love their product and service. Honestly, they’re good as gold.
If you would like to try Vision Art, use my code leilei15 for a 15% discount on your first album order.
Pro-Tip: Albums are very expensive to print, so chose to work with a printer who will give you proactive advice and ensure that your album cover is printed with the finish you are looking for. Ask questions on email before you order your album to ensure that your cover choice, debossing option, and text size will work.
3. Print a Sample Album
Most printers offer professional photographers the option of a sample album for a heavily discounted price. It’s a great way to get a feel for the printer’s ordering process, customers service, finished product, costs and shipping times.
To me, it makes sense to look at 2 different printers and compare the finished product. It’s a marketing expense and is money well spent. The best part? Once you’ve ordered your samples, you have a finished album to share online as part of your own marketing and to show your couples in face-to-face meetings. By showing the finished product, your couples are more likely to connect with the value of a wedding album.
When ordering your sample album, ask for a pack of their cover swatches so that you can show clients the options in person. Also consider the durability of cover choices and whether you really want to offer them to your clients. For example, some finishes whilst beautiful, will wear quickly at the corners or mark easily.
Pro-Tip: If you don’t have a wedding to showcase in an album yet, don’t despair. When I ordered my first sample album, I hadn’t shot my ideal client yet. Instead, I selected a mash up of my favourite images taken from weddings, editorial styled shoots, and backstage runway. My clients loved flicking through this portfolio album (what a great conversation starter!) and invested in my albums because they got a sense of the finished product. Once I had shot a dream wedding that I wanted to showcase, I had another sample album printed.
If you would like to try Vision Art, use my code ‘leilei15’ for a 15% discount on your first album order.
4. Market Your Albums
Be obsessed with your albums and tell your clients all about them. No matter if you’ve just ordered your sample album or the first swatches have turned up in the mail, tell your clients how excited you are about them via all your marketing channels. When I first started my album journey, I shared every step with my clients online via socials. Maybe I was relentless, but the hype really helped get my couples familiar with my albums and primed to buy them. Check out some examples of content for socials here. If couples can see how much you love albums and how obsessed with them you are, it will make them want them.
“Be obsessed with your albums.”
Pro-Tip: Album sales feeling slow? Try talking about them more. Whilst we all like to think that our desires are unique and of our own making, research shows that what really motivates our buying psychology is memetic desire. This means that we instinctively desire and want the things that are shown to us by people we trust. Ie, influencer marketing. For your clients, you are the expert (influencer) and in charge of creating ‘desire’ for your albums.
I hope you enjoyed this blog post. Feel free to send me an email if you have any ideas on future blog posts you would like to see on the blog. Email me at hello@leileiclaveyeducation.com
Lei x
