Engagement photography is one of those untapped subsectors of photography that often gets lost in all the talk about shooting an actual wedding. Many photographers include engagement sessions in their wedding packages or offer them for a reduced price – in both cases doing nothing for your business.
Engagements sessions are simply pre-wedding portrait sessions and they should be treated as such. Today we wanted to talk about a few ways to really get the most out of your engagement sessions so that you are not leaving money on the table.
It all starts before you ever pick up your camera, it really does. The first thing you need to do with these engagement sessions is to really sit down with your couple and talk to them about each other, get them to tell you what they love about each other and what they see in each other. Then, simply put, you ask them that about their home, ask the couple if you were successful in capturing what they love about each other, where would they want to see that image or images in their home. It is really key here to set this up so that your clients can visualize, or start to visualize what these potential images and wall art may look like in their home. The easier it is for them to visualize and see it in their heads, the easier your sale will be.
Then after your session, once it is time for your sales session, have your couple send you some images of their home. Remember to specifically mention those locations that the couple may have mentioned in their comments to your prior to the session. Now that you have these images you will be able to use them in your sales session to show the clients exactly what the wall art you are trying to sell them will look like on their wall. This takes the visualization out of their minds and brings it into the real world.
This takes your sales pitch to another level because your clients can see what those emotional and beautiful images that you captured will look like in their own home. Obviously, you can’t have these exact products in person from them to see and feel, so this is the next best alternative.
Once the couple has seen and decided to go with your suggested wall art, the next piece to maximizing your engagement shoot revenue is to bring up the idea of a signing book. Ask your couple about taking some of those beautiful images of them together to place into a signing book for guests to sign at their wedding. Not only another beautiful keepsake of those stunning engagement images but also of the wedding itself and those that shared it (or will be sharing it) with the couple.
Just recently Grace Rauppius, a Fundy user, reported making $1500 more per wedding after switching to the Fundy Suite. If you could do this for each and every client you shoot, what would this do to your photography business?
See how easy it is to create a signing book and wall art for your engagement clients in these videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmmQKRoxExg&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y84EwrS9dQg&feature=youtu.be
