Photography Marketing: The 3 Photography Sales Fundamentals

Learn how to book more photoshoots & sell more prints, albums and services using the 3 key principles of effective sales

Inside of this photography video tutorial you’ll learn the 3 sales fundamentals that you can apply to your photography marketing to increase your prices, book more photoshoots and sell more albums + prints.

Hopefully this video gives you some fresh insight to help you grow your photography business, get more clients and make money with photography.

By understanding and applying these photography marketing strategies to your photography business, you’ll be able to increase your prices & book more consistently AND upsell clients on more print and album sales. Desire, Urgency & Logic are the trinity of effective sales strategies.

Whether you’re a wedding photographer, portrait photographer, senior photographer or newborn, family, coorporate, commercial or in any other number of photography niches, these principles are universal and apply to every style and genre in the photography industry.

Photography Sales Fundamental #1 – Desire

They’ve got to emotionally WANT what you’re offering.

Puppy dog close – take it home. Fall in love. Make a connection

Touch feel experience + EMOTIONAL connection

People buy with emotion, and justify with logic. 

Sit down, touch album, see prints, have a beautiful shopping experience. 

Social proof – If others want it, we want it

Remember: People buy the result, never the product. 

Even more, they buy how the result will make them FEEL. 

Photography Sales Fundamental #2 – Urgency & Scarcity

We want what we can’t have, what is rare must be valuable, and what is urgent is more desirable than what is always available.

Black Friday sale 

– Here today, gone tomorrow. 

Limited supply

High demand

This date is actually one of my last free dates this year

Post photo delivery – 40% discount on prints for 3 days

Photography Sales Fundamental #3 – Value & Logic

People buy with emotion, but justify with logic… but their logic is rarely logical.

They need to be able to justify getting more value than what they spent

This doesn’t mean the value actually has to EXIST. People just need to FEEL like they are getting a deal.

You would pay $125 for a pair of pants at Lululemon, but only $25 for a pair of pants at Walmart.

Why? Because people value partially for the quality of materials. For the shopping experience. But most of all, for the image that you get and the way you feel. People treat you different when you’re wearing Lululemon vs wearing Walmart clothing. And people pay a LOT of money to have other people think good things about them.

Lululemon pants aren’t 5X better – But you feel like you get 5X or 10X the value from buying them. And if you don’t buy Lululemon, it’s because you DON’T feel this way.

Sometimes the fastest way to increase your bookings is simply to align your brand more closely with the image your target customer wants to have of themselves. When I raised my pricing from $1200 to $3000, I started attracting entirely different clients. I didn’t just book LESS, I repelled clients who saw photography as an afterthought, and attracted clients who wanted amazing photos.

If your prices are cheap, someone who wants amazing photos is going to pass over you, even if your photos are just as good as someone charging 3X more. Why? Because we naturally assume more expensive = better.

Here’s another weird value / logic reality:

People make value comparisons based on what OTHER, unrelated things cost.

Show someone a price sheet that lists photography for $3000, and albums for $2500, and they’re going to have a really hard time justifying the value of spending $2500 on an album. It seems like a LOT of money when they only paid $3000 for their photography!

But if you charged $10000 for your photoshoot, that exact same $2500 album would seem like a decent deal.

OR if you sell them a $5000 album at $2500 off, they’ll feel like they’re saving $2500, instead of spending $2500.

The main thing is this: You have to give people the feeling that their purchase is logically justifiable.

Your clients need to feel like they’re making a smart trade. 

It doesn’t have to be just with money, but they DO need to feel like at the end of the day, THEY got the better deal than you did.