There are many photographers out there who are struggling to sell their prints. So, if you are one of those photographers who fall into this category, you will find this article extremely helpful. I will share 14 tips that will definitely help you to increase your photo print sales. These methods are tested and proven by many photographers. So, it will definitely work for you too.
1. Marketing Matters 
You can even run ads on Facebook and Google to showcase your photo prints to more clients. When you share the newsletter of your website to the subscribers, you can include the photo prints section also. It is a good place to promote your prints. You can use both online and offline marketing methods.
2. Ensure High-Quality Prints 
When you are selling photo prints, you need to ensure that the customer is fully satisfied with your prints. So, you must ship high-quality photo prints to the customers.
You can either invest in a professional photo printer for printing. The other option is to use the service of a professional photo printing agency to get the photo printed. If you are using such a service, then you will have more options in the photo print size as well as the paper type.
Whatever method you use, you need to ensure to get the exact color reproduction on the print with accurate details. So, make sure that your photo editing monitor is a color-corrected one.
Photo print quality really matters. So, before shipping to the customer, ensure that the quality of the print is best.
3. Get the Pricing Right 
Proper pricing of the photo prints is one of the key factors to the success of the sales. One of the common mistakes made by most of the photographers out there is the overpricing of the prints. Overpricing your prints will definitely harm your sales. So, it is essential to know the success formula for setting the right price.
If you are doing it for the first time, then you need to calculate the cost of printing and the shipping cost first. As a thumb rule, you can set 50 percent as your profit amount for a photo print. Your profit percent can be set according to your brand value.
If you have a huge number of followers and subscribers, then you can even consider increasing this amount. Here the thing is that the price that works for me may not work for you.
So, you need to figure it out yourself. But, always make sure that the prints are not overpriced.
4. Showcase in your Website 
It is essential to own a website as a photographer. You must showcase all the photos that are available for prints on your website.
To get more clients, you can also do SEO for your photography website. It will really help to show your website to clients who are really interested to purchase your prints.
5. Get Testimonials 
Once the client receives your photo prints and they hang them on their wall, they would be feeling really happy to see that photo on the wall. So, you need to check with them for their feedback and comments. Don’t delay the feedback request. Ask it immediately once they hang your print.
You must also check with them whether they are ok to publish the feedback as a testimonial on your website. Collect the client’s social profile details. You must include these details while publishing the testimonial on your website. The social media profile is essential to make sure that the feedback is a genuine one. Such feedbacks will provide useful to other buyers who want to buy photo prints from your website.
6. Provide Discount Offers 
You can give some discounts for the photo prints on special occasions like Christmas, World Photography Day, and during festive seasons.
These discounts will definitely help to improve your sales. There will be customers who are looking to purchase photo prints when there is a reduction in price. So, such customers will be eagerly waiting for the discounts to purchase the prints.
7. Limited Edition Prints 
I strongly recommend keeping some prints as limited edition ones. When I say, “Limited Edition”, I mean that these photos will be printed and sold only in few numbers, say 10 numbers.
There are customers who look for such types of prints. You can mention the print number also on the backside of the photo print when you ship to the customer. Such photos are of very high value since only a few copies are available. You can give such prints for a premium price also.
8. Set of Print Combos 
You can also sell your pictures as combo sets. It will help you to sell more images and thus make more money.
When you sell combo photo prints, make sure to give some discounts to your clients. It will definitely help the customer to go ahead and purchase the prints.
9. Show Clients how the photo print will look on the wall 
When you are putting up the thumbnails of the photo prints on your website for sale, the client would be really interested to know how these photos will look on the wall. So, it is a good idea to provide multiple images of the photo prints in the store section.
You can keep 3 or more pictures for the same photo when you list a photo print on your website. One of these photos must be the actual image. The other two images can be, how this photo will look on the wall.
It will make the selection process easy for the customer. This method really works and you must give it a try.
10. Conduct Photo Exhibitions 
You must conduct a photo exhibition with your best images every year. It will help to improve your brand value. It is a good opportunity to sell the hard print directly to the interested customers. You can also collect customer emails to send your newsletters and future offers.
Develop a good relationship with all those who come and view your photo exhibition.
11. Capture in RAW 
If you are planning to sell photo prints, then I strongly recommend you capture the pictures in RAW format. If you use the RAW image file format, then you can capture more details in the image.
When you take the RAW image for editing, you can edit the picture without losing any details. Thus, you will be able to produce high-quality photo prints with these edited versions.
If you capture the image in JPEG format, then you will end up losing some details during the photo editing stage. So, when you print the images, you will be able to reproduce less details, which will be visible in the case of large-size prints. So, avoid the lossy JPEG format for photo capture.
12. Outsource Photo Editing Work if Needed 
When you print the photo on paper then you must ensure to reproduce the exact colors. Sometimes, there may be a shift in colors due to improper white balance settings. So, you need to fine-tune all the color aspects as well as the image sharpness too.
You can also consider outsourcing the post-processing of the pictures for the best results. I know many photographers who outsource image editing part, especially for printing. Professional photo editors are capable of delivering high-quality edited images that guarantee high-quality prints.
13. Maintain Good Client Relationship 
Always remember one thing, “Customer is the King”. So, you need to maintain a good relationship with the customer.
There is always a chance that the client who has purchased photo prints from you in the past can place more orders for prints. So, it is always a good idea to get in touch with them through emails and newsletters.
14. Fixing the Photo Print Sizes 
When you put photo prints for sale on your website, you can provide them in multiple sizes. If you don’t know what all sizes you can print your images in, I strongly recommend you do good research on that topic.
First, you need to decide the final purpose of the photo prints for the customer. It can be kept inside a photo frame on the desk or on the wall. It can also be big size prints that will be hanged on the wall. Some photos will look good in big-size prints when compared to others. You can easily figure out this as a photographer.
You can also check the standard photo print sizes used by other photographers. It will help you to make a decision on photo size. When you provide multiple size options for prints, make sure that one of the sizes matches the standard photo size.
Conclusion
If you are planning to sell your photo prints, then these tips will be extremely useful, especially for beginners. These methods can be applied to all photography genres.
