With Fall quickly approaching we decided to pull together a list of top photo packaging products for your fall sports deliveries. Packaging in sports photography means memory mates, sports folders & mounts, delivery products, panoramic easels and add-ons. When leagues are selecting photographers for a job they evaluate many factors—PRICE, reliability, quality of work, value, and how easy you make the process for them. Sports photo packaging is affordable (roughly $0.80/package or less), adds perceived value to your work, protects prints, and will make life easier for the league… we will get back to the last point momentarily. We know sports photography can be extremely cut throat and that price is always a factor, but remember this, whether you are fighting off a soccer mom with a new camera or another professional photographer, sports packaging will help you distinguish yourself and stand out among your competition.
Memory Mates
A memory mate is a photo mount that traditionally holds two prints—a 3×5 or 4×5 print of an individual and a 7×5 team photo. It is usually comes pre-printed with generic graphics or can be custom printed. A digital memory mate holds one single composite picture of several images. Memory mates have a pop out stand on the back to easily display the images, and they also protect the prints when they are saved in the mount. Memory Mates are very inexpensive (approximately $0.40–$0.75 each) and are considered a staple for basic sports photography packages.
Sports Folders
Sports folders typically hold one 10×8 (or one 7×5) team picture and one 5×7 photo of the individual athlete. Many options fold and are sized to fit in standard photo or mailing envelopes. Folders are slightly more expensive (approximately $0.50–$1.00 each) but they are designed to add even more value to the sports package. It is common for sports folders to be offered as part of an elite package for customers who are looking to spend a little more.
Delivery Products
Delivery Products include poly bags, delivery boxes, and mailing cartons. These items are designed to protect prints during delivery and to make distribution of packages easy for the league, coaches or volunteers who are responsible for this task. Earlier I mentioned that we’d come back to this point—one of the evaluating factors that I listed above is how smoothly you can run picture day and how easy you make it to distribute the final products. It is very common that a coach or volunteer will be handing out the finished pictures to each family or child; delivery products enable an organized hand off to that person while ensuring that they make it home safe and sound to mom and dad.
Add-ons
Add-ons consist of sports pennants, buttons, water bottles, plaques, key chains, tags, etc. These items, just like the others on this list, can be used to add value to your packages and to increase revenue (selling price of a package) at a very low cost to the photographer. These items range in prices but are typically upsold at 200–300% over cost and help fill out more comprehensive packages that command a higher selling price.
Panoramic Easel
Perfect for a team composite, Panoramic Easels are a high-quality delivery option. The easel is constructed out of thick black board for overall quality at a very affordable price. Customize with your studio die, event name or date!
There you have it… Fall sports photo packaging in a nutshell.
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