I don't do photography for a business but some general thoughts....
1) Given many people are going "green", consider offering actual prints as an option as opposed to the norm. You will spend less on ink & paper & printer utilization for something that some people may not really benefit from.
- this means you can offer a lower price for a cd/dvd only option
To counter this:
- do offer a print service, maybe the first 10 prints free (4*6) or one 8*10 free
- to the pros... would doing this hurt income potential?
2) Maybe offer additional services, for weddings you have lots of family that can come in from out of town. Maybe offer an additional service where you can do a cd with say 100 pics on it (sort of a best of selection) that the couple can send out to the relatives/friends.
3) Make sure you have a cd/dvd case that is more than just clear plastic. Use either a standard layout that highlights your business with an area where you can add text that describes the event & maybe one small picture of the event, as an alternate, have something more custom where you have the text & pic on the front and you company info on the back.
4) For any photo album, generic feels cheep, look for something more classy, not necessarily expensive, that you can reuse every time. Maybe look at scrapbooking type stores like Archivers to see what you can put together. I would feel kind of let down if I got my photoshoot photos returned in a $2 album I see at Walmart every week.
5) Go to your (trusted) friends & family, present them with an example of what you are offering your clients, ask them how they feel about the presentation etc. Ask them how much they think they would need to pay for the work and then tell them how much you charge for it. Compare results, try a few different albums etc. Cheap presentation can sometimes ruin top quality work.
6) If you can, shop around your local region and see what others are charging/offering, maybe create a question list and have someone call on your behalf as though they are wanting to do a (insert event type).
7) Make sure what you are doing is something you are able to produce at the highest quality everytime. If you know you can't cut straight or have the creative talents to make the album work, maybe see if you can find someone who can do it for you as needed. Work with them to offer 3 or 4 styles/colors to simplify things.
8) Don't try and offer the world to your customers from day 1. If your budget doesn't allow for lots of options, go with 1 or 2 that cover the majority of your customers needs, add the wild crazy, retro, hip type styles later when your budget is larger.
9) Don't be afraid to offer the customer the option of them providing their own album at a discount. Some people may find "the" album for their wedding and being flexible may be the difference between getting the deal & not getting it.
10) That being said, don't agree to do anything that hurts your bottom line so much that the job is basically not worth doing. If they really want something fancy or obscure, do the photoshoot, provide them with the prints & dvd and let them have someone else do the album etc in the way they want. You spending hours making an album look good takes you away from what actually makes money in the first place which is taking photos.
But it's probably the best way to present the clients with the photos for the first time. Otherwise, you risk them looking at the photos for the first time on a tiny laptop screen with no color calibration, and they might decide right then and there that the images aren't as impressive as they hoped they would be.