Well, we have just the right tool for you. Album Spinner™ is an album designing software that was created by a professional photography team, Joey and Dawn Fox. Ok, so Joey happens to also be a programmer, but what better combination for creating an album-building software program that meets the needs of busy professional photographers?

We have been working with Joey for the past few months to make Album Spinner™ available to our customers as the ultimate instrument for designing, sharing and ordering albums. It is so easy to use that even those of you who outsource your album designing may reconsider, which could save you thousands of dollars a year.

Album Spinner™ also features the simplest ordering system available. Once you have built and shared your album with your customer, simply click the “send to lab” button and your album order will come directly to Century Color for printing and ordering. Century Color has partnered with three album companies, Capri, Renaissance and Azura Albums, to meet your unique needs. Album Spinner™ also has a “just print” option for having the pages printed and returned to you or drop shipped to another album company of your choosing.

To learn more about Album Spinner™ click here or contact customer service at 800-242-9501 ext 2.

Of the two events the Tradeshow was the place to be, not only because it was free, but also because the CPPA committee did a fantastic job of recruiting vendors and encouraging CPPA members to attend. We were very pleased with the amount of traffic throughout the day and enjoyed seeing many of our customers and meeting potential new customers.

The tradeshow also allowed us the opportunity to introduce our latest ventures, our new green screen technology for schools and sports, and our soon-to-be released album-designing software, Album Spinner. To learn more about either of these tools please contact customer service at 800-242-9501.

Again, we would like to thank Dan Tual, President of CPPA and Mike Spiegel, VP of Tradeshow, Sales & Advertising, and the rest of the committee for putting on a great convention and tradeshow. We are already looking forward to next year!

It’s late January and we still receive online reorders every day for jobs that were posted prior to the holidays, which translates into bonus sales for the photographer in a traditionally slow season. Online hosting allows photographers to offer specialty products that are not part of their traditional packages. The younger the students the higher the interest in products such as key fobs, fun packs and notebooks. We’ve seen orders from numerous states including Florida and Tennessee, so the online ordering is working just as intended, allowing grandparents and extended family members to place their own orders.

If you would like to learn more about how you can participate in hosting your Underclass online, please contact customer service at 800-242-9501 ext. 2.

Sort of...

Century Color was closed between Christmas and New Year and we all appreciated the much-needed rest. Unfortunately, our Internet server decided it was time to retire (and didn’t even give us two weeks notice)!

As you may have noticed we have been experiencing some difficulty with our web page, ROES, DataMatch, and the ability to FTP images. While this is never an ideal situation, we are certainly relieved that the server spared us this inconvenience during the busy season. We are working diligently to fully restore everything and I am happy to report we are nearly there.

Despite the technological mishap we are looking forward to a new decade. We are working on many new products and online features to introduce in the coming year. We will continue to host workshops to introduce products and programs that will help you boost sales and improve workflow. While we will be reaching out to you in the coming months, please feel free to contact us if you would like to schedule a more immediate meeting.

Tip: January is a great time to sit down and develop a marketing plan, ThePressRoom at Century Color can help.

Orders come in with a “rush”

And Century Color workers

Are ready for that push.

We’ll get you your orders

And do so with a smile

Because we know after Christmas

We won’t be back for a while.

Just like Santa’s elves

And eight flying reindeer

You won’t see us again

Until early next year.

Till the day before Christmas

We give all that we’re worth

So we’re gifted with a break

Until January fourth!

Century Color will be closed from noon on Dec.24^th until Monday January 4^th, 2010!

We wish you all a safe and happy holiday season and a very Happy New Year!

Century Color hours starting in January will be Monday - Thursday 8:30 a.m - 5:00 p.m.

Century Color will be closed on Fridays through March.

On that note, we are not imposing a holiday deadline for card orders. We have been able to maintain a timely turn around for card orders, so we do not anticipate a need to set a definitive deadline. Please use your best judgment when dealing with your own customers’ requests.

We’ve also been receiving rave reviews about our ID cards this year. Earlier in the year we purchased two new ID card printers and the quality is fantastic. Photographers and schools have commented that the bar codes are easier to read and the image quality surpasses previous ID cards. 

ThePressRoom staff has noticed an increase in orders for marketing materials from photographers. We would like to applaud all of you who have taken the initiative to create new marketing campaigns and get the word out about your business. As we noted in our September Newsletter, “better marketing” is the number one need of photographers for increasing their revenue.

ThePressRoom at Century Color was designed with your marketing needs in mind.

And last, but not least, more rave reviews about our new design feature in ROES for ordering books, greeting cards and bookmarks. The new feature allows you to “flip” to the next page or side, making designing much easier. If you haven’t tried it, what are you waiting for?

Please keep the feedback coming! While we all appreciate recognition for a job well done, we also want your feedback if there are products or services you would like to see added or improved. Our goal is to help you meet the needs of your customers.

But, I am getting a little ahead of myself, although speaking of giving thanks reminds me that Century Color has a special promotion this month for studio thank you cards. Personal studio thank you cards are the ideal way to show your customers how much you appreciate their business.

Mother Theresa once said, “There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.”

At Century Color we make every effort to send personal cards to our customers whenever the opportunity arises. Whether it is a thank you for a referral or recognition for an award or milestone, we feel great letting our customers know we are thinking about them. And from the feedback we have received, we know our customers appreciate being thought of.              

To learn more about how to order your studio thank you cards click here.

Now it’s time to get down to the nitty-gritty. Whether you’re a wedding or school photographer this is a very busy time of year for you. Wedding photographers already have plenty of jobs to edit and present for clients’ review, not to mention waiting on spring brides to choose images for their albums. And October, one of the busiest wedding months of the year, is right around the corner.

School photographers are busy securing shoot dates, restocking order envelopes and communicating data information from the school to the lab. All in addition to juggling the various stages of work for the jobs you shot over the summer.

However, you can never be too busy to consider opportunities for boosting sales. For wedding photographers, we suggest utilizing our $1 Card promotion to generate holiday card orders from your couples.

And for the school photographers out there we recommend posting your underclass online to increase reorder sales without increasing your workload.

For more information on either of these suggestions please contact Sue or Doreen in customer service.

We are pretty excited about rolling out our new website design. We have been working diligently with our design folks to freshen up our site and make it more visually appealing. This cleaner, more streamlined look will also make navigation easier.

We would especially like to thank Holly and Melanie, our design team, for their dedication to this project.

In this day and age, a business website is often the first, and perhaps the only, impression made on a prospective customer. Have you updated your site lately? Updating your site doesn’t necessarily require an entire revamp or lots of time and money. It does require a little homework. Visit various websites and list what you find appealing and what you don’t, then use that information to help guide you when making changes to your site. Do a web search for design tips and tricks.

Here are some tips from the experts on updating your website:

o Use neutral backgrounds – bright colors fatigue the eyes of visitors

o Eliminate clutter - a busy page is overwhelming and hard to navigate

o Remove broken links – frustrating to visitors and unprofessional

o Incorporate a Blog – but only if you plan to keep it current

o Use current images – dated images reflect your work, especially for a photographer’s site

o Limit the use of sound – can become an aggravation to visitors

o Watch those scroll bars – a vertical scroll is acceptable, but a horizontal scroll is highly discouraged

Plus, there are countless articles available about web search optimization for increasing traffic to your website, a key component for attracting new customers. Be sure to incorporate some of these strategies when updating your site.

Take a minute or two to check out our new site design, www.centurycolor.com. Feel free to post a comment about this article or our new look.