The big box stores provide a great barometer for your own business, just as they are looking forward to the next season, so should you. Start anticipating what the next season will bring for you and your clients. To help you get started, we’ve done some of the work for you. We recently created a link that you can use on your website to direct your customers to all the press-printed and photographic card designs we offer. We know how difficult it can be to sell greeting cards if you can’t show your clients the different designs they can choose from. Directing them to different websites or showing them design choices that are really too small to see on an 8.5 x11 sell sheet just doesn’t cut it. Now with this link you can direct them to your website where they can see all the latest designs…both inside and out! Plus the images are large enough to see exactly what the design looks like.

With the link we provide to you, simply add a button to your home page titled, “Greeting Card Designs”. There is no reference to Century Color or pricing information; this is simply an efficient means for optimizing your clients’ choice. They may start out just looking for a holiday card and end up returning to you for future needs, such as a child’s birthday invitation or wedding thank you cards. You can even navigate to the link during your sales presentation. Your clients will see a wide variety of drag & drop designs for holiday, graduation, wedding, baby and all occasion needs.

There’s no investment of time or money. Simply add the link to your home page to provide your clients with a wide selection of design options for their 2010 Holiday Greeting card.

To view what your clients will see click the link below.

http://www.studiosamplesonline.com/greetingcards/greetingcards.html

Most professional photographers work either independently or with very few staff members. Most photographers will admit that they started their business because they love taking pictures, and that’s great! However, there are many facets to running a successful business. There’s customer service, accounting, professional development and marketing to name just a few, but it can all seem very overwhelming when you are trying to do it all alone. Many photographers commented on how we kept referring to our marketing team and how they would love to have a team to help them. Part of our goal as a company is to help our photographers with different aspects of their business and helping them market their services is certainly one. But it still boils down to the fact that YOU have to allocate time to address the different needs of your business. So making sure you use your time wisely will directly result in the success of your business…therefore good time management skills are extremely important.

You can find plenty of Time Management tips on the Internet, via Google searches or You Tube. Here are some good tips to help you get started: 

1. Eliminate time wasters, like instant messenger, personal phone calls and checking email throughout the day. Designate a specific time of the day to deal with these things and stick to it.
2. Create an action list EVERY day, limit the list to five specific actions for that day. Also, identify your goals for those action items.
3. Prioritize. What are the most important and necessary actions to address? What would you do today if you knew you would be out of work for the next week?
4. Do the things you dread doing first, get them out of the way and make the rest of the day more productive and enjoyable.
5. Use a daily planner to designate what you are working on at what time and for how long every day, don’t forget to incorporate breaks to rejuvenate.

If you realize that you are not capable of or able to efficiently manage a major task, say bookkeeping or web development, then outsource and spend your time being more productive with what you can do well.

Remarks can come in many forms.  While word of mouth is great, it is not viral; the message is being past one person at a time. In today’s new world of marketing allow your customers to post their positive remarks on your Facebook page, your blog or as testimonials on your website. All of these venues allow for a greater number of people to “hear” the remarkable anecdotes of doing business with you.

So, you may be asking yourself, “What do I have to do to be remarkable?” Well, being remarkable is much easier than you might think. First, you want to make sure that all of your customers’ basic expectations are met; you’re courteous, punctual, thorough and any obligations you have made are met. Then, step it up a bit. Your remarkable attribute doesn’t have to be the same for every customer. Everybody loves a no charge upgrade or gift. Think of things that people would appreciate but may not spend the extra money for. If you are having a really great shoot with a family or couple, give them an extra 10 or 15 minutes and let them know that your extending their session because you are having such a great time photographing them. If you’re a wedding photographer, consider adding an extra page to the finished album and surprising them when they come to pick it up. Imagine how thrilled a new bride will be to learn that she received a 22-page album when she ordered a 20-page album. As she shows the album to all of her friends and family she will surely tell them how her wonderful photographer graciously added extra pages to her album because there were so many great images it was hard to narrow it down.

For the few dollars you may spend out of your pocket to make a customer feel special you will reap the benefits ten-fold in becoming remarkable to them. Spend some time brainstorming ideas for becoming “remarkable” to your customers. You can come up with some ideas that won’t cost you anything and others that cost very little. It’s all about exceeding expectations.

Feel free to share your “remarkable” ideas by posting a comment to this post.

This channel is dedicated to all thing of interest to women, most specifically (almost) all things related to weddings. They feature shows like Bridezillas, Amazing Wedding Cakes, Platinum Weddings, and My Fair Wedding. TLC also boasts hit shows like Cake Boss, Four Weddings and Say Yes to the Dress. All these television shows built around one single aspect of the most important day in a woman’s life. But where is the show about the professional wedding photographer?

Come on people, if they can come up with a show every week about the wedding cake they can easily turn out a show about the wedding photographer. Just as creating a stunning wedding cake is more than just whipping together some eggs, sugar and flour; producing stunning images of a couple’s fairy tale day is more than just clicking the shutter on a camera. There are a lot of other ingredients to the perfect image, lighting, shutter speed, posing, lens choice, etc.

It’s the photographer who captures every facet of the day. The photographer shows up before every other vendor and often does much more than photograph. Photographers help bustle the dress, play timekeeper to make sure everyone is on schedule, pin on boutonnières, herd family members for pictures, coordinate with the band/DJ for all traditional happenings at the reception and the list goes on. So where is the show about the wedding photographer and all the trials and tribulations they encounter on the big day?

Here is a shout out to all professional photographer associations and vendors. The associations are suppose to serve as the voice of the collective group. We need PPA and state affiliates as well as Kodak and WPPI to start a movement to create some positive exposure for the hardworking and dedicated professional wedding photographers. There are a multitude of professional photographers who could be featured and many options for a weekly show. The show could follow one photographer week after week and all the interesting people he/she encounters or a different photographer could be featured each episode. Hey, maybe there’s room for more than one professional wedding photographer show. Maybe we need our own network…

Too often we read articles that coach brides and grooms to save money by skimping on their photographic budget. Yet, we have all encountered people who testify that the biggest mistake they made on their wedding day was not hiring a professional photographer. It is time to come together as an industry and set the record straight. Professional photography is the one aspect that brides and grooms should NOT skimp on when it comes to their wedding day.

Besides memories (which fade) the only thing that will be left of the cake after the wedding is the photo of the cake. The only thing left of the flowers after the wedding will be the images of the flowers. The only thing left of that extraordinary day after the day is done is the photographs. Only a professional photographer can truly capture the emotions and beauty of that astonishing day to be cherished for years through the images they produce. So, where is the show that documents everything from the consultation to the big day to the delivery of the final album? Now that would be some “must see TV.”

For more than 30 years, Kripalu (kri-PAH-loo) has been teaching skills for optimal living through experiential education for the whole person: body, mind, and spirit. It is the largest and most established retreat center for yoga, health, and holistic living in North America.

Todd has been teaching workshops at similar holistic centers for the past several years. Registration fee includes lodging, vegetarian meals, morning or evening yoga classes and the workshop. Todd will “help participants focus on photography as story telling and using photography as a passport for experiencing the world in new ways.”

For more information visit www.ToddShapera.com and click on workshops or www.Kripalu.org or email Todd at todds@cloud9.net.

If you are presenting a workshop or seminar and would like us to help you spread the word, please forward us the information along with your contact information. Please give us notice of at least one month.

At the end of the workshop we distributed 5x7 samples of our Tacky Back product. Admittedly, we haven’t done much to market this product, so we thought we’d share it with our customers and explain how great it is for promotional posters to use in studio or at trade shows. Participants took the product home to think about how to utilize it.

Kathy McGarry shared it with her teenage daughter, Liz. Liz quickly had the perfect use for this product. Kathy emailed Greg on Saturday to share her daughter’s brilliant idea of using this Tacky Back product to decorate laptops. Greg was so impressed with the idea that on Monday morning he immediately put us all to work to make the product available to others.

We’ve since presented the idea to other photographers, at our workshops, at a recent CPPA event and with customers during conversations. The response has been unbelievable. Kathy has already shared the product with a few of her brides and they all want one as a collage from their big day (see her Facebook post).

It just goes to show you how quickly a great idea can become a reality and open up new opportunities. This product opens new sales opportunities for photographers of every facet of the industry. Everyone seems to have a laptop these days and whether you do family portraits, children, high school seniors or weddings, there is a market for a personalized lap top decal that is removable without leaving a sticky residue.

Thanks Kathy and Liz for such a great idea!

Inbound Marketing encompasses the optimization of websites, blogs, social media and other online tools to attract qualified leads to your business. Trust us, you don’t have to be a techie or need a lot of money to get started. Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah founded HubSpot; they both attended MIT and obviously have a firm grasp on the technological side of things. The beauty of HubSpot is that they don’t use a lot of technical jargon; the information is easy to understand and implement.

Greg was so impressed with the free information we found on HubSpot that he even purchased their latest book, Inbound Marketing. He gives the book rave reviews and has incorporated many ideas into our workshop presentation. People who have already attended our workshops have commented, “It was well worth attending.” While we don’t claim any expertise on the topic of inbound marketing, we can tell you that we have already incorporated many ideas and techniques into our marketing efforts and have seen tremendous results. If we can do it, you can do it too. Join us for one of our workshops and we’ll help get you started.

The training session was well under way when Doreen discovered a minor technical problem; Eve’s computer was running an old version of DataMatch. This created a few anxious moments under the watchful eyes of 15 people. However, they were able to work through the glitches within a few minutes. 

Overall, the night was a success; it included an in-depth presentation followed by a round of questions and answers and all present had a pleasant evening. What a bonus to be able to train two studios on DataMatch in one evening in July!

Now is an ideal time to work out your underclass workflow,

• decide whether you’re using camera cards or labels
• learn when to get the databases from your schools
• understand what important information should be in those databases
• successfully import that data into DataMatch

Sound like a good idea?  Have a group of people that would benefit from a DataMatch training session?  Don’t worry; we love to take our show on the road, day or evening, whatever suits your studio’s needs.  Just give us a call. The more you do now, the smoother your underclass season will be this fall!  

And congrats to Eve on the new studio! We visited the new studio just three weeks earlier with only a fresh coat of paint on the walls. Now it is a beautifully finished studio, which already handled a whole host of senior portrait sessions!

How do you make a one-time customer a repeat customer?

Photographers invest far more time and money trying to find new customers than they do cultivating repeat business. Research shows that it costs five times more to attract new customers as it does to retain existing customers. So, are you keeping existing customers informed of your special offers, awards you’ve received, workshops or seminars you’ve attended to improve your craft?

Most of the photographers we have spoken to admit that this is a definite weakness in their marketing efforts. We will address this issue in our Summer Workshops starting on July 13^th.

Ask yourself this questions…“Once they have experienced our photography, do they ever hear from us again?”

If you answered no, call us today to reserve your seat at one of our upcoming Summer Workshops, 800-242-9501 ext 2.

Storytellers Photography just completed their first “Pet Lovers” calendar contest and it all came about when a customer came in to have her dog photographed because her groomer wanted to produce a calendar. Joan Genest thought that was a great idea and wanted to get involved, so she partnered with the groomer, solicited other pet focused businesses in the area for sponsorship and launched the Pet Lovers campaign, which also benefited the Ct. Humane Society.

Joan told us that they marketed the event through mailers to their own customer list and the lists of the other 16 sponsors. They also posted information on their website, blog and Facebook page. Of course, once people started bringing their pets in to be photographed and they told their friends the event really took off.

All images were posted on ImageQuix via Storytellers website. Visitors paid $1 per vote, with all  proceeds going to the Connecticut Humane Society. Participating pet owners paid $25 for their session fee ($15 went to CHS) and chose the pose they wanted to be posted for voting and the calendar. In total, they photographed 49 pets (3 cats, 1 rabbit and 45 dogs).

Entries were open for six weeks, March 1 – April 15^th and then voting was open for six weeks, May 1 – June 15^th. In true marketing fashion, two weeks before the event closed for voting, an email was sent to all participants stating the time frame and who the top ten pets were at that point in time. Joan said that on some days they had 50 visitors to the site, and even now, weeks after the contest has closed, people still visit the site.

When all was said and done, this event raised over $4,000 in votes for the Ct. Humane Society, not to mention the $735 from the sitting fees and additional proceeds from the sale of the calendars, which will start in October!

Joan stated that they received “a lot of good exposure” from this event due to the number of people who visited their website, blog or Facebook page to learn more or cast a vote. She said they would definitely do this type of promotion again, but next year “we’re doing it with children. If people love their pets this much, they love their children even more.”

Good luck guys and congratulations on a very successful and creative promotion!

Note: Charitable fundraisers like this require State approval and the completion of several forms.