April 28th, 2006
Grad Season Ignites This Weekend!! Are You Ready?
by Brian
Speers
Grad season fires up in earnest—yikes!—this
weekend as many CCS customers begin the annual Commencement
Marathon that traverses the months of May and June until
they catch sight of the finish line about nine weeks
down the road.
During that time period, CCS customers will digitally
capture over 3 million university and high school graduates
once, twice, and at many ceremonies, three different
times from the moment they mount the stage to receive
their diploma, until they reclaim their seat in the
audience among their peers. So what are YOU doing differently
this year to maximize your opportunities?
 |
Multiple Shots
The number one opportunity before you,
that nearly everyone that shoots grads is implementing,
is shooting more than one photograph of each graduate.
Though most CCS customers have been shooting a second
shot for more than a decade, it has been proven time
and time again that the more images you can capture
of each graduate the better your sales will be. If you
are not shooting two images—at a minimum—you
are simply costing yourself money.
In the last three years we have seen the escalation
of a third shot, which is typically a tight portrait
shot taken between the handshake and the flag, or double-shot.
It’s clear that giving families more images from
which to choose can raise buying averages significantly.
Proof Turnaround
The idea of returning shot images to your office after
an event—rapidly—for the purpose of IDing
and mailing proofs is paramount. If you think of these
images as fresh fruit you know that the longer fruit
sits on the shelf, the less likely it is to be purchased.
If you are serious about grads and turning your proofs
around fast, your goal should be 24 - 48 hours, at a
minimum, after the event. Any longer than this and you
are costing yourself significant revenues.
Grad Address Cards
If
you are relying solely on the street addresses and email
addresses provided to you by your universities and high
schools, be forewarned that the error rates on school
supplied lists can have error rates as high as 15%!
Are you willing to take the chance of sending out proofs
and emails that will bounce back to you at that rate?
No, I didn’t think so.
Click |
CCS has cards (pictured) that you can purchase that
allows you to get verified addresses on the day of the
grad (arrive early) by passing them out and collecting
them after they’ve been filled out. The forms
provide for two addresses and will increase the likelihood
of mailing out something, either electronically or direct
mail, which will actually reach its destination. The
acquisition of correct addresses cannot be overstated.
Go the extra mile and you’ll reap the rewards
in increased orders and increased sales.
Photographer Feedback
One of the easiest ways to increase sales is simply
by shooting better photographs. Here’s
a bulletin: people buy pictures when they like the way
they look in the photo! Fly-away tassels, poor
timing, badly exposed images, and shoddy composition
are just a few of the characteristics that can decide
if someone will purchase, or not.
Reviewing and coaching your photographers after each
event will go a long way to creating more and better
sales, while routinely producing images that are consistent
from event-to-event. Digitally speaking, there is no
reason that any photographer should have to wait to
review images. The time taken to coach and reinforce
EXACTLY what you want in the way of good photographs
will pay huge dividends down the road.
Maintain Your Equipment
One of the worst things that can happen to a photographer
is sending him/her to an event with defective equipment.
I think we all have noticed over the last six years
that digital equipment doesn’t break as easily
as film equipment but it still needs to be maintained.
Compact flash cards have to be formatted in the cameras
between events; the CCD needs to be cleaned from time
to time to eliminate dust from appearing on your photos;
and lenses MUST be free of fingerprints—both the
front and rear glass elements—in order to produce
quality images.
In addition, strobe and camera batteries have to be
recharged on a scheduled basis and please: don’t
skimp on memory cards. Memory has never been cheaper.
Never send a photographer to a job with less cards,
or memory, than they need to complete the job. It just
isn’t worth the stress level!
Following these basic tenets will make your grad season
more enjoyable, more worry-free, and most importantly,
more profitable.
Reminder For Pearlized Paper
in the Grad Market
As was stated in the special
Grad
Edition Newsletter last month, the offering of Pearlized
Paper and Lamination is mutually exclusive.
Download
(right click) an order card example from
Candid
Color Photography showing Deluxe Package options,
which include Pearlized Paper and Retouching. As you’ll
notice, the lamination is offered as an option only on
the standard packages.
Sports Customers
– Select the start date for your calendars
by Dana
Hill
Photographers can now select the start month and the start
year (up to 2009) of the calendars you order. The dates
will automatically be populated based on these selections.
If you do not select these modifiers on your events you
will get start dates which correspond with the current
quarter (below)
CCS Sports calendars will automatically move the date
to the current quarter. The changes will happen at the
following times during the year:
1. On the 76th day of the year (March 18th in 2006)
the calendars will start with April.
2. On the 167th day of the year (June 17th in 2006)
the calendars will start with July.
3. On the 258th day of the year (September 16th in 2006)
the calendars will start with October.
4. On the 319th day of the year (November 16th in 2006)
the calendars will start with January of the next year.
CCS will be performing this upgrade to the calendars
in our other markets shortly.
OU Mom’s Day Sales Increase Due To Fraternity
Orders!
This April Fool’s Day proved to be no joke for
Norman
Party Pics. Every spring, the University of Oklahoma
hosts “OU Mom’s Weekend” where mothers
of students are invited to campus to participate in a
variety of activities. On the Saturday of this weekend,
Norman Party Pics takes group photos of each Greek chapter’s
members and mothers.
These group pictures are taken at one of three locations
in the Greek area of campus, and the photo times are scheduled
around each chapter’s luncheon and internal activities.
For the first time in recent history, on April 1, 2006
we were able to schedule chapter photo times back to back
within a three-hour time period, which helped the day
go by very quickly and without complications.
Click |
Our 2006 Mom’s Day group sales saw an increase of
$2,060 or 9% over 2005 sales, totaling over $23,000. The
surprising fact about this rise in sales is that it was
caused by increased attendance and order averages of the
fraternities, not the sororities. In fact, sorority group
photo attendance was down by approximately 6% this year.
Fraternities have also had higher overall order averages
for the past two years.
In 2005, for every fraternity member and mother that was
photographed, the order average was $9.25. In 2006, the
order average per person photographed
Click |
jumped to $10.37. Sorority order averages per person photographed
also increased $0.25 to $7.43, but are still a lot lower
than the fraternity averages.
A common belief is that sorority members always produce
higher sales than fraternity members, but the results
from one of our biggest group photo events of the year
prove that you should market your services equally to
all members of the Greek community.
Pearlized Modifiers Active in CORE QPPlus
by Steve
Foisy
If you have not yet activated your Pearlized modifier
options in the CORE QPPlus module, go to the CORE Setup
Tab and then select Products/Refresh Objects. After refreshing
objects is completed, go back into your QPPlus Grad offers
and you will see the Pearlized options.
Renumber Images for CORE Events
If you will be using any of the CORE modules, (Grads,
Races, Proms, Sports, Quicpics) always renumber your images
prior to transmitting them to CCS. Images that still have
the DSC or IMG (or any other letter) prefix will not import
into CORE. Renumbering your images in the FTP software
will give them a 4 digit format which CORE will import.
If you are sending your images to CCS on CD/DVD for uploading,
use the renumbering menu option in FTP prior to burning
your CD/DVD’s. Contact Customer Support for FTP
training.
Deadline for CORE QP2 Grad
& Race Event Setup
June 30, 2006 will be the last day to activate new events
using the older CORE QP2 Grad & Race online retail
system.
www.gradphotonetwork.com
&
www.racephotonetwork.com.
All events after June 30 should be setup using the newer
CORE QPPlus Grad & Race online retail system.
http://orders.gradphotonetwork.com
&
http://orders.racephotonetwork.com.
It has been proven that these new retail systems generate
greater sales due to the upsell features, not available
in CORE QP2 Grad & Race. In addition, this will allow
CCS to be more efficient in supporting and maintaining,
by having one retail platform.
Please contact Customer Support if you need any training
with the QPPlus system or if you see features/products
that were available in the older system, but not in the
new system.
Screenshots. click to enlarge.
Advantages of using QPPlus for your CORE Grads
The new and improved CORE Grad website powered by QPPlus,
has many cool features, as well as
Click to enlarge |
several key advantage over the QP2 version. See image
on the left.
1. Improved retail interface. Download
Image
QPPlus Grad presents a significantly improved look and
feel for the retail customer. The look of your site can
even be customized with your own HTML headers and footers
2. Up-Selling - standard or custom packages
Download Image
Up selling allows you to offer upgrades or add-ons immediately
after a customer has added a product to their cart. The
customer can then either accept or decline the up sell
and continue shopping.
3. Cropping. Download
Image
QPPlus allows customers to custom crop their images for
each package ordered, and even have unique cropping for
all print aspect ratios within a package.
4. Package Grouping. Download
Image
QPPlus Grad gives you the ability to group sets of packages
to highlight similarities or differences. The attached
example shows Package A and Package B "grouped"
separately, to make them more prominent with the remaining
packages being grouped together.
5. Automatically returns to proof page.
A customer is automatically returned to the proof page
after an item has been added to their basket to promote
continued shopping and more purchases.
6. FAQ section on product page. Download
Image
Both the products page and the proof page contain a link
to a "Frequently Asked Questions" page that
can answer the majority of new user’s questions.
7. Printable order form. Download
Image
Customers can download and print an order form to fax
or mail back to your office.
8. Improved order summary page.
Download
Image
The order summary page has a slick and organized layout,
and shows mini thumbnails next to each item that has been
ordered.
9. Improved checkout page. Download
Image
The checkout page is logically organized and similar to
most other online retailer’s checkout page, so customers
feel right at home.
10. "View All Proofs" option.
Download
Image
You have the option of allowing customers to browse through
all of the images of an event, by turning on the "View
All Proofs" option.
11. "Search by Event Name" option.
Download
Image
If your customer doesn't know their PIN, then you can
give them the option of searching for the event name,
and then searching for their name within that event.
12. Retail quantity discounts.
You have the ability to offer your retail customers quantity
discounts. The setup for this new feature is very similar
to the shipping sliding scale setup.
13. Restrict packages offered on "overviews"
or "all shots".
You can control the packages and products that are available
when a customer is ordering an "overview" or
"all" shot.
14. Customized receipt via email.
The receipt your customers receive after a purchase can
be customized with your business name and other information.
Don't miss out on all of the great improvements that
CORE
QPPlus Grad has to offer. Just call customer
service and they will be glad to assist in the simple
transition.
CCS Lab Service Time
by Bo
Lewis
94% of Orders Shipped in 2 Days or Less During the Week
of April 16-22
Developments
Newsletter
