Winter grad season is
right around the corner, so here is a checklist to
make sure that you are implementing every strategy
to have a profitable grad season. Following these
guidelines will help increase your graduation sales
and make your workflow run more smoothly.
Shoot Multiple Shots- By shooting several poses—handshake,
Flag shot, etc.—the graduate has a variety of pictures from which to choose. This
frequently leads the customer to purchase more than one pose, which can increase
your average sale per graduate.
Collect emails-Collect primary and secondary email addresses
for each graduate. This is crucial in order to send embedded email proofs. By
sending emails you are guiding your customers to order via the Internet which
cuts down on office labor and decreases print delivery time. Rapidly
Posting Images-It
is essential that all proofs are posted by the time
promised in your contract. Getting your email
proofs out within 24 hours not only impresses your
customers, but sales take off in a much quicker timetable. If
you are also mailing paper proofs it’s important
to get them out into the mail within 24-48 hours.
Shoot Party Pics® and Family Portraits-Before and after
the commencement ceremony photograph friends and family. These can be done
with or without a backdrop. Remember to distribute password cards and collect
emails so your customers can be directed online for further sales.
Upselling Options-Offering retouching, pearlized paper and the
ability to crop photos can also add to your revenue stream. Frequently,
customers will spend the extra money to have the best product possible.
Offer Specialty Products-Offer products
that can not be produced by the average consumer. These
could include Klingons, coffee mugs, mouse pads, statuettes,
premium greeting cards, plaques, Thank You cards and
calendars. Offering products that
aren’t easily produced creates a higher demand.
Offer Mounting Services - Mounting
is available in the Grad market in both QP2 and CORE. This includes canvassing
and on single mounting or gator foam. The box mount is also available in
the grad market in a 16X20. You can now command a higher price add-on enhancement
for a more finished product.
Making the time to follow these guidelines will help your winter grad season
not only run more smoothly but it can put more money in your pocket. These
proven practices can help you stay on top of your game in an ever increasing
market. Words
that Make a Difference! by Crystal Woodland
Last weekend, I had the privilege of shooting Tailgating for a College
Football Game. It was a lot of fun but very busy! I quickly realized
that several sales techniques were needed to make the day a success. I
broke the process down into three steps; capture the fans attention, shoot fun
pictures, and collect email addresses. This was easily accomplished with
the right words. I had a lot of success! Here’s what I did…
These tips can be used in shooting all types of Party Pics! Your target prospects
and style of pictures will change depending on the event, but the steps and wording
is the same.
The first step is to Capture their Attention: This
step begins with a good prospect. Look for families, women, couples, and
large groups. Approach them and pay them a compliment! Words that Work! “You two look so cute. I want to take your picture.”
“Look how you match, that’s so cute. I need to take your picture.”
“Your child is so adorable; I’ve got to take a picture of her”
“Look at all of you guys! I’m going to take your picture.”
Tips: Start on a busy street, but pull fans out of the flow of traffic for pictures. That
way the don’t feel rushed!
The next step is to Shoot Fun Pictures: Start
by getting them to stand close together and have fun while you are shooting. Words that Work! “Pretend that you love each other.”
“Who’s going to win?”
“We’re Number 1.
Tips: Always get a smiling photo and a crazy photo. Be fun and playful. The
fans will have fun, if you are having fun!
The final step is to Collect Email Addresses: This
step is so important! It could mean the difference between lots of sales
and no sales! By collecting emails you have the ability to remind them
of their pictures. My goal was to collect an email address from every person. Words that Work! “Now all I need is an email from each of you.”
“Give me your email address and I will send you a direct link to your pictures.”
“What’s your email?”
Sometimes I would hear objections collecting more than one email, here’s
what to do!
Objections:
We are married; we have the same email address. Response: “I
get paid by the emails I collect; do you have another email?”
Objections: Just send them to me and I will email them to everybody. Response: “I
really need to collect an email from everyone; I get paid by collecting them.”
Objections:
I don’t have email. Response: “Do
you have a work email? I get paid by collecting emails.”
Tips: Write their emails for them. Then you can control who you get emails
from and how quickly you get them. Sports
Opportunity Revisited Using ViewFirst™ Marketing Method
by Danette Reinbold
Larry Sullivan is a photographer who retired from the sports photo business
about 20 years ago. With the advent of the internet and on-line sales,
his son reawakened his interest in the market. Larry attended the Candid
Color Sports Seminar held in Arlington, VA this summer. He was intrigued
by the Level 2 products and the View First System, and felt that Candid offered
a complete solution – image hosting, on-line sales and products.
Larry recently photographed his first “View First” event, a youth
sports football league. There were 332 participants and they shot 4 poses
of each child.
Using CORE Sports, they
sent out emails and printed proofs. There
have been 205 orders so far, with orders still coming in. At this time, 62% of
the participants have ordered, 35% of them have ordered from multiple poses and
the average sale is $32.38. Sales thus far are $6638.01 with 80% of them
on-line. The average lab cost per order is $13.51 with a total lab cost
of $2770.15, a 63.2% margin.
This is especially exciting as Larry mastered CORE Sports and has been so successful
with his first View First event. Greek
Photography is Alive and Well with the Sound
of Music
by Morgan Fenn
Singing,
dancing and wearing stage makeup may be customary
for some people but it usually isn’t
the norm for college freshmen especially
fraternity pledges.
Recently
at the University of Oklahoma, freshman sorority and fraternity pledges teamed
up to perform in the traditional musical/ theatrical performance, University
Sing. The event takes place in the fall semester during “Family Weekend.” This
event is a 4 night event that completely consumes the actors. They live and breathe
U-Sing from early September to showtime in early November. The huge time
commitment benefits the pledges because, this is where friendships are made and
bonds are built within sororoties and fraternities and it benefits photographers
because it is ideal for photographing. OU is not the only campus across the country
to have these photo-op performances.
This
year, Norman Party Pics shot U-Sing like we had never done before. It took organizing,
communicating, preparation and well shot images for a successful shoot.
About
a month prior to the event I personally contacted the University Sing director
pitching him the idea of Norman Party Pics being the official photographer for
the event. I explained to him that we wanted to go above and beyond what we had
done in the past and cover all angles of the event. Since I had performed in
the event 5 years ago, I knew when we could get the best photographs and what
I had wanted as a performer.
The
Wednesday before the event was the final full dress rehearsal and the first chance
for all the acts to see eachother. What this means for photographers is this
is the ABSOLUTE BEST time to shoot. We were given free reign to roam the theatre
and take all the images possible. We had six photographers on site; One in the
balcony of the theatre getting overview/ group action shots, two in the audience
capturing candids and action shots, one on each side of the stage taking individual
shots and one backstage for formal group pictures. With these 6 photographers,
we shot over 6,000 images in a little over two hours. The main goal was to get
as many shots of each person and act as possible.
In
addition to photographers, I was there passing out pencils and forms for the
performers to fill out with their email address and their parent’s email
address. This is a perfect and a key way to get the parent’s involved before
they even see the show. We also had a stuffer for the audience programs during
each performance advertising where to view the pictures and a perforated bottom
where they could write their email down and give to the photographers.
Marketing
to the parents was the key to our success. We found that more parents purchased
the images than students and when they bought, they bought every image their
son or daughter was in. There were multiple orders of 20 plus pictures, some
as many as 40.
U-Sing
was a huge success for Norman Party Pics and we have high hopes for all the years
to come. We hope our success will kick start more success for all our campus
photographer customers! If you’re a campus photographer, contact the campus
Greek Affairs office immediately to find out if they have a similar event. The
events are very popular and trust me, you will not regret this shoot!
Preparing
for the Upcoming Sports Season by Jessica Irvin
The
slow winter season is a great time to maximize your sales for spring. This
downtime is a chance to reorganize your business and begin planning for the
busy spring season. Organizing a matrix with last years events and their
sales, along with prospects and their projected sales, is a good place to start. You
can also evaluate next year’s goals and fine tune packages for the next
season. Beginning your planning now will set the stage for success in
spring.
Creating
a matrix will help you assess your sales calls for the upcoming season. To
begin, list every event that you shot last spring, as well as new prospects
for this spring; across the top create columns for Last Year’s sales,
estimated sales for the new prospects and goals for this season. The
new customer estimate can be gathered by figuring the average sale per player
from last year, and multiplying this by the estimated number of players on
a school team, or in a league times the estimated percentage of participation. In
the corresponding boxes, place last year’s sales from the event and the
estimate of the potential customers. By creating this matrix you
can evaluate which jobs were the most successful, and which prospects should
be aggressively sought after. Sales calls should be based around this
matrix. Don’t limit yourself to the events that are the easiest
to book; sometimes the most difficult jobs to book can turn out to be the most
successful.
Goal
setting is a great way to drive sales calls. Determine how many calls
you can make in a day, and how many should result in contacting someone. Reach
for this goal everyday to maximize your success in booking jobs. To further
organize your sales calls, create a spreadsheet with the contacts along with
their phone numbers and e-mail addresses. Referring to the matrix, determine
which jobs from last year are your top leads and begin calling and sending
out e-mails to your contacts. Although some of these contacts may not be ready
to book for the spring, stay persistent, keeping in contact with each lead
every four to six weeks. Continue to do this for 3-5 years if necessary
to book
a valuable league or school.
Finally,
set goals for this next year. Determine which events you want to book
and how many new jobs you want to attain. Also, consider leagues that
you want to gain contracts with, and other sports that you haven’t shot
before. Set goals for sales call per day, and a percentage of jobs booked resulting
from these calls. Preparation several months ahead of the next season
is the key to successful booking and now is the time to begin working on spring.
Digital
Sports Envelopes & Flyers REPRINT
by Holly McCoy
Our
very popular sports flyers and envelopes are an exciting
way to present products to your end customers. Both
the flyer and envelope have full color fronts with
blank backs for laser printing or for on press. You
can choose WITH GLUESTRIPS or NO GLUESTRIPS!!
**PLEASE NOTE!!! We will
be printing these every three months, so you will need
to estimate your needs for the next three months. We
will NOT be inventorying these, so you must order what
you need for this time period!! Envelopes will
ship via ground as soon as possible. Please
allow 2 weeks time for the printing plus time for
ground shipment after the deadline date for ordering.
DEADLINE FOR ORDERING IS WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5TH,
2007!!!! ORDER YOURS TODAY!!!
