Contracts are a must with Greek organizations. by Morgan
Fenn
Across the country, college students are preparing
for the fall semester and some of them are anticipating
their involvement in Greek life. Have you made your
preparations?
Just because you shot them last year and have for
the past 20 years doesn’t mean they have to be
loyal to your company. Each year there are new girls
in the old positions having to learn everything about
their job. These girls are easily tricked by sneaky
competitors. To escape the sticky situation of fighting
off a competitor or worse case scenario, losing a sorority
to a competitor, contracts are key!
In today’s market, you must, must, must, must,
must have a contract with a house! There are nation-wide
companies that are shooting conventions and offering
girls a “free” bid day photo session if
they sign a contract with their organization. The girls
are signing contracts that are very difficult to break
and the company will only shoot candid shots if they
have time.
Don’t let this competitor beat you out! Get
contracts to your houses immediately!
The best time to sign a contract with an organization
is the end of the spring semester before the student’s
head off for summer vacation. If last semester passed
without your company getting contracts signed, don’t
let that deter you away. Quickly work one up and personally
deliver one to each of your houses.
Steps to creating a contract:
Create a contract that is fair to both you and the
organization. Don’t ask them to do anything that
you haven’t asked of them in the past.
Be sure to include that you will be the exclusive photographer
for all the organization’s events including Bid
Day, Formal; Semi-Formal etc. (include annual large
parties that you know will occur.)
Include an expiration date for the contract. (Remember
to re-sign the contract each year prior to the expiration
date.)
Make sure you have a signature line for the president,
social chair and recruitment chair to sign, date and
put their contact information.
Steps to getting the contract signed.
Personally deliver the contract to each house.
Find the decision makers. (Don’t just give the
contract to the first girl you see. Ask to speak with
the president, social chair or recruitment chair.)
Schedule a time in the following week to meet with
the girls to pick up the contract.
Explain to the girls why you suddenly need a signed
contract. Ensure them that nothing will change from
year’s past, you just have to have a signature
for business purposes.
Once you received signed contracts, you won’t
have to worry about competitors taking your business
away!!!
Contact your customer development rep if you have
any issues creating your contracts!
Using Facebook in Greek Photography
You have to learn to speak the
Facebook language of college students to communicate
with today’s Greeks.
Micha Mikailian, founder and CEO of eBoost Marketing
in San Diego, California says, “With the rise
of social media, the transparency of information is
increasing and companies are not able to hide behind
their branding experts any longer,the successful companies
of the future are going to have to establish a sense
of community with their customers, listen to their
concerns, and get them involved in the company.”
This quote rings very true in today’s Greek
market. You have to learn to speak the Facebook language
of college students to communicate with today’s
Greeks. . Facebook is the 6th most trafficked website
in the world and the 2nd most trafficked social media
site in the world. It has more than 80 million active
users and is the No. 1 photo sharing application on
the web. There are more than 14 million photos uploaded
daily and more than 6 million active user groups on
the site.
Facebook is “a social utility that connects
you with the people around you” and more importantly
is the best way to stay connected with the Greeks on
your campus. They check their Facebook accounts on
a daily basis usually multiple times a day. It’s
so popular among the students that they have transformed
the word into a verb. Walk on any college campus and
you will hear Facebook mentioned all day long and most
likely will hear someone say “I’ll Facebook
you later!”
Click the thumbnail sample of the Norman Party Pics
page they set up to communicate with the campus organizations.
How to Facebook:
It is easy to create an account, all you need is a
name and an email address and you are quickly connected
to millions of students. Once you have created the
account for your company, you can start updating your
page. Upload your logo as your picture and put all
your contact information in the required fields of
the page. As soon as the page is created, you can begin
adding “friends” to your account. Friends
are your connections for personal accounts. You can
view your friends profile, send them a message, and
write on their wall for all their friends to see. The
best thing to do is go through your contact list for
your campuses and add all of them as your friends.
Facebook Messaging:
Facebook allows you to message your contacts, friends
and potential contacts whenever you want. They check
Facebook before email messages therefore, this is the
easiest way to get in touch with your Greek contacts.
Facebook as a Booking Tool:
Facebook is a great tool in finding out upcoming events.
You can browse through your network’s upcoming
events to see what’s going on in your area.
Most fraternities, sororities and campus organizations
post events about upcoming philanthropies and large
parties. Norman Party Pics® has picked up several
campus activities just by seeing them on Facebook
and contacting the organization.
Facebook and Party Time Photos:
Party Time Photos
out of Lubbock, Texas is a Party Pics® photography
company that photographs the Texas Tech Greek system.
They have found tremendous success with Facebook.
Party Time Photos has 3,323 Friends on Facebook.
Each week, Party Time Photos creates an event online
that invites all 3,323 friends to all the parties they
will be photographing throughout the weekend. This
is just one more way to let the college students know
that PARTY TIME PHOTOS WILL BE THERE and they can leave
their cameras at home!!!!
The bars and nightclubs noticed the success with the
Facebook events and have now hired PartyTime Photos
to promote their weekend drink specials, concerts and
promotions for a flat fee of $200 a week.
Facebook allows you communication tools that you have
never had before! IF YOU AREN’T ON FACEBOOK YOU
SHOULD BE!!! Contact your customer development rep
or Morgan
Fenn to get your company on Facebook!
CCS has custom templates available to download and
use that will set your photography business above the
rest.
Need a competitive edge to get your business noticed?
CCS has custom templates available to download and
use that will set your photography business above the
rest. No longer are you tied to the same old backgrounds
that you sell year after year at sports shoots. Maybe
you would like to offer a custom print for a graduation
you are photographing? Well, if you know how to use
PhotoShop, you can now create the artwork for your
custom products. These templates are available for
download on CandidNet.
To create these products, download the template from
CandidNet. Create your artwork, flatten the image,
save as a jpeg, and FTP the image to the order number
you are using. When you set up your packages, select
the modifier for custom background artwork, and assign
the image to that package. Click on the following link
for instructions on how to set up your custom products
using our templates.
When creating a background, you can use an image that
you shoot or purchase a stock image from sites such
as Istockphoto.com and photos.com. To change the fonts
on your products, go to a font website such as, FontFactory.com.
The following products with custom templates are available:
Vert. & Horiz. Holiday cards can be custom in all
markets (13167)
Grad Market –
Custom
Grad 8x10 titled, vertical and horizontal
Custom
Grad 8x10 no title, vertical and horizontal
Quicpic Market –
5x7
CoBrand Prints, vertical and horizontal
8x10
CoBrand Prints, vertical and horizontal
Race Market –
Race
Plaque- 5x7 (13174) and 8x10 (13173)
5x7
Matted Print (13170)
8x10
Matted Print (13171)
Co- brand 5x7 (13705)
Co-brand 8x10 (13708)
Co-brand 16x20 (13468)
Sports Market –
*Memory Mates available as custom in CORE. All others
available in QP2.
Appreciation
Prints, vertical and horizontal (13138)
Calendars
8x10, vertical and horizontal (13295)
Key
Chains, vertical and horizontal (13932)
Luggage
Tags, vertical and horizontal (13933)
Magazine
Covers, vertical and horizontal (13140)
Magnets,
vertical and horizontal (13286)
Trader
Cards, sets of 8 or 12 (13122 & 13123)
10x13
Memory Mate, vertical and horizontal (13573)
10x14
Memory Mate, vertical and horizontal (13271)
8x10
Memory Mate (logo & no logo) (13270)
Co- brand 5x7 & 8x10 also available
LabPrints-A Creative Tool to Manage Your Digital Workflow
by Evie Sibert
Candid Color Systems is partnered with LabPrints in
order to provide a tool for ordering, collage building
and album design within the PPS market. This innovative
software is not only user friendly, but it allows
the photographer to have a more streamlined workflow
with a creative edge.
Labprints is a stand alone software package that assists
in marketing, ordering, album designing, and is a presentation
tool for professional photographers. From this piece
of software you can: run slideshows for your customers,
crop images, print thumbnails, invoice customers and
design albums with seven leading album companies. This
program also offers many retouching services such as
basic and extensive retouching, hair removal, glass
glare removal and sharpening and, you can add mounting
and coating to an order.
In today’s market, creative, multi-image collages
are becoming increasingly popular which in turn, allows
photographers to command high prices for these products.
With LabPrints, you have the ability to choose from
a considerable amount of templates for collage building.
Also, with this program you have the ability to add
drop shadows, borders, fades, vignettes, change opacity,
and add tints to images in your collages and composites.
There is no need to color correct your images because
the lab individually color corrects every image that
is used in the collage.
Support for LabPrints is provided by the Candid Color
System’s Customer Support team. In addition,
on labprints.com,
you can find online video tutorials, instructional
manuals and a downloadable 30-day trial version.
To purchase LabPrints, there is a one time fee of $149.00
for the collage/template designer and an additional
one time fee of $149.00 for the album designer. The
projection tool can be purchased for $199 but if all
of these components are purchased together, the bundle
is $399. There is no charge for the ordering and workflow
tool. Once an account is opened through LabPrints,
orders will be directly uploaded to the lab for processing.
Click to enlarge
CCS is now offering LabPrints webinars. These classes
will outline the features and benefits by showing a
demonstration of the software. The next LabPrints Webinar
will be Wednesday, August 27th from 11:00 AM to noon
CST. To register for this and other CCS webinars, click
here.
New Youth Sports Offer Encourages Your Customers to
Buy by Jessica
Irvin
The New Youth Sports Offer is designed to ease the
package setup process, effectively market to your customers,
and encourage your customers to purchase more. You
also have the option to include Level Two.
QuicPost and CORE now feature a new Youth Sports Offer.
This offer is available along with the original CCS
Default Offer, both of which were designed to ease
the package building process. The new Youth Sports
Offer can be chosen with or without Level Two™,
and has several features that the previous CCS Default
does not have.
The Look
One feature found in the package builder is Groups.
This is intended for you to group similar products
together, creating a more appealing product presentation.
The new Youth Sports Offer takes full advantage of
this feature by including several products in an easy
to follow presentation that is not over whelming for
your customer
Click images to enlarge
Candid’s New Youth Offer includes thumbnails
in each group. These thumbnails have been arranged
to feature every product within the group. By featuring
these thumbnails it allows your customer to visually
see the products without having to read through the
packages. Grouping products organizes packages and
shortens your offer so customers do not have to scroll
through a long list of products and text.
The Offer
Level Two™ starts off the new offer. Four of
the most popular L2™ styles are featured. Instead
of describing each style by name, CCS has opted to
refer them as Style 1, Style 2, etc. Changing the names
to style numbers creates ease of ordering for your
customers. In addition, to further sell Level Two™ Candid
has included animated GIFs with the product description.
Following Level Two™ are the standard packages.
Each package is grouped, and is available in a standard
or deluxe finish and laminated. The Deluxe finish includes
complexion touch-up which smoothes the skin and makes
eyes and teeth brighter
All of the Sports Specialty products have also been
grouped together to allow your customers ease when
browsing through thumbnails of the products. All of
the standard print sizes are also arranged this way.
The Upsell
To encourage your customers to purchase an upsell
or package, wallets can only be ordered by purchasing
a package or an upsell.
The Conclusion
The New Youth Sports Offer is designed to ease the
package setup process, effectively market to your customers,
and encourage your customers to purchase more. You
are free to edit any of the default offers by changing
the price, packages, upsells, and much more! If you
would like more information about The New Youth Sports
Offer contact Customer Development at 800-336-4550
or to learn how to setup the offer call Technical Support
at 800-750-0494 option 2.
Sport Marketing Materials Time Again!
By Holly McCoy
Sport Marketing Materials Time Again! It's time once
again to order from our run of quarterly sports marketing
items! This includes the Digital Sports Envelopes & Flyers,
and also the Level Two™ Flyers!
ORDERING DEADLINE IS THIS FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, 2008,
so send in your order today! For more detailed information
and to order, click on the Links below:
DRAWING A BLANK? Order Your Blank Perforated
Cards Sheets & Pre-Pay
Flyer Envelopes Today!
Our very popular Blank Perforated Cards Sheets and
Blank Pre-pay Flyer Envelopes allow you to customize
your materials in smaller quantities! Use our blank
perforated cards to CREATE YOUR OWN PASSWORD CARDS.
You will SAVE A TON OF MONEY by ordering with us verus
local office supply stores! The Blank Pre-Pay Flyer
Envelopes are great to collect money in up front and
allows you to customize to each group. These are one-of-a-kind
customizable envelopes ready for any occasion! ORDER
DEADLINE IS THIS FRIDAY, August 22, 2008. Order yours
today!!
For more detailed information and to order, click
on the links below:
