CCS customer EPG is interested is paying reasonable prices for the following used strobes:
Metz 45 CT3 and CT4 series
Metz 45 CL3 and CL4 series
In addition, they would like to purchase most of the miscellaneous items that are in these strobe kits such as the camera bar, sync cord, plastic AA battery insert, and the wide-angle diffuser. However, they are NOT interested in purchasing the rechargeable ni-cad battery pack insert or charger.
They also have a considerable number of Sunpak Auto 544 strobes for sale—or for trade—for your Metz strobes.If interested in buying, selling, or trading strobes for strobes please contact: David.
Come Visit Candid Color Systems in the Caribbean and Leave Your Passport At Home!
by Alison Counts
Make plans to attend the 2009 Candid Color Systems Winter Seminar in sunny and warm San Juan, Puerto Rico! This four day event is being held February 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th at the beautiful Hilton Caribe Hotel. Experience the beauty of traveling away from the states without the hassle of needing your passport!
The CCS staff will put together a fun filled informative seminar agenda with plenty of new information. The seminar will begin with a Welcome Cocktail Reception on the evening of February 17th. Candid will have informative meetings and training sessions scheduled for the 18th-20th. These meetings will end early in the afternoon giving you plenty of time to soak in some Caribbean rays!
If you are new to the CCS family, please know that the seminar is FREE OF CHARGE to attend. Investing four days of your time by attending the CCS seminar will offer you opportunities to discover the current best practices and success stories in markets that you photograph. You will also be exposed to information about new photographic markets for your business! The seminar gives you a chance to network with other CCS customers and employees.
Candid has locked in great room rates for the Caribe Hilton. Make your hotel reservations today by calling Dortha or Larry at All About Travel at (800) 880-8517.
Room Rates: $209 for single + taxes & fees
$219 for double + taxes & fees
(The rooms must be booked through All About Travel to receive these rates.)
In case you want to extend your stay, the room rate is available 3 days before and 4 days after the seminar dates (subject to availability). Book your rooms today to ensure that you receive this great rate, Candid has only 50 rooms blocked and they will go fast!
The Hilton Caribe also offers baby-sitting services for kids, children’s activites, children’s menus, cribs, high chairs and a Kidz Paradise. Check the hotel website for further information.
If you have any questions, contact your Customer Development representative at 1.800.336.4550.
Candid Color Systems offers a series of FREE Training Webinars!
by Morgan Fenn
CCS has added a new feature to CandidNet! We have added weekly training webinars for current CCS customers! Unlike our other webinars available for registration via candid.com, the new webinars will focus on training instead of an overview of features. You can view the new training webinar schedule and register online. We hope to expand these training sessions each week. Sign up now! Space is limited! These FREE training sessions will begin with the following topics:
Quicpost— Wednesday, November 12th 10am-11:30am CST
QuicPost™ is Candid Color Systems’ complete online event management system for sports. It is fast, easy and simple to use. QuicPost™ allows photographers to quickly upload and post images online, drag and drop images into organized categories, create specific product offerings with customized tax and shipping rates and offer vouchers or discount codes. QuicPost™ also allows the photographer to customize simple email templates to connect with your customer, manually order and track customers’ order statuses and history. QuicPost™ also has product rendering for the end-customer so they can view exactly what they are purchasing. There is no set-up or hosting fee and you only pay when you sell something with QuicPost™. Candid Color Systems is confident that QuicPost™ is the best software for sports photographers.
CCS Transfer - Thursday, Nov 13th 2pm-3:30pm CST
Candid Color Systems provides FTP software at no charge that enables our customers to transfer images to the lab using a high-speed internet connection. Our proprietary FTP software also allows customers to renumber and rotate images, extract data from image files to determine photographer productivity and much more!
Be sure to check out these other webinars created and conducted by CCS staff to help you better your business. (available for registration via candid.com/webinars) Coming up this month we have:
Digital Photography Basics- Friday, November 14 from 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM CST
Are you new to photography or want to brush up on the best practices of Digital Photography? Learn how to capture a quality image in the camera that doesn’t require any post-production work in Photoshop! Get past the technical jargon and learn how Digital Photography can be simple and easy to understand. This webinar will cover basic camera settings, such as, setting your white balance, finding your exposure, cropping, and resolution and compression settings.
How To Make More Money In Sports Photography- Wednesday, November 19 from 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM CST
Join industry professionals to learn how to launch and grow your sports business. We will cover booking business, pre-shoot and photo day operations and the NEW alternative to pre-pay marketing. Learn ways to save time in your office, compete on your marketing system instead of price, use emails to boost sales and see innovative sports products. We can also show you how to integrate online orders, print fulfillment and delivery to your end customer.
Lab Prints-A Powerful Tool for Portrait Photographers- Mon., November 10 from 3:00 - 4:00 PM & Fri., Nov. 21 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM CST
Attention Portrait Photographers! Candid Color Systems offers the Digital Studio Program by LabPrints! Learn how LabPrints will enable you to:
-Organize, edit & order images
-Compare images
-Create a slide show-Project your images
-Create collages
Quicpost: A complete online, event-management system for sports.- Wednesday, November 12 from 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM CST
Learn about this NEW, web-based program designed to help you quickly and easily sell your sports images online. Learn how you can drag and drop images into categories, use email marketing, customize your product offering, tax and shipping rates. No set-up or hosting fees! Only pay when you sell something!
Offer FedEx Priority Overnight Shipping to Retail Customers
by Evie Sibert
CCS Customers now have the option to choose Priority Overnight as an option on their retail site. Retail customers can choose to have their order sent via postal service or Fedex Priority Overnight. This can be done in CORE and will soon be available in Quicpost.
The sliding scale option is available with the Fed Ex option. Customers can set their prices depending on the amount of the purchase. CCS has discounted pricing with Fed Ex and we pass this onto our customers, therefore shipping could be used as a profit center. The pricing for Fedex Priority can be found on candidnet.candid.com under the Pricelist heading and the Fedex Shipping section. The cost depends on the zone and the zone is determined based on the zip code of where the package is being shipped to. The prices on candidnet are for commercial locations. When figuring out your prices, consider that most of your customers will ship to their residential locations therefore Fedex will charge an addition $1.95 to the cost plus a fuel surcharge of 13%.
Priority Service is separate from our Rush service. The order will still run its natural course through the lab and will be expressed shipped once it hits the mailing department. Orders placed before noon will qualify to be shipped the next business day if the order is completed. This service is not available for Saturday delivery. If the order is placed by noon on that Friday it will be delivered on Monday. We are currently working on getting Saturday pickup for Monday in the near future.
We encourage you to offer this option to your customers to see if your order rate goes up. Also, it would be interesting to see if customers choose the Priority option more than the USPS option. If you have any questions on how to set up your Priority shipping, please contact Customer Development or your Customer Support Rep.
Use a “Playbook” to Get Your Foot In The Door
Candid Color Photography has seen tremendous success with a new marketing tool. They designed and printed a “High School Playbook” and a “Youth Sports Playbook” to book with area leagues and districts. This marketing tool outlines all of the features and benefits or their service and gives coaches and decision makers an insight into your business.
The playbook is a great marketing piece to use when you have an appointment with a coach or a group of decision makers. It shows your audience that you are not only professional, but you have a creative edge. In your playbook, it is essential to outline what you can provide to coaches, parents, booster club members and players.
The intro of your playbook should talk about your company. For example mention how long you have been in business and why you stand out from the rest of the competition. Also, include some testimonials from your customers. Some talking points for your playbook could be Level 2, View First, effortless photo day for coaches, easy ordering systems and quick order delivery. It is also important to show samples of your work by using some of your best images and use enticing colors and text.
Candid Color Systems is here to help you put together a playbook to get you in the game! If you would like more information contact Customer Development at 1-800-336-4550.
Have CCS design and print your playbook to help you book sports. This marketing tool will outline all of the features and benefits or your service.
The playbook is a great marketing piece to use when you have an appointment with a coach or a group of decision makers. It shows your audience that you are not only professional, but you have a creative edge. In your playbook, it is essential to outline what you can provide to coaches, parents, booster club members and players. It is important to use images of your products and enticing colors and text.
Click to enlarge.
The intro of your playbook should talk about your company. For example mention how long you have been in business and why you stand out from the rest of the competition. Also, include some testimonials from your customers. Some talking points for your playbook could be Level Two™, View First™, effortless photo day for coaches, easy ordering systems and quick order delivery. It is also important to show samples of your work.
To see psd’s and jpeg’s of a finished playbook, please check out candidnet.candid.com, filed under the heading: Marketing/Business Development- playbook.
If you would like more information on putting your playbook together, please contact Customer Development at 1-800-336-4550.
Pre-Printing Attitude Panos: Another Way to Market Sports Prints! by Brian Speers
Brad Medley is a CCS customer located near Annapolis, MD and has a unique method of promoting and selling the “…nearly 60” Attitude Panos that he has photographed since the end of August. New to CCS as a customer in 2007, Brad enjoys a special relationship with his leagues because of his two-pronged approach to sports photography: shooting traditional “T&I” images like most sports customers; and also offering on-site printing for his action shots from a trailer that he brings to events to promote his action shots.
Click images to enlarge.
But, there is no doubt that the MVP of this football season has been the Attitude Panos that he is marketing for cheer and football teams; and his sales method is definitely atypical. Here is what he does to maximize his pano sales for each team.
After shooting team and individual shots for the conventional print offerings and sports products, Brad then cycles each athlete through for a special “attitude” full-length shot. He then pre-prints a number of panos equal to about 75% of the number of kids on each team.One week later he returns with his trailer to do action shots of the same team, and begins to sell his attitude panos from the trailer that were pre-printed to sell to the anxiously awaiting parents. At that point the feeding frenzy begins and he sells the prints for $35, until he sells out.
Following that, if there are still some parents that didn’t get a chance to buy he takes orders on the spot. If they miss the first two buying opportunities then he places the image online and the price rises to $45! The reaction of the parents, in Brad’s words, is “ear-to-ear smiles”, “some tears” and “general excitement”. In an alternate marketing method that Brad offers you can purchase any of his top three packages and add a pano for $25. He also includes a pano in his top sports package which costs $95.
If you are looking for an alternate way to sell Attitude panos you may want to try pre-printing to take advantage of the excitement and create sales through impulse buying. It seems to work great for Brad!
Shaping your Sports Groups for Proper Team Posing.
by Charles Cummings
Whether you have large or small sports teams to photograph Candid Color Systems has a guide to help you shape your team image for proper posing. We have two pages of guides to help you form the group of teams as small as three all the way up to twenty team members. The guides are very usefull and can be found on HYPERLINK "http://candidnet.candid.com" Candid Net under Customer Guides. Once you open up the link there will be several guides you can choose from. The Team Posing guides are the first two you can look at, download or print off. Page one shows group posing for teams of 3-11 players and page two has guides for 12-20 players.
Shaping your groups is very important for good quality prints. If your group shot is not formed properly, the finished prints your customers receive will reflect it and therefore decrease the amount of repeat customers.
For more information or help contact Customer Development @ 1-800-336-4550
Grad Email Campaign for the Holidays
by Steve Foisy
If you are using a CORE or QuicPost Email Campaign, you may have a holiday email scheduled to be broadcast on November 20 before Thanksgiving. The focus of this e-mail is holiday cards and gifts and you should confirm that your offers contain related items and that the events are active online. Remember to refresh your online offer for each event if you do make any changes. Contact Customer Support at 800-750-0494 if you need assistance creating your Holiday product packages or altering/adding email campaigns.
