MyDigitalProductsOnline.com is an “unbranded” website hosted by JD that displays all the press-printed graphic layouts available in ROES. Use it to quickly view all our card styles on a single page:

• Graduations, Weddings, Holidays, Baby Announcements
• Dozens of horizontal and vertical Slimline card styles
• Folding cards with optional sentiments
• Always adding more

Since JD is never mentioned anywhere on the site, you can show the website to your customers at your studio when selecting card styles. You could even call a client and have them pick a card style while you’re talking on the phone!

If you use ROES, bookmark MyDigitalProductsOnline.com and check back often. New card designs are constantly being added.

The challenge of social media (blogs, twitter, Facebook, etc.) is that at first glance it seems like a free and relatively easy way to connect to potential customers, but as Jim Smith at yChange.com explains:

If as a small business you are trying to use social media to get the word out to your customers and prospects about how great your product/service is then you are frankly wasting your time walking down a blind alley. If however, you are using social media to listen to your customer and learn what his/her problem or pain is and what value your business can bring to the table then you are on the right path.

Social media today is for listening. It is not a mike or a megaphone to be used to drown the customer out.

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Robbin Stieff at LunaMetrics wrote an interesting article that lists the 8 Worst SEO Mistakes companies make when they redesign their website.

For photographers and studios, “The Flash Problem” is the worst. Here’s why:

1. Photographers are visually stimulated, so it makes sense they would be drawn to great looking websites based on photography. People who design websites for photographers know this, so they frequently replace keyword-rich sites that Google likes with gorgeous flash-based sites that Google will ignore.
2. Google depends on plain vanilla text inside your website to tell it what your website is about. A Flash website has almost no text on the homepage - it is designed to load and play the Flash “movie”. Learn why adding a description tag or some keywords doesn’t solve the problem.
3. Some flash-based sites only have a single URL — the homepage. When you click on a different page on the site, you are taken to a different part of the Flash movie. These pages are hidden from search engines, users can’t bookmark them, link to them, or share them on Facebook.

How to solve the problem

Create a text-based website, then include a window with Flash inside. This gives you the stunning photography you need, but still allows text on the homepage. That’s what we did on the JDPI homepage.

A few weeks ago I wrote an article entitled What is Your Studio’s Lagniappe? Basically it described the little unexpected gift you give a customer as a “thank you” for their business.

As you can see here, I think I’ve found a great one. These little photo key chains can be purchased on Amazon . The best rated Tao sells for less than 10 dollars.

After a bride has purchased thousands of dollars of photography from you, imagine her surprise when she comes to pick up the albums and you present this little key chain with 10-15 of the best shots from the album pre-installed. I’m guessing she’ll show it to so many friends, it will virtually pay for itself.

Here’s the trick - make the last image a jpg with your studio logo, website, and phone number.

Pick up a couple of these to give to your next high-dollar clients, and I guarantee you’ll generate some buzz.

I worked part-time at a drug store when I was in high school. Their wasn’t anything great about the store: they didn’t have great prices, and they didn’t have a great selection.

However, what they did have was 100% US Grade-A milk for 99 cents a gallon. Even then, that was a deal. I spent half of my senior year emptying and re-stacking milk crates so that the giant walk-in coolers in the back of the store were always full of fresh milk.

What does milk have to do with a drug store? Nothing. The milk was a loss-leader.

You’ve seen them before. Supermarkets put something on sale in the back of the store so you have to walk past everything else to get to it. In exchange for the great price, you put up with the inconvenience.

Marketing pros know that once you’re in the store, you’re likely to buy a few other items at full price. Nobody likes to waste time, and since you’ve already got a deal on the loss-leader, it won’t hurt to pick up a few other things. Sound familiar?

How could this work for your studio?

• If you’re a portrait photographer, offer a low-cost sitting fee.
• If you’re a wedding photographer, offer a low-cost starter package.
• If you’re shooting churches, offer a low-cost 8×10 print.

I don’t recommend this marketing strategy to everyone. Cutting prices - if not done carefully and strategically - can lead to lowering the value of your service in the mind of your customers. And some customers will frustrate you when they buy the loss-leader - and nothing else.

However, if you need to quickly generate some traffic into your studio, offering a loss-leader is a tested marketing strategy that really works.

Even if you’re studio is already on Facebook, you’re always looking for more fans. The question is, how can you get them?

Kraft Foods did it by asking folks to become a fan, then fill out a form to get a coupon for a free box of Mac & Cheese. To date, they have about 200,000 fans.

The take-away message here is, if you want to get something, you’ve got to give something. It would be easy to duplicate this for your studio, collect email addresses, then send a coupon for an upcoming special.

• Holidays
• Senior Portraits
• Wedding Consultations

Don’t just launch this Facebook promotion alone. Instead, make it part of your next marketing campaign. Use the same coupon in your email newsletter, mail it to previous customers, and put it on the front page of your website. Multiple impressions are a proven way to boost your campaign’s success.

Give it a try!

• My friend recently decided to repaint and carpet her home. She asked her 14 year old son if he’d like any changes in his bedroom. “Sure,” he said. “Can you take out the TV? I don’t watch it anymore.“
• We have a college student working as an intern at the lab. Call his cell phone, and he doesn’t answer. Send him an e-mail, and it may take hours for a reply. Send him a text, and he responds almost instantly.
• I was at a party watching a twenty-something young lady sit in the corner alone, texting on her iPhone. I asked her “who are you talking to?” “My friends,” she replied. “I’m on Facebook telling them what a great party this is.“

These three Generation-Y young adults - children born in the 70’s through the 90’s - are your new customers. They are purchasing your graduation and wedding photographs. they are starting new families. Marketing to them is different than the traditional marketing we’re all more familiar with. Here are 7 items to put on your checklist when you plan your next marketing campaign:

1. How to reach them. Social networking has replaced the phone and email. Think Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and texting. Gen-Y won’t read your email newsletter or see your ad on TV or in a magazine.

2. What to say. Sales language turns them off. They’ve already heard tens-of-thousands of ads in their lifetime, and are totally immune to old-school marketing speak. Instead, be authentic. Start by listening to them.

3. What they purchase. Apple, Jet Blue, Trader Joes, Jones Soda, Mountain Dew, Hollister, Old Navy and Red Bull. Pay attention to each of these brands when you see them in videos, magazines or in stores. They have a “little attitude” in their sales pitches, are unique players in their respective markets, and sell a lifestyle at a relatively low price .

4. What they’ll pay. We’ve all heard Jet Blue sells cheap airline tickets, but what about $3 bucks for a can of Red Bull? While that might seem like a lot of money for a tiny can of pop, Gen-Y will gladly pay it. Like Jet Blue, They trust this product to give them what it promises (Red Bull = energy) and it delivers.

5. Good Quality. Google any product on the Internet and you can read dozens, if not hundreds or thousands of opinions about that product’s quality. If you’re not offering great quality products and service, people will talk and others will listen and trust them. Once you get a reputation - good or bad - you can’t take it back.

6. Fast Service. If you quit answering your phone at 5pm, the customer who calls you at 5:05pm will be calling your competition at 5:10pm. Gen-Y doesn’t leave a “voice message” then wait for for you to call them back.

7. An Experience. Perhaps the most difficult to quantify, but the most critical marketing tip for long-term success. For an example, go down to your local mall this weekend and walk into a Hollister clothing store. The sights, the sounds and the smells all combine to make you feel like you’ve landed in a southern Californian beach party, the clothes and the sales staff all match the brand, yet the prices are not much different than you’d pay at Macy’s or J.C. Penny’s.

If you can focus your marketing on Gen-Y clients, you’ll be on your way to capturing the next generation of customers for your business.

Since the beginning of commercial photography, professional studios have used folders to frame, protect and present images to their customers.

Think of a professional photography like a gift. Gifts always looks better when they are artfully presented. If you think presentation doesn’t matter, ask a kid if they like opening wrapped presents at Christmas!

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Orders for Senior Rep (also called Senior Ambassador) Books are starting to come in. If you are a senior portrait photographer, now is the time to place your order.

To get you started, we have a special for you: order any size Senior Rep Book, include an order for 96 Senior Rep business-size cards, enter the code “BOGOSEN” in ROES, and you’ll get the cards half off! To make it easy, you can order the Senior Rep Kit from the Press Printed Catalog in ROES.

And there’s more…

Order a Senior Rep book at the same time you order the cards with this code and we’ll give you a coupon for a free 16×20″ senior portrait print!

If you’re not a senior portrait photographer, here’s how it works:

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Michael Zang at PetaPixel wrote an article entitled Build Your Photo Business with Nickels. In it he says:

Here’s an idea for those of you who are looking for photography clients of any kind: Offer portraits and other kinds of photographs at your local farmers market for a nickel.

In the above video by Michael Hanson for the NYTimes, architect John Morefield describes how he offers architecture advice at his local farmers market for a nickel. While a whole day of doing this might net less than a dollar, Hanson found 100% of his work for a year using this creative way to connect with potential clients.

Photographers might be able to do the same thing. Why not set up a booth in your local farmers market and offer portraits or photography help/advice for 5 cents? You could take down email addresses, pass out business cards, and later email photographs to your nickel “clients”. If 5 cents would create too much work in terms of emailing photographs, you could increase the price or tweak the strategy to your liking.

This could be an absolutely phenomenal way to build your email list. The trick isn’t to take high-res photos, but to take reasonably nice low res ones people could use on their Facebook site. It would give you an opportunity to show the difference between amateur and professional photography, and it would give you a chance to generate some buzz with a press release to the local media.

Here’s a similar example, TopShop, the hottest new clothing store in New York City this year, has a photographer on staff. When a customer buys an outfit, the photographer takes their photo and emails it to them to use on Facebook!

What do you think about the idea? Is it a waste of your time, or is it the ultimate low cost, word-of-mouth marketing strategy?