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Spring season is here and things are really heating up - more jobs, more orders, and more photographers using PhotoDay. In fact, March has been an over-the-top record month for us here. Needless to say, we've got a spring in our step and can't wait to share with you some new features that we released over the past couple of weeks:

Brand YOU

We know how important it is to keep your studio's brand in front of your customers. That's why we've added the ability to easily add the studio logo to PhotoDay promotional flyers. Simply, go to the My Studio section of the Studio Panel and add your logo, then you'll have the option of adding your logo to any flyer in the future.

Flyers that Fly

PhotoDay flyers can now be made into slick web pages with a click of a button. Here's a sample web page.

Promo It Up

We stocked up Promos for the entire year - giving our users the ability to sell to their customers well beyond picture day. Studios can now promote their galleries to customers for gift-giving holidays and generate lots of buzz and excitement with seasonal sales! Check out the complete calendar of 2019 Promos.

Our Little Secret

We have a treasure of sales and marketing tools tucked away in the PhotoDay Studio Panel - in an area called Resources. We're always adding and updating new, super-helpful stuff. In fact, we recently made some updates to the how-to guides that you can find in the Resources help section. These visual, how-to guides walk you step-by-step through the entire workflow, from set-up to final sale. They include: A Simpler Way to Set Up Picture Day and How to Sell Before Picture Day. Also, you don't want to miss the Boost Your Buy Rates Checklist. These resources are specifically for PhotoDay users so if you haven't already joined us, what are you waiting for? You can sign up here today!

Those are just the highlights, folks! You can track all of PhotoDay's new features, updates, and fixes right here: PhotoDay Version Updates

I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Jack Levin. He's an imaging software guru who is also a technical advisor to PhotoDay. His current company Nventify, Inc. makes the cloud-based imaging processing software, Imagizer - used by giants like Nordstrom and Homesnap. In complete non-tech terms, his company gives customers a better image browsing experience, whether they're shopping for shoes or houses...and now sports & school photography!

PhotoDay has integrated Imagizer into our platform which means dynamic image sizes based on pixel ratio and overall improved speed and performance for images displayed in PhotoDay galleries. On the surface, nothing should look much different but that's the beauty of Imagizer. It's one of those under-the-hood things that you don't notice...but we notice. We know that if we can shave microseconds off of image load times, this will result in a better overall experience for the end customer and more sales for the studios who use PhotoDay.

Before Nventify, Jack co-founded ImageShack and yfrog, which provided image delivery and hosting for MySpace (awww!) and Twitter. In the early days of his career, Jack was among the first employees at Google, working as an Infrastructure Engineer, overseeing early partnerships with Netscape, Yahoo, AOL, ASK and many others. Let's just say he knows his stuff - and he shared it with us in this video interview. Enjoy!

The Evolution of  Photography Video first aired at SPAC 2019.  In case you missed it in Vegas...here it is.

Why we do picture day stays the same, but how we do it is changing...

It all started when National School Studios, founded in 1936, established "volume photography" as we know it today. However, there was still a long period of time before this when photography itself was just taking its first steps.

Relatively speaking, photography is a "new" concept, which only appeared around the same time as the electromagnet and the steam locomotive.

Throwing it back from crude heliographs in the 1820s, to Daguerreotypes in the 1860s, to hi-resolution 20th-century FILM, we’ve been sharpening our focus to capture where we were – and who we are NOW.

We’ve honed our techniques, and pushed our creativity to pioneer NEW approaches to this industry. We see PhotoDay as part of the evolution. We are fueled by the innovators and visionaries who came before us.

Technology is constantly changing and those who adapt to this new world, those who appeal to today's digital parents, THOSE are the ones who see the big picture –and profit from it. We at PhotoDay are determined and excited to get you there– are you ready?

Today is the day - Miller's Professional Imaging is officially live on PhotoDay! We know MANY studios have been waiting patiently since we announced our partnership last September. And, now it's here. Miller's catalog of top-of-the-line products and great-looking themes are now available on PhotoDay. Too eager to read on? You can sign up for Miller's + PhotoDay right now.

What does this mean for studios?

Some of the great products you can expect from Miller's[/caption]You'll get the amazing products and personal service that make Miller's a leading lab among sports, event, and school photographers - while streamlining your workflow beyond your imagination and giving your customers a slick, one-of-a-kind ordering experience. Learn more aboutPhotoDay Sports & Events.

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New to Miller's?

Here's what you can expect:

       
• 1-day turnaround
       
• Free color correction
       
• Dedicated customer service reps
       
• Top-quality products
       
• Professional materials

Miller's Themed Collections for Custom Products[/caption]We're excited to have Miller's as part of the PhotoDay family - and look forward to helping their studios get set up in time for their Spring 2019 shoots.

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‍Get started with Miller's + PhotoDay. Let's do this!

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To say that “online” doesn’t work for volume photography is like saying a hammer doesn’t work to build a house. “Online” is a tool, like any other, that won’t do anything for your business unless you know how to direct it, how to use it. Despite this fact, some volume photographers have “tried online” and have vocally concluded (ironically, on Facebook) that it doesn’t work.

There are many industries that have had to adapt to taking their traditionally offline businesses into the online world. The music industry naturally comes to mind as musicians accustomed to selling physical albums saw their sales dry up in the late 90’s and early 00’s, being replaced by downloadable singles and then streaming services. Many of these same musicians evolved to use “online” as a tool that now helps get their music discovered, promote live performances, and ultimately make a living doing what they love.

You can draw similar parallels to retail, books, movies, transportation, news, sports... pretty much every major consumer industry has experimented with different online approaches - and it all has accelerated with the onset of mobile. The result? New, uncharted paths, unforeseen sources of revenue, significant efficiencies - and perhaps best of all, consumers who are surprised and delighted by the newfound convenience they enjoy: tapping for that first Uber ride - or carrying an entire library of books and movies on a 1-pound tablet.

Certainly, in just about every case there are growing pains during transition - but the business owners who embrace technology and are patiently open to experimentation come out the other end with businesses on stronger, more solid footing. These businesses are set up to scale up and at the same time attract the next generation of customers who are increasingly accustomed to running their lives online from their mobile devices.

NEED VALIDATION?

Nothing validates the move to take volume photography online more than last year’s Shutterfly / Lifetouch acquisition. Shutterfly has direct, online relationships with parents, and Lifetouch has the photo capture infrastructure. A perfect match, really. Together, they are driving, at a large scale, efficiency and convenience into our industry creating a new “picture day” standard for parents. They’ve fused the chasm between digital and print photo products, and this presents a tremendous opportunity for our industry.

A WAY FORWARD

For the volume photographer that has a steady business based on physical order forms or hybrid methods, there is natural concern that “going online” could disrupt reliable income. That’s why having a smart, strategic approach is essential. Careful experimentation on a controlled scale is key, especially for established businesses. As with anything, it’s important to choose the right tools and then take the time to try different approaches for engaging with customers. The way forward depends on making it frictionless for parents so they know exactly when, where, and how to view and order their photos.

THE IMPACT

For photographers who are ready to embrace technology and experiment with taking their businesses online, the impact is great:

• Less time, less cost...less stress - One of the biggest benefits to online is the elimination of time-consuming (painful!) manual processes and backend paperwork that eat into the bottom line. This opens up the possibility to take on more, and potentially varied, jobs.
• Direct customer contact - Schools, leagues, and organizations no longer have to stand between the photographer and the customer. Photographers can communicate steadily with their customers before and after picture day...and beyond.
• Sales-driving incentives - Special offers and coupons are an essential and expected part of ecommerce. These incentives can be used strategically to encourage desired buying behaviors - like creating purchase urgency and increasing order values.
• Lifetime customers - Online relationships open up opportunities for sales beyond the one-time picture day, making seasonal gift sales as well as multi-year photo products possible.
• Better business intelligence - When running business online, every single order is packed with data that can easily be analyzed. This intelligence makes businesses smarter about everything - from which products to offer to what jobs are most profitable.
• Happier customers - At the end of the day, delighted customers is what every business owner strives for. The happier the customers the more guarantee of future business. By eliminating onerous steps, photographers can focus more on capturing and creating beautiful, breath-taking images and providing top-notch service to their customers.

All of these things, taken together, are already driving more sales and higher profits for the studios who are blazing the trail for our industry. These same studios embrace the paradigm shift that prioritizes profitability as the most important metric. By increasing profit margins, they are positioned to scale while zeroing in on the marketing levers that further increase participation and order values.

NOT TO FEAR

Sure, there are big, national players out there but that has never stopped the small and mid-sized business owner from carving out a niche in his or her own market. There’s no reason that it should now. A commoditized, mass-market approach to photography is never going to have the same appeal as the relationships that photographers cultivate with local families - and the quality of photography that can only be created with investment in skills and craft.

With the new year comes new opportunities to explore all of these facets of the future of our industry. We think there’s nothing to fear - in fact, we’re encouraged and excited to see how the most innovative photographers incorporate the latest tools into their businesses and lead us into places we haven’t yet imagined.

Photo credit: James Boatwright, SMAX Photography

MEET PAUL

Paul Duke Jr.’s  approach to photography and his dedication to simplifying the entire picture day process make him an open-minded industry trailblazer. As a full-time IT professional by day, Paul doesn’t have time for the old ways of volume photography. He’s part of a new generation of photographers who see technology as the only way forward.

THE SIDE-HUSTLE

Paul has always loved sports photography. He started years ago in action sports as a hobby turned side-hustle - with his sights set on getting into volume. Three years ago he started to make it happen. Today, his business, PdPhotography Sports, shoots gymnastics, football, volleyball, and softball throughout the York, PA area. Most photographers in his area shoot traditional style, but Paul wanted to do something different. So, he began doing manual extraction and compositing to create “Xtreme” memory mates. “Friends and friends of friends started seeing my work, and they wanted it for their own teams,” he shared. At that point, he introduced Pixnub into his workflow to streamline the process - and from then on everything changed. He started to see how he could really scale this business.

WHY HE CHOSE PHOTODAY

Paul is a part of the gig economy - supplementing his income with photography, his true passion. Because his day job is demanding he told me, “I don’t have the luxury of working on my photography jobs during the week. I need to make it fast and efficient.”He’s tried some other online methods but none of them did exactly what he wanted. Flash forward to June 2018, Paul went to Sync Sports just down the road in Manheim, PA where he first heard about PhotoDay. “I stood in the shadows of their booth just listening to Lisa talk to other photographers about PhotoDay - and I thought this sounds too good to be true. I had been trying for years to find software that does what PhotoDay does.”

ONE TOUGH CUSTOMER

Paul wanted to use PhotoDay for a local gymnastics team shoot. The stakes were high as it was his daughter’s team and his wife was the president of the booster club. “You would think I was a shoe-in but I wasn’t. I really had to sell my wife on the fact that I had a system that would make picture day completely simple. My wife was concerned that the parents weren’t that tech-savvy.” And, like so many married couple’s conversations, it came down to, “Trust me, it will work.”So, he met with the board and explained how PdPhotography Sports does picture day. This was a going to be a fundraiser - so to maximize participation he offered the organization a higher percentage for higher participation. He displayed his work and walked through the set-up and PhotoDay ordering process. He got the job!“My daughter is on the team. My wife is head of the booster club. I wanted to jump out of the gate and prove that PdPhotography Sports wasn’t selected because of these connections. With the PhotoDay system, I was able to take down all guards and just bring it.”Three weeks before picture day, Paul set up posters around the gymnastics school and made sure that the picture day information was in their weekly newsletter so that parents could begin opting in using their unique PhotoDay access code.

THE BIG DAY

“I knew going in that the parents were accustomed to sitting there for 3 to 4 hours waiting for their kids to have their individual and team photos taken. With my green screen method for team shots, we didn’t have to drag out risers, we didn’t have to line up 95 gymnasts. We didn’t have to make sure no one was blinking or making inappropriate gestures.”

“The kids checked in at a table where we collected $10, and parents texted in the access code. I had three stations set up, and was able to move the gymnasts through in record time. We took multiple poses and the kids were completely done within 15 minutes. The parents couldn’t believe it - we were getting so many kudos!”

THE RESULTS

“Picture day with PhotoDay is no comparison. Order participation was 100% and the AOV was higher than any I had seen before.”

PdPhotography Sports took home $950 in day-of cash deposits (this was before PhotoDay had AdvancePay).  Paul’s participation rates are typically around 60% with AOVs in the $20-range. There were a good number of orders that were over $100 - with the highest order at $166!

These higher order values were driven by parents purchasing the composited team pictures as well as multi-poses of the individuals with Paul’s signature “razzle-dazzle.”

*A couple of the orders contained siblings which is why the participation rate is 100%

THE KEYS TO SUCCESS

“Constant communication and variety,” Paul told me were the keys to success. The mentions in the newsletter and the posters around the studio helped educate parents and prepare them for this new kind of picture day. And, the different poses plus the team picture pushed up the order values.

“Our process makes everything so easy. It takes the load off the league. We get the roster, we create the schedule. The organization doesn’t have to worry about anything - no collecting forms, tracking down parents, or passing out photos. I’m signing on more jobs because I look to solve each organization’s biggest challenges. In the case of this gymnastics shoot, the parents wanted wow images and less waiting time - and we nailed it!”

Who couldn’t use a few more greenbacks in their stocking this holiday. This latest version (1.5) is all about speeding up the time it takes for you to earn more $$$. Sound too good to be true? See for yourself!

QUICK CHECK

Building an online store with FaceFind technology as well as customizable price sheets and products is no small feat! Our awesome development team has been working fast to release new features to you each week. At last, we’ve reached the point where we can bring all of these features together in a dramatically faster checkout flow for your customers. We eliminated 11 clicks from the order/checkout process!!!! CHECK - it - OUT:

Here's what's new about the checkout process:

       
• We’ve simplified the process of updating and cropping the photo by combining the two. For example, when you add a photo to a product that requires more than 1 photo, you select the photo then crop it all in the same process. No need to click on a separate crop option anymore.
       
• We now intuitively crop the photo based on your initial crop so when the customer selects and adds more than one product, we do our best to auto crop the photo to the product. This saves a lot of time specifically in large orders and in packages with multiple products.
       
• Customers now have the ability to preview what product, photo, theme, and text they’ve selected. They can now accurately see how the photo will look in the product(s) they’ve purchased along with any customizations they added.
       
• This all translates into a much more seamless experience that's designed to let customers quickly and accurately checkout.

FANCIER FLYERS

Flyers are the #1 way to promote picture day to parents. That’s why we’re always looking for ways to make them better for you. With this release, you get a new post picture day flyer template as well as lots more flexibility to customize your flyers the way you want them. You can even feature multiple offers on one flyer to help drive those sales!!!

MORE-PROFIT PROMOS

If you haven’t been hibernating for the last week, you probably know about our new PROMOS feature. PROMOS lets our studios get back in front of their customers with enticing seasonal promotions. It’s a whole new source of revenue - just in time for the holiday shopping season! See for yourself.

SHOW ME THE MONEY!

You know we're serious about showing you real-time business metrics, data, and results for your jobs. Keeping tabs on your business - and understanding what works and what doesn't - will make you even smarter about your business - and allow you to service your customers better. That's why we've recently added individual order numbers to your Stripe account. This will help you connect individual payments with orders.

Note: A small group of users will have to "relink" their Stripe account to see the order data- if you're one of those users, you'll get an email with more info. 

This was a big release and that was just the highlights! For a full list of everything that was part of Version 1.5, check out our version updates page.

I challenge you to find me an aunt or grandparent who doesn’t love getting photo gifts of the kids in their life. Do they even exist? Photo gifts are big business ($$$) and this holiday season, volume photographers don’t have to sit on the sidelines. PhotoDay gives you many ways to put your professional photos and gift products (back!) in front of your customers during this season of giving.

Be sure to read to the bottom of this post...because boy, do we have a SURPRISE GIFT just for you!!!

GIFTS FROM THE HEART

The only real limit to photo gifts is your imagination. High res digital downloads give customers the flexibility to take their photos to any novelty printing site to create anything they can imagine from blankets to t-shirts to aprons.

Our labs offer terrific gift-y items that you can put into a holiday price sheet filled with gift-giving favorites to make it super easy for your customers to shop and move on! You can re-promote those galleries with your new price sheet and special holiday offers. Any new sales is like extra gravy...yum! Here are some gift ideas:

• Tree ornaments make great decorations that are treasured year after year
• Mugs, water bottles, keychains, etc. make practical, personal gifts
• Posters of a team are a great stocking-stuffer for the young athlete
• Photo prints are always appreciated - especially when put into frames

You can also remind customers that PhotoDay lets them ship individual items direct to the gift recipient. A huge time saver!!!

PUT A BOW ON IT

You can design packages that assemble products together and build in savings. Here are a few package ideas to inspire you:

• Ornament Pack - Combine 5 ornaments together and offer a 10% discount off the individual a la carte price.
• Gift Basket Pack - Combine products together that make a great gift for one special person - a water bottle, key chain, and magnets. Again, offer a discount off the individual a la carte price.
• Digital Download Pack - If you’ve done a lot of multi-pose this season, you might want to consider combining 2 or more digital downloads together and provide a meaningful savings off the individual price.

MAKE IT SPECIAL

Seasonal offers are an excellent way to create irresistible excitement! Use recognizable coupon codes like BLACKFRIDAY or HOLIDAYS2018 or JINGLE10. Tie these codes to offers like:

• Free shipping on orders over $40
• Save 10% on orders over $60
• Save $15 on orders over $100

Of course for any of this to work you need to reach out to your customers with your holiday offers. You can always go back to the organizer with a new flyer they can share with parents. You can even promote on the organization's Facebook page, or reach out to past customers using the customer email list in your PhotoDay Studio Panel Insights page. But, we realize this isn’t always possible. So, we have a little surprise for you…

A SURPRISE GIFT JUST...FOR...YOU!

We are introducing a brand new feature called PROMOS - it's not live yet but it's coming soon. We’ll create and market your offers to your customers during a specific promotional season - and you can sit back, drink some spiked eggnog and literally watch the sales roll in. How it works:

1. Select a seasonal Promo.
2. Choose the jobs you'd like included in the Promo.
3. Create the offer you'd like to attach to the Promo.
4. We’ll send a specially crafted SMS text series to any of the customers who have opted into the jobs you selected.

We’re already working on a Black Friday / Cyber Monday Promo that you don’t want to miss. You pick the jobs. You create the offers. And, we’ll send out these texts:

‍Note - we’ve mocked in the job/offer info to give you an idea of how it could look.

‍Wednesday, November 21:

Friday, November 23:

Monday, November 26:

Stay tuned in the coming days for how you can get in on this awesome new feature just in time for the holidays!!!