Fundy SOS - Album Design Software, Online Album Proofing, Work Flow Software, Photography Pricing Software » Business and Marketing

Are you confusing your clients?

"Fundy" — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 23:02:49 +0000

In this blog post I discuss how photographers and album companies tend to confuse clients by getting all fancy with leaves, spreads and pages… The more confused clients are, the deeper that credit card goes into the pocket, purse or clutch. How are album companies and photographers confusing clients? By trying to redefine the word PAGE. Challenge: Go to any 5th grader in any country where basic literacy is prevalent, hand them a book and ask them how many pages are in it. They’ll instantly go to the back, look for the last page number and tell you. Do the same with a magazine, same with a photo book, and the answer will be the same. Give them an album and ask them how many pages in it, and they’ll start counting them, just like in a book. ONE, turn the page, TWO, THREE, turn the page, etc. Want to discuss this more, head into the forum. Join the forum discussion on this post

Using the Vice Trigger

"Fundy" — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 20:51:05 +0000

Vice is the trigger that makes people buy that mocha frappachino with extra whip. It’s what makes people get a margarita with lunch. It’s what makes people spend the extra money on a Saks Fifth Avenue jacket over a Kohl’s. In this hecktic work environment, people are tired, people are overworked. When they do something, they want to treat themselves. We can see this in the emergence of “little” treats: better chocolates, better coffees, better mini massage places. As businesses, we need to give them a chance to treat themselves. As photographers, this can mean many things. This can mean more interesting, “on-location” business portraits, higher end portrait albums, metal gallery wraps, whatever your speciality is. So the tip this week, is give people a chance to placate their vice. For more information on the 7 Triggers that make people buy, visit our blog. Join the forum discussion on this post

Album Builder v3.6 On The Way

"Fundy" — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 12:12:09 +0000

We are working on a new v3.6 release of Album Builder. It is a super cool upgrade which will increase the speed of your album workflow significantly.

We’ve created an Automated Album File System.

Here is the start screen. You simply click “Start Album” and you make your choices and hit Start. As you can see, simply choose your cover size (in pixels, inches or mm), First/Last page and spread size. And that is it. Hit go and off you go.

Navigate your album

We’ve made it extremely easy to navigate the album you are currently designing or albums that you’ve already designed. There are 6 buttons dedicated to this.

Save and Previous – this button will save the current spread (as a PSD) and go to the previous spread.
Save and Next – this button will save the current spread and go to the next spread. If there isn’t a file already, it will auto-create a new one for you.
Save and Final – Will save the current spread and open the last page of the album, or create it if need be.
Save and Reset – This will save out your current spread and reset all navigation buttons so you can start a new album or open up an old one.
Go To Spread – simply type in the numbers and it will open that spread.
Add a New Spread – If you need to insert a spread between two currently designed spreads, just add one with a couple clicks.

We’ve tested it and there are significant savings. We’ve tested the system with our own album design and we’ve found significant time savings. They’ve been huge. We are looking forward to this next release and should have it to you in a couple of weeks at the latest. Fundy Join the forum discussion on this post

Don’t lose money – price your albums well

"Fundy" — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 21:49:04 +0000

Use the free calculator here. This week I got another call for help on Album Pricing. Here is a quick tutorial on how to price your albums. It is simply a matter of doing the math. On of the first things you need to figure out is how many pages you can design an hour. Let’s say it is 8 pages per hour. Then let’s say you want to make $40 an hour for your design time. $40/8=$5. So your cost per page for design is $5. Now we do a little math. These are examples. Cost of the album = $200 Base pages in album = 20 (it comes with 20 pages) Cost for extra spread = $6 Shipping =$15 Now these are our base costs. $200+($6×20)+$15= $335 The album cost, plus design time, plus shipping. Let’s say we add another 10 pages. The album company charges us $30 more and we add on another $60 for our design time. Now we are up to a total cost of $425. Then we just use our retail markup of 30% cost of goods. $425/0.30 = $1420 So, our base retail price for this album would be $1420 for an average photographer in an average studio. Feel you need to charge less? Then you are just not paying yourself for design time I don’t know about you, but working for free is no fun! If you want to automate this, we have a free pricing calculator sheet here.

Which Mini Van Sells Most? What does this mean to you?

"Fundy" — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 03:54:25 +0000

Take a look at the Honda Website. Take a good look at the Honda Odyssey options. They have four tiers. Guess which two of the four are the best sellers? Yep, the middle two. What does this mean to you as a small business owner?

Why we don’t trust Victoria’s Secret and why we don’t care.

"Fundy" — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 03:48:15 +0000

We can’t be everything to everyone. What does Victoria’s Secret sell? Sure, they sell lingerie, but what are they selling everyday? They are selling vice, selling power, selling excitement. Photographers can’t be everything to everyone. I spoke to a photographer recently, who was trying work all of the 7 Marketing Triggers into his marketing message. This can’t be done and shouldn’t be done. As a recap, here are the 7 Marketing Triggers according to the fantastic book “Fascinate”.

Lust
Mystique
Alarm
Prestige
Power
Vice
Trust

Victoria’s Secret has a great return policy, you can trust them. But do they advertise this? No, they advertise: lust, mystique and vice. We can’t market and sell everything we do. We have to focus on what makes us unique and sell that. What does Mercedes market? What does Target market? What do you market?

Trust Trigger – gaining it, keep it, capitalizing on it

"Fundy" — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 21:45:43 +0000

Trust, the trigger that makes me buy a Honda over a Kia. The trigger that makes me spend more on a Dyson versus an off brand. I need to trust that these products will do what they say and last me a while. As photographers, one of the key triggers we need to capitalize on is trust. Clients need to know what level of product and what sort of artistic vision they are going to receive. If we populate our websites with images of different styles, different looks, we are undermining trust. If we deliver lower quality prints than what we have on the wall, we are undermining trust. Sally Hogshead, in her book Fascinate, says that the four pillars of trust are:

Become familiar – through blogs and social media.
Repeat and Retell – retell your message anytime you get.
Be authentic – tell the truth
Accelerate trust – give reasons for clients to trust you.

To read more about the 7 Triggers that Fascinate our clients, go here.

7 Triggers – Prestige, why people want more and spend more

"Fundy" — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 21:43:01 +0000

In my continuing series on “Fascinate” by Sally Hogshead, a book about the 7 triggers that make people buy what you are selling, today we’ll look at “Prestige.” Prestige is the trigger that makes people want to splurge on themselves, it makes them want the best. It makes them buy a BMW over a Honda, Victoria Secrets over Macy’s, Godiva over Hershey’s, and your photography over what they can get at the mall. But in order to sell prestige, you need to set a new standard and earn it. And you need to communicate why you are better on every level. As an example, on this shoot we were able to use the same make up artist that Focht used on his recent Oregon Bride editorial. The high school senior just loved that, as did mom. How did the viewing go? It was well over our average. Create prestige, earn it and increase profits.

Tip of the Week – Holy Crap the Alarm Trigger

"Fundy" — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 18:54:34 +0000

As an ongoing series on the Sally Hogshead book “Fascinate” we are continuing with the third trigger “Alarm.” As many of you recall, Hogshead, is an expert in making consumers take action in advertising and marketing. We’ve already covered “Lust” and “Mystique”. Read more here. The Alarm trigger is what creates fear of something going wrong. As photographers, we want our potential clients to know that if they don’t hire us, a professional, the chances of their photos not turning out incredible goes to 100%. In order to tap into the alarm trigger we need to give them a deadline, define what can go wrong (a horrible wedding album, or even worst, lost shots due to a non-professional showing up with just one camera). The alarm trigger can come off very hard-sell if not used correctly, but I think it definitely has a place in our arsenal of tools. Check out her book.

Mystique – the mysterious factor

"Fundy" — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 17:16:57 +0000

This post is part of an ongoing series. To see all related posts, click here. If I really love a movie, I mean really love it, I don’t want to see the behind the scenes. I think it’s one of the worst things Hollywood has ever done – the behind the scenes DVD that comes when you buy a movie. Part of what makes a movie fantastic is the mystery. How did they do that? Who thought of that? Wasn’t that amazing? Camera’s are mysterious machines anyway. You point a little black box with a lens on it at someone, click a button and they appear. You do it right and something beautiful comes out of it. When you think about it, it’s mind-boggling. How do we capitalize on this mystique? How do we communicate this to our clients? First of all we have to create amazing imagery. And through this amazing imagery, the client needs to ask themselves “How did they do that?” Here Focht creates the questions. How did he get that light? How did he get that muted color? How did he get such an amazing shot in what looks like a broken down loft? In this family shoot, the client is asking “How did they get that color?”, “How did they create that timeless moment?” Here Focht used natural light and tungsten light to play with the background color. The cement in the background is grey. Just regular grey. Clients always wonder how we get it to turn a warm orange when we shoot. Here we have a beautiful blue wall background. when you see the wall in person it appears much lighter. But because the light fall off is so fast here, the person standing in front of it is exposed so much lighter that the wall goes darker and more saturated. All of these small factors attribute to your mystic. Whether it is how you shoot or how you process. It even covers the professional products that you use. “Where did you find that cool album?” the client asks. “Oh, we use only the best professional labs, album companies, etc. in the world.” I never say where, just that they are the best. The mystique lives. Fundy