Before proceeding, be sure you have read the first five blogs in this series, Emailing pdf invoices which will walk you through setting up PhotoOne to send emails and setting up an email account (if necessary) to receive replies, Part 1: Automatically remind customers of appointments! which will walk you through creating custom emails, testing the emails, the difference between active and inactive email templates, Part 2: Market via email with images! which will allow you to add images to your email templates and create great marketing emails, Part 3: What triggers an automatic email for appointments? And Part 4: Getting your emails out the door.
Want to reconnect with clients? Bring in more business from prospects? You can - using PhotoOne’s Marketing Section! It will allow you to locate anyone with an email address, particular business categories or types, or a plethora of other criteria.
Here’s a tip: if you are emailing the marketing piece directly from PhotoOne, you don’t need to worry if they have an email address or not, PhotoOne simply doesn’t send to those who don’t have an e-mail.
Start a monthly reactivation campaign to get clients back who haven’t been in for 2 years (or whatever time frame you like). It’s so easy to do!
Bear with me a few minutes while we describe the process and why this is a marketing opportunity you don’t want to pass up. It’s worth investing the time for the big returns!
Follow me into a customer file. Open the customer, click on the Profile tab. See the Last Order Date? That is the field we will be searching.
Now, for instance, if you want to find all customers from a certain category, like Families, who have not placed an order in 2 years, it will be easy to locate them. You could do this process each month. For instance, if it’s June 2010, then search for all families with a last order date from June 1, 2008 - June 30, 2008 (or whatever date range you’d like). Do this search process monthly and you will have a continual stream of new appointment opportunities.
Print out and follow the instructions below.
An example of a Marketing search to find clients who have not ordered lately
- Go to Marketing
- Choose Customers (yes if asked to Clear Existing Tags)
- Click Search button on bottom of screen (no if asked to Restore Search Criteria)
- Click Finish
- On the bottom left, click the button next to Category
- Choose Equal To on the left
- Click Change on the right and type in the Business Category that you want to sort, like FAM=Family. Click OK twice.
- On the right side of the screen, 4th box down is Last order date, click the button next to it.
- Choose Inside Range on the left
- On the right side, click change and input the dates you are searching for: Example 01/01/2004 - 12/31/2006, click OK twice
- Click Begin Search, Select.
When it’s finished you will now have everyone tagged that meets your criteria. If you haven’t done so, create your marketing piece which you can do directly in Marketing. Simply click on the Bulk Email button and then click Create New Template. Be CERTAIN to test the email before sending (I cannot stress that enough). Once you’re happy with the email, activate it, select it and click next, and then click Send bulk email. Remember from Part 4: Getting your emails out the door the p1mon must be running, if it’s not, the emails won’t leave the studio.
Tagged as:
marketing,
Sending emails
Before proceeding, be sure you have read the first four blogs in this series, Emailing pdf invoices which will walk you through setting up PhotoOne to send emails and setting up an email account (if necessary) to receive replies, Part 1: Automatically remind customers of appointments! which will walk you through creating custom emails, testing the emails, the difference between active and inactive email templates, Part 2: Market via email with images! which will allow you to add images to your email templates, and Part 3: What triggers an automatic email for appointments?
The first thing you need to do is go to Utilities / Maintenance Area / Manage Data Logs / Purge Logs. You’ll want to be sure to eliminate everything in the log file so use a very broad date range; we suggest 01-01-2000 through today. Click “Start” and then click “No” when asked if you want to query. Think of the Log file as your PhotoOne Outbox and purging will clear out any old unsent emails. Now we need to setup the mechanism that sends the emails.
Then, you will want to go to Setup / Business Settings / Orders. If you look about ¾ of the way down this screen, you’ll see a box that is looking for a number, ‘How many days prior to today should the PhotoOne monitor look when scanning for orders that require automated email notifications, such as “your order is ready” the recommended setting is 2 (we will be covering this in another blog about automated order reminders.)
Next you’ll need to go to Utilities / Maintenance Area / PhotoOne Monitor and in the upper left corner put a check mark in Email and a check mark in Appointment Email Reminders. Now, click on the button Setup and in the lower left corner of the new window make sure there is a 1 in the box labeled “Run the monitors this often”. (Setting it to 1 will allow you to quickly test that emails are being sent, you can go back later and increase it up to 120.) You’ll need to close the monitor to save the changes you just made.
Now, minimize PhotoOne and on the desktop Right click on your PhotoOne Icon and go to Properties. Click on the “Find target” button or “Open file location” which will open the PhotoOne folder. Locate a file called p1mon.exe, right click on it and select Send to / Desktop create shortcut. Close the Windows Explorer window and the PhotoOne properties.
On the desktop locate the Shortcut to p1mon, right click on it and select Cut. Go to start and then Programs or all programs, right click on Startup / Open, and in the folder right click and paste. This will now launch p1mon every time the computer is restarted as the monitor must be running at all times for emails to be sent. When you reboot, you need to be SURE to minimize the monitor (don’t close it).
Back in PhotoOne, go to Utilities / Maintenance Area / PhotoOne Monitor and then simply minimize it. Now you’ll want to book an appointment for yourself using an appointment type you have setup with a Thanks for booking, or if you have 1, 2, 7 day reminders, book an appointment in the future for the number of days it would take to kick off the reminder. In one minute you can go check your email address and confirm you received the email.
Tagged as:
marketing,
Sending emails
Before proceeding, be sure you have read the first three blogs in this series, Emailing pdf invoices which will walk you through setting up PhotoOne to send emails and setting up an email account (if necessary) to receive replies, and Part 1: Automatically remind customers of appointments! which will walk you through creating custom text emails, testing the emails, the difference between active and inactive email templates, and Part 2: Market via email with images! which will allow you to add images to your email templates.
I’m sure you noticed in Part 2: Adding Images to emails that when you create a new email, it asked you what type of email you’re creating and perhaps you didn’t quite know what to select.
You may have noticed that most of the types are in black text, any email type in black means you can only have ONE email with that type.
For example, you can only create ONE -1, 2, 7, 14 or 30 day appointment reminder. If you plan on using the email you are creating for more than one appointment type, don’t be too specific. You would not want to mention senior photography in the email if you will also be using it for family portrait sessions.
Here are the most commonly used types and when they are sent out:
Appointment, thank you for booking- An appointment is added to the calendar, period. Since this text is in black, that means you can only have ONE of these, but more likely you won’t want to activate a template with this type since you would typically want to send out specialized instructions (what to wear, hair tips, etc.) you can create a special email template using the only email type that is in red: Use this for bulk email marketing, special notification, and other emails that don’t fall in the other categories on this screen.
You would select the red email type, then in the Document Name and Subject line you call this template “Thanks for booking your Senior Appointment” or “Thanks for booking your Family Appointment”. The point being, you want to be able to determine WHICH appointment type this template is going to be used on. Now you can type the body of the email and be as specific as you want for that type of appointment.
Appointment reminders (1 day, 2 days, 7 days, 14 days, and 30 days)- Sends an email reminder x days before the appointment. Since you can only have one of these types of emails, you want to be generic in what you have in the body of the email.
After you have tested each email you created or updated and they look good in your in-box (the in-box email address setup in Part 1 of this series), you will now want to go back to the Email Editor and activate the email. You will simply highlight the email and click the activate button at the bottom of the window. Now we need to tell PhotoOne which appointment types will be getting reminders and thanks for booking.
Go to Setup / Appointment Types, and edit an appointment type that you’d like to receive either a Thanks for Booking or Reminders emails and go to the Email Reminders / Thank you tab. Put check marks in any of the reminder boxes, and if you created a custom Thanks for booking for this appointment type, click the down arrow and select the template you created using the red email template type. (Note: 3 day reminder, found under Email Reminders/ Thank You tab, is a typo and should read 7 day)
Our next blog will cover the steps you need to do to get the emails out of the studio and to your clients.
Tagged as:
marketing,
Sending emails
This has been an eventful week here at PhotoOne. We are very excited to announce that PhotoOne Software is now a part of StudioPlus Software. Together, our two companies share over 30 years of experience building software applications for the professional photographic industry. Now, we’re going to use that combined expertise to build exciting new solutions just for you.
Don’t worry, if you’re a current PhotoOne user, your software will continue to be supported. We’re all still here ready and willing to help you with any needs you may have. In addition, we look forward to combining the expertise of both our companies to deliver new product innovations in the near future. We’re committed to developing the very best solutions for business management, digital workflow, and online solutions to help all clients build a very successful and profitable business.
Make sure you check our FAQ page regarding the acquisition, and keep checking our blog for future updates down the road! Exciting times!
Did you know you can add images to your emails in PhotoOne, whether they are going to be automatically sent or marketing emails? If you have a fall special, add an image of the leaves changing colors; an Easter special with ducks and bunnies, add images to drive home your message; for wedding clients if you send an automatic Thanks for booking, include an image of a wedding dress and tux.
Before proceeding, be sure you have read the first two blogs in this series, Emailing pdf invoices which will walk you through setting up PhotoOne to send emails and setting up an email account (if necessary) to receive replies, and Part 1: Automatically remind customers of appointments! which will walk you through creating custom text emails, testing the emails, and the difference between active and inactive email templates.
To include an image in an email, the client must be able to access the image; if it’s on your c:\ drive, they won’t see it. The solution: put it on the web. It can, but doesn’t have to, be accessible on your website; you or your webmaster can create a folder behind the scenes called P1Images (or whatever rock’s your boat). You can also use free image posting sites like Photobucket, Facebook, Imgur, or TinyPic. Ideally an image in an email should be a jpg or gif, the size should be 72dpi and width no bigger than 640 pixels.
Once you have the image uploaded you’ll need to copy the address (usually appearing something like this www.website.com/images/name.jpg) of where the image is located; this is often called a direct link. You can get the direct link either by actually viewing the image, so you can get the address located in the address bar of your browser, or you may have to right click on the image and select Copy image location, some sites will provide a link for you to copy.
After copying the image address go to the PhotoOne email editor and edit the email template you’re working on. Place your cursor in the body where you want the image to show, and click on the picture of a mountain in the upper right corner, to the left of the Merge Tokens button. Then paste the image address in the Picture Source box and click Ok. You’ll now see the image in your email.
Anytime you create a new email template be SURE to test it, you want to be positive that what your customer gets is a beautiful email.
Our next blog will cover automatic email trigger events.
Tagged as:
marketing,
Sending emails
Did you know that PhotoOne can easily send out automatic emails to remind clients of upcoming appointments, thanking them when they place an order, or even letting them know when their order is ready? It can, and so much more!
I’m going to take you slowly through setting up PhotoOne to automatically send out custom emails to your clients, so there will be several blog posts covering this topic, you won’t be ready to auto send emails until I’ve finished the blog series
You will want to read the first blog covering how to send out pdf invoices to your clients. This will give you the info you need to set up PhotoOne to recognize and use your email address as well as provide you information on how to receive the replies to emails you have sent out.
After setting up PhotoOne to send emails you will then need to make sure none of your templates are activated before telling PhotoOne to send. To check which emails are activated go to Setup / Email Editor. If you are on the most current version of PhotoOne, and you’ve never emailed before, you will most likely be greeted with an empty email template list as the default is to only show active templates. Uncheck the “Active” box on the left side panel at the top, you should now see all email templates. You will want to mark any emails that are active (green) as inactive (red) until you have a chance to look at them after they hit your inbox. To do this double click the active email and in the upper right hand corner uncheck the box that says active and then save.
(If you don’t have any templates (long-term PhotoOne users may not), email support and we’ll get you the templates.)
Once the active emails have been switched to inactive you will want to view your inactive emails and make the necessary changes to fit your studio. To view the inactive emails uncheck the “Active” checkbox to the right of the email group drop down menu on the default email template screen. This will display all of the emails with the inactive emails as red and the active as green.
Once you are able to view the email templates, edit one that you’re interested in sending out by double clicking the name. When you edit one of the emails provided by PhotoOne you will notice that they begin with “@cust:first_name@”. This is called a token, and will allow you to personalize your emails to your customer by pulling in the specified field, in this case the first name. You can find many more tokens to help you personalize your emails by using the handy Merge Token button in the upper right hand corner.
After you have customized your template, save it and then send it to yourself by clicking the Test button. It will go to the email address you setup earlier to receive replies when you send out pdf invoices.
If you’re using Windows Vista or Windows 7 the email editor my act up (either by incorrectly displaying the email or preventing you from editing an email. Following this link and installing it will fix the problems.
Tagged as:
marketing,
Sending emails
Does your studio want to go green? If so, PhotoOne can help you! Rather than printing a hard copy of your invoice to hand to your client, why not send them a pdf invoice through PhotoOne.
There are a couple of things you need to do to “prep” the PhotoOne system so it can send out timely and accurate emails. Since all the internet providers have different rules about what can be sent through them, and they look for particular header records on the email (something people don’t see but computers do), we give you a free for lifetime email address on one of our dedicated hosted servers that we guarantee will work. And if there is any blacklisting, we take care of it for you. You can try to use your existing email account through your internet provider, but if it doesn’t work, you’ll need to use the email we give you. No worries though, you can setup Outlook or Gmail to receive replies to your PhotoOne email address. To setup Outlook click on this link, or for Gmail, click here.
You’re going to need your email account username, password, and SMTP mail server name (typically it’s “mail.domainname.com”) for this next step. If you are going to use your PhotoOne email address, send us an email and we’ll provide you with your email account, username and password. To add your email information to PhotoOne, go the Setup / Studio Address Change and enter your email address in the last box on this screen and save.
Now, go to Setup / System Settings / Internet. In the 1st box (assuming your using your PhotoOne email address) type in mail.officialprioritymail.com, leave the port number at 25, put a check in the box that talks about the Outbound server requiring login before sending, the Email server login name type in YourEmailAddress@officialprioritymail.com, and in the Email server login password, type in your password and then save.
Now let’s test your settings. Go to any client with an order and edit the order. On the right side of the screen click the Invoice Menu button and select “Email a pdf invoice”. The invoice will preview, make sure it’s accurate, close it and the Send Email screen will open up with invoice attached. Type in the body and click send. If you get an error that means your internet provider won’t allow it (so contact us for your PhotoOne email address) or that you have typed something in wrong.
Tagged as:
marketing,
Sending emails
I was reading Mark Lutz’s post on the Digital Wedding Forum blog “Got a WestHost Site?” and it struck a cord. Mark’s post is all about BACKUP.
I know it’s really boring — until some nasty event comes along and takes down your hard drive or server. In Mark’s post, he notes that WestHost unfortunately encountered problems as the result of a fire extinguishing system.
PhotoOne offers its DataSafe product which automatically backs up PhotoOne and remotely stores your data. Additionally, technical support is available if you need assistance restoring your data. At PhotoOne, we have restored databases after power surges, lightening strikes, water damage, networking issues and human error. This piece of mind is priced at just 45 cents a day — a very cheap option.
PhotoOne sent out an email to our clients last week about the very same issue and asked our photographers that are not on the current version of PhotoOne to upgrade. An upgrade to the current version of studio management software will provide you with the best service possible, assuming you are currently using DataSafe from PhotoOne.
The bottom line is that your backup needs to occur every day (from whatever source) and needs to be an important part of your daily workflow. It’s important to note: PhotoOne will not be able to restore data that hasn’t been saved.
Tagged as:
DataSafe,
P1 Actions,
Photography Business,
Studio Management Software,
Workflow
PhotoOne has two ways to add a holiday into its studio management software and it’s important for the photographer to know the difference.
First: For all of the holidays that fall on the same Month/Date (i.e., Christmas, New Years) they can be part of the initial setup and will appear on your calendar thereafter. You can do this by going to Setup > Calendar and click the Holiday setup button. Now click the Add button — type in the Month and Date of the holiday, Name the holiday and any Description, if important.
Second: For all the other holidays, and even special dates like birthdays, you can add them directly to your Monthly Book. Right click on the holiday or special date and select Open this day’s profile. Put a check mark in the Holiday day type and then name the Holiday. You can also change the calendar day’s profile by specifying start and end times for your individual calendar or all of your calendars.
If you have a special event planned for your studio (e.g., an image of you with All the President’s Men) you can mark that day as Special day type and save. When you review the Monthly Book the special event will be on your calendar.
Since it is Presidents’ Day: Do you know which state has produced the most presidents? the second most?
Tagged as:
Adding Tips,
Holidays,
P1 Actions,
Photography,
Photography Business
Do you need a website? YES. Do you need a blog? A NICE HAVE. Are you on Facebook? SHOULD BE. Do I need a Newsletter? ASK YOURSELF THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS:
1. Who is your audience and how do they want their information delivered?
2. Can I measure success (or failure)? Can I get a sense of effectiveness?
3. Who “owns” the newsletter at the studio? If I’m not doing it, can I delegate and trust that quality and consistency will be a given?
On the one hand, we are all well aware of social media and its application to business. That is a recent phenomenon. On the other hand, newsletters have been around for 25 years and still provide an effective format for marketing.
When it comes down to it, I think it is important to know what marketing tool(s) is going to work best for you and your studio’s personality. If you like to put together content and can work on a monthly or quarterly schedule — a newsletter may be a good format for you and your clients. If not, possibly a blog, but more likely Facebook makes the most sense.
Tagged as:
marketing,
Photography,
Photography Business
