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Print ArticleTrack where your orders are coming from. When The Chicago Tribune did a story about www.30minphotos.com, the orders from that region of the country spiked within hours of its release. Search engine advertising, pay-per-click directories like Google’s AdWords and even traditional channels help promote the service and let you target from where the orders initiated.
Identify New Niches
One way to further differentiate your products is to identify
special niches. How about equestrian owners, golf club members and
high school swim teams? Our slogan "Your Photo Privacy Our
Specialty" helps build customer loyalty from major celebrity
clients to political leaders concerned about preserving the
integrity of their private lives. Ads in The Hollywood Reporter and
Daily Variety proclaiming: "Any size picture can ruin your
career—even a tiny photo snapshot" helped cement a growing
specialty customer base.
Defense, law enforcement and automotive manufacturers’
marketing departments are also concerned about protecting the
privacy of their photos. We make sure that not only are all credit
card transactions and all data transmissions secured, but also that
customer photos remain private, too.
Your online service should provide several business channels to
help grow your business. These include: publishing special event
and photographers’ pictures online for customers to easily
view and place reprint orders; using copyrighted watermarks added
to each image to help deter unauthorized reproduction;
merchandising complementary products so customers can order items
like photo key chains, coffee mugs and photos on shirts; allowing
customers to order photos online directly from camera phones; and
letting retailers host branded photo pages for affiliate programs
so customers can store their images in a photo gallery for sharing
and ordering. This is ideal for events where the guests can submit
their images for the entire group to view and order. This helps
create a "buzz" and more traffic to your site.
The last decade brought significant changes, but now every day
brings a new opportunity to gain market share and strengthen your
business. Make sure you are participating.
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Mitch Goldstone, president and CEO of 30 Minute Photos Etc., also co-owns www.30minphotos.com. Goldstone is a city commissioner in Irvine, CA, and champions his dedication to promote the imaging industry.
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