Welcome to Issue 89 of the McCurry Marketing Idea Exchange.

Please send us your marketing idea as well as comments on those ideas posted by hitting your reply button or emailing to editor@mccurryassoc.com. You may offer free subscriptions to your colleagues by telling them to send an email to editor@mccurryassoc.com - Ask them to include their name, store name and city in the body of the email - privacy is protected, see below.

Please Enjoy, Consider and Profit from these ideas.

All the Best,
Bill 

 In the weeks to come:

What you’re putting into the customer’s bag (in addition to their photos)

How will you sell more greeting cards and calendars this year?

“Our No List – Make it Yes!” Whether you use the McCurry notepad or one of your one, this is a super way to let your customers tell you what products and services you should be offering. Tell us your best! 

This Week – Feedback from the PMA/IPI Fall Conference in Chicago (Part 2)

 Idea #1 - What’s all the buzz about Chicago?

 (Our own observations from the conferences)

 PMA’s Fall conference, with congruent meetings of Independent Photo Imagers, was one of the most exciting get-togethers ever in our industry. While plenty of topics were covered in depth, the ones that seemed extraordinarily important to our readers were these (no particular order.) 

• Pictures Matter with www.picturesmatter.com is the first independent project that could really drive digital camera owners to print@retail.
• Camera-phones are the coming wave, and we have to ride the wave or learn to hold our breath.
• More photos will move into your minilab by way of kiosks than ever before. It’s the modern equivalent of the service counter and maybe even the service counter person.
• While our industry makes modest attempts to design a customer-friendly – and particularly, female customer-friendly environment – the electronic superstores are committing huge amounts to the same goal. We can learn from them.
• Customer service is more important than ever, and the number 1 way to differentiate your store from the big boxes.

Idea #2 – What can we learn from the great retailers of other products?
 

Phil Gresham, Fotofast Digiphoto, 91 Queen Street, Brisbane Queensland 4000, Australia, www.fotofast.com.au

Unfortunately while I enjoyed networking with my fellow bus travelers I got very little out of the two tours that I could put back into by business. Helix was an unknown to me but I imagine they have a huge mail order business, their stock holdings were impressive. I would love to be let loose on the shop fit out, what I could do with all that space in terms of traffic flow and merchandising! American Girl had me thinking I was back in Vegas, glitz but quality glitz. Where were they when I was buying dolls on overseas trips for my only daughter? (Unfortunately at 16 now too late)

I also observed mediocre customer service, no matter how good your product and delivery is, poor staff will negate this. No wonder that the rest of the world has some problems with American Culture when you see $18 high teas (is your doll free?) and $20 hair styles for dolls!

Idea #3 – My “Hot Button Highlights” from Chicago

Wayne Welch, Oregon Photo, 19299 SW Martinazzi, Tualatin OR 97062 www.oregonphoto.com

Well, I certainly gave my pencil and notepad a workout at during the IPI/PMA conference. Here's my "hot button" highlights:

Wednesday - E-mail Harold Lloyd to get his "Ten Steps for a positive employee evaluation” (sorry, I can't find his address - any help here would be appreciated.) Harold’s address is hlloyd@aol.com  …ed

Thursday - Chris Wunder presented 4 digital unit packages that give us a real edge in the studio and lab. Additionally, he presented over 20 ideas on markets that we could/should exploit. Contact: schoolphotos@aol.com  The packages Wayne refers to are 8”x10” event photo packages that somehow sneak an extra print or two into each unit. A great way for independents to differentiate their services from those of the giants in the industry …ed

Picturesmatter.com. Wow, what a fantastic program. This should give us lots opportunities to differentiate ourselves from big box outlets. See Rob Klaben’s note below …ed

Friday - Introduction of Adobe .dng format (free download from Adobe for use with PhotoShop CS) will give IPI labs the ability to take in 16 bit RAW files or files which have been converted to .dng by the photographer. Also, John gave his top three camera picks out of Photokina under $2500: Canon 10D, 20D and the Fuji S3. Contact: jonmeyer@grafixgear.com

Saturday - Selling Digital Cameras to Women. Women shoppers want personal service, knowledgeable sales staff, comfortable environment, smaller locations and more women on staff. Here’s a surprise – men want the same things too!

Survive and Thrive in 2005. Very much a "tough love" session. Here's a couple of quotes; "The success of the business you own, manage or work in is in direct proportion to the planning and difficult decisions the CEO makes.", "Your success, or lack of it has been a choice - how else can you explain the success of market leaders?" Ouch, that one really hurt…

Idea #4 – What is this “picturesmatter.com” that everyone’s talking about?
 

Robert Klaben, President/CEO, Click Camera Digital Print Centers, 4115 N. Main St.
Dayton, OH 45405 Phone: 937-277-3071 x228, www.clickcamera.com  

The Certified Digital Photo Processing organization’s official launch of picturesmatter.com took place at Fall PMA in Chicago on Thursday, October 21, 2004 to an enthusiastic crowd of retailers, photo manufacturers, industry trade reporters, PMA staff and special guests.

The Pictures Matter PR campaign is designed to promote the importance of printing digital camera images.  Noted child psychologist Dr. Kenneth Condrell, shared his concerns about the lack of prints being made today. Dr. Condrell shared his belief that children need to see hard copy prints in order to grow up sane and healthy.

The www.picturesmatter.com website is being promoted during Dr. Condrell’s media tour and has already appeared on numerous TV stations and in print articles. Consumers who go to the website get picture taking tips and can locate a certified photo lab that they can entrust their once-in-a-lifetime memories. Consumers can click on the selected retailers’ website for information or to upload digital prints, if available on the retailers’ website.

Consumers will also be able to print discount coupons for digital prints on the site. Retailers that accept the coupons will be reimbursed by CDPP for the value of the coupon amount. CDPP retailers are encouraged to link their websites to the www.picturesmatter.com website. This will expose your customers to the importance of making and sharing digital prints.

A satellite media tour is scheduled for Dr. Condrell later this month. His message will reach 12-15 markets just before the important holiday season. TV stations that pick up the interview with Dr. Condrell are permitted to use some support television footage created by CDPP showing families looking at prints, a dog destroying precious memories on a photo CD, a camera cell phone falling in a toilet, a thief stealing a digital camera that has valuable memories inside it, and wedding memories being lost forever due to a hard drive crash.

Photo retailers interested in becoming a CDPP member can get details at www.cdpp.org.

 Item #6 – Show them you appreciate them, coming and going

 Randy Wright, Color Services Custom Photo & Imaging Lab, Santa Barbara CA, www.colorservices.com

 One of Harold Lloyd's ideas was to paint "Welcome" and "Thank You" on his driveway. As it happens, our parking lot was just resurfaced and restriped, so I took advantage of the idea. His painter charged him $200 for the stencil. The guy who did ours used individual letter stencils and only wanted $20 to do 2 driveways.

(See a photo at http://www.photoimagenews.com/images/randysdriveway.jpg )

Next Week – even more from Chicago, keep those cards and letters coming in!

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