It’s the perfect time to join NextProof, boost your holiday sales, and win some prizes. We offer low fees, 30 days free on all accounts, and even a free account. You’ve got nothing to lose.
This is our first holiday season here at NextProof. For many professional photographers, this is a busy time for holiday portraits, print and album sales, and proofing those final weddings of the season.
To help you out, we’ve put together some of the best holiday sales tips and instructions on how to implement them in your galleries. We’ve arranged a few prizes for the NextProof photographers who make the most sales this holiday season.
To reward your efforts, we’re going to give away some prizes to the photographers who make the most sales between now and Christmas. Among the prizes is a $1,000 gift card to B&H Photo Video.
The best part is, everyone automatically qualifies–even free accounts. To learn more, read the details on our contest and prizes.
If you’re don’t have a NextProof account, now is the perfect time to sign-up. Create an account and get started.
1. Re-open galleries
If you have galleries from early in the year (or even last year), consider re-opening them for a limited time.
NextProof makes it easy to re-open a gallery. Simply change the closing date and your event is available again.
2. Email guests about galleries you re-opened
If you re-open a gallery, make sure to notify all the registered users. NextProof’s email feature allows you to quickly email all the registered visitors for a specific gallery.
If you don’t have registered visitors for your gallery, email your bride and groom. They’ll spread the word for you.
3. Holiday promotion codes
Create a promotion code specifically for the holidays. Consider somewhere between 10 and 20% and make sure to include the code when you email registered visitors. Studies have shown that people actually spend more when they receive an email coupon.
Creating a coupon code in NextProof couldn’t be simpler.
4. Offer two-for-one prints
In the same vein as promotion codes, two-for-one print offers can also boost sales. In NextProof, you can temporarily change the name of a product–i.e. change 8×10 Print to (2) 8×10 Prints (holiday special)–and it will automatically be reflected in all galleries with that product.
5. Offer free shipping
Consider offering free shipping on all orders over a certain amount. Customers will take advantage. NextProof lets you quickly create, edit, or delete shipping rates.
6. Sell holiday gift albums and books
You can use NextProof’s more products area to sell holiday gift albums and books. Many album and book companies have ordering deadlines, so make sure to note those in your descriptions.
7. Use the favorites area to sell DVDs or digital frames
We think this one is big. Even if album deadlines have passed, you can use the More Products area to sell things like DVD slideshows, proof sets (printed or digital), or digital picture frames.
Even better, you can customize these products by using NextProof’s favorites feature. In the product title and description, simply let customers know that their favorite images will be used in the book, DVD, or digital frame they order. Any time you receive an order, that customer’s favorite images are immediately visible–allowing you to customize the product accordingly.
8. Conduct holiday portrait sessions and pre-create the gallery
It’s a great time to conduct holiday portrait sessions. With NextProof, you can create the gallery before the session. This allows you to give your customers the gallery URL right away and collect their email addresses. As soon as you have the gallery online, send them an email and make sure to notify them of your promotions.
9. Blog about your promotions
Once you decide on your holiday promotions, make sure to blog about it. If you use WordPress, you can always install the free WordPress plugin for NextProof. It automaticallly adds links to your NextProof events in your blog’s sidebar.
10. Let people know about upcoming price changes
Even if you don’t offer discounts for the holidays, you may be planning on raising your print prices for 2009. If so, let customers know when prices will increase and that now is a great time to order.
11. Sell framed, fine-art prints for the holidays
Not all wedding guests will buy prints from the event. But fine-art prints make great gifts for anyone. Consider creating a gallery of your favorite personal/experimental/fine-art images and sell them as framed, fine-art prints for a limited time.
In NextProof, you can add a link to the fine-art gallery in your account’s extra information field. The link will then be displayed in the sidebar of all your other galleries.
12. Share ideas with other photographers
Like we said, it’s our first holiday season here at NextProof. You can get even more tips and ideas from other experienced photographers. We just started a Facebook group for NextProof users and we’re also big fans of the Digital Wedding Forum. Join one or both and we guarantee you’ll learn a lot.
