John Goodine - Elm City Photo - Waterville, Maine USA - www.elmcityphoto.com

Please put on some disco music while reading this!

Hi Chris,

Sorry I haven't shared any of my ideas with you yet, but I was waiting until I had one that was worthy of being brought before the realm of the majestic leaders of the photo industry.

The idea for this promotion hit me like a mallet when I was at a restaurant looking at their bulletin board plastered with a host of photo business cards. I could see that about half of them needed their photo brought into this century . . but how to get them into my studio?

Enter Ricky DeFaux,

Ricky, the 70's Fashion Consultant, is the only person on the planet that can keep the same photo on his cards for all eternity.

Since our studio is usually quite slow this time of year, we send out the following direct mail piece in the form of a folded card.

We direct mailed the Ricky to car dealers, banks, real estate, insurance companies, health clinics, investment firms and the list goes on. Also, most everyone listed with the local Chamber of Commerce.

Initially we offer 5 free sittings per business, and then our usual charge for additional personnel. The subject gets a quick photo session, digital preview, and a CD of the images.

The response has been fantastic, and since it has a humorous approach it gives us a positive "shoe in" with each business.

The customers end up ordering hard copies of their photos and in turn we are marketing our other services while they are in our store. Many for the first time!

Images of Ricky grace the walls of our store and he will appear at all future trade show booths, impressing all the ladies to be sure.

I hold the copyright to the Ricky DeFaux name and image, but I am sharing the concept if someone wants to create their own 70's character.

I do offer the complete rights to Ricky DeFaux package for a small fee to those who don't want to dress up in that ugly blue tux.

If you need more info, contact me.

Best regards,

John

Don Lindale - Lindale's Fujifilm Image Service - Hamilton New Zealand

Hi Chris and Bill - a few years back, to celebrate our birthday, we had a month of madness. Every day for the month we had something over the top for customers to do to get some benefit -

• odd shoe day (half price replacement film);
• silly hat day (half price reprints);
• bare legs day (free enlargement with D7P);
• Sing for your supper (best song and dance act got their processing free);
• bad hair day - worst haircut - half price processing.

On this week's DIMAcast - #90 . . .

What makes a retailer successful in the Capital City of New Zealand can make a retailer successful anywhere in the world. It's having a common understanding between the boss and the team of what's expected. Chris Wilkinson of Photo Plus shares his thoughts and his "charter" with Bill McCurry and listeners of this week's upcoming DIMAcast.

These DIMAcasts can be heard through any computer audio system, through your MP3 player or transcripts can be downloaded. Transcripts have additional graphics or pictures as well as the text of the interviews. Just click on the link below to download.

The transcript

Sandy Seitz - Director, Marketing - PMA

Hi Bill and Chris - as you both well know, May is National Photo Month. PMA would like to remind retailers of the tools available to them to help promote National Photo Month and drive consumers to their stores.

Celebrate National Photo Month!

Increase revenue, build more business recognition, and help your customers capture and share special moments with promotional tools available to PMA members. Visit www.pmai.org/npm.