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McCurry Associates Marketing Idea Exchange ArchivesVolume 60 - September 25, 2003
To better serve you . . . how many times have you heard that and been disappointed? Hopefully our new servers will deliver perfect newsletters to you – we switched over last week and this is the first issue on the new system– any problems, please let us know. We did not publish last week due to the switch over. Thanks for your understanding. Idea #1 – PMA Fall conference If you didn’t attend you missed great opportunity. Many thanks to all who came to the book signing and sessions. Great to be able to put faces to email names and to share money making ideas in person. We owe a special thanks to
These stars of our industry presented great ideas for you to make money and also helped make the DIMA Marketing Idea Exchange very successful. We were told by attendees that this was "the best" – next one will be at DIMA on Wednesday, February 11 in Las Vegas – mark your calendar now! Idea #2 – What Do You Get Out Of Attending Industry Gatherings? We always question the best use of our time – and attending meetings is very time consuming especially if the meeting are a ways away. We asked Allen Showalter why he in the last few months he’s attended meetings of Group South, PMA Divisional Meeting, Town & Country Buying Group, Fall PMA and the Agfa Success Seminar. Allen is a frequent contributor of great ideas – and his roll count (not processing dollars – actual number of rolls!) is up double digit percentage this year, after being up double digits last year. A guy who has such a successful business. . . why does he attend so many meetings? Allen says he needs new ideas to improve his business – "You can’t stay still in today’s world – you either do new things in new ways or you shrivel and die." Allen attributes much of his success to his picture trade in program where he will make 5 free prints of any image done elsewhere that the customer is unhappy with. He will then ask if he can post the bad prints along with the King Photo redo for other customers to view. You can see his bulletin board at http://www.photoimagenews.com/images/kingphoto.jpg. Allen’s trade in program has been very successful – but at one of the meetings he attended Barbara Hueber of Metro Photo, Wichita Falls, TX asked him an obvious question. "Do you promote taking trade ins of home printed ink jet prints? "It was so obvious, yet without Barbara’s question I don’t know if I would have every stumbled upon it. That’s why I attend as many industry meetings as I can – we help each other improve our business." Allen reports. Idea #3 – Encouraging the digital camera owner to make prints. Two industry initiatives to stimulate digital printing were announced at the Fall PMA. PMA will soon release Digital Ad Maker II which will have templates you can print in your lab to encourage digital printing. You’ll be able to print door decals, danglers, window posters, counter cards and other point of purchase materials. The program is being finalized at this very minute – the likely tag line will be something on the order of "You Don’t Have The Picture If You Don’t Have The Print." Y you can view drafts of some of these materials at http://www.photoimagenews.com/images/admakerII.jpg or just click on this thumbnail:
The second announcement concerned the ongoing synergy between the industry’s two biggest buying groups, Independent Photo Imagers (IPI) and the Photographic Research Organization (PRO). IPI recently announced a Certified Digital Photo Processing (CDPP) program that will include marketing efforts to drive digital camera owners to specific affiliated locations to make high quality prints. The PRO group has officially endorsed the program for its members bringing the possible number of locations to approximately 800. Watch for this program to help independent retailers boost their digital printing. Information at www.ipiphoto.com. Idea #4 – Reducing credit card fraud, selling more film cameras, profiting with customer framing and marketing without money. . . sound interesting? These topics will be covered at the North Central Division PMA meeting in Red Wing, MN on October 10. If you’re a golfer plan to play in their tournament on Friday, October 9. Recharge your batteries and your business in time to maximize the important Fall Season – Call Vina Murphy for more info – See you there! Upcoming Imaging Industry Speaking Events with Bill McCurry – >>> Information/registration for Agfa seminars at www.AgfaSuccessSeminar.com
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