The SmugMug Blog

The Realist: Making It Fun, Keeping It Real

Name: Monica Toohey-Krause
Position/Title: Owner
Name of Company: Studio KYK Photography
Location: Newcastle, California
Market: Portrait/Lifestyle
Bragworthy Factoid: Used coupons for a special-occasion sale that generated $600 in past-shoot sales on a single day
Website: http://www.studiokyk.com
SmugMugger since: 2006

Career Highlights…

• Transitioning from amateur school documentarian to owner of a brick-and-mortar business averaging 2-5 shoots/week
• Successfully using Facebook for 99% of her marketing

Fave Features…

• Publish to Facebook
• Marketing tools
• Coupons
• Customization
• Print Fulfillment

Getting real

Studio KYK Photography is a thriving photography business just outside of Newcastle, California. Born out of a passion for photography that was reignited when Monica was asked to be school photographer for her daughter’s preschool, the studio has grown from a home-based business doing 10 or 15 shoots a year, to a brick and mortar studio, doing about three shoots per week. Monica’s specialty is capturing real moments with real people. “I love taking photos and don’t really care much what the subject is, as long as I am capturing a real moment,” she says. “In a month I may shoot anything from weddings to births, babies to seniors, headshots to everyday fun playing in the rain. My clients are real people who want natural, fun photos.“

Soup-to-nuts with SmugMug

Monica’s clients were looking for studio-quality prints of her beautiful photography, and it was during the search for a professional print lab that Monica found SmugMug. She was thrilled to learn that not only could SmugMug serve her print fulfillment needs through Bay Photo, but that it could be her complete website solution. SmugMug provided Studio KYK with a fully customizable and brandable website, an image archiving service, a shopping cart and centralized print fulfillment. SmugMug’s shopping cart handles all of the aspects of print order fulfillment, from payment collection to customer satisfaction.

Making it hers

Monica used SmugMug to help establish and grow her brand. She maximized SmugMug’s customizability, first working with a designer to develop her logo, later designing her SmugMug website to best represent her brand, whimsical attitude and individual style. Her SmugMug hub showcases her gorgeous photography and shows how much fun it will be to work with her. “I’m so proud of my site and having a place to call home,” she says. “I wouldn’t be where I am without you; I’d be scattered all over the place and wouldn’t be able to do what I do.”

Marketing maven

Monica markets her business through word of mouth and social media; she was an early Facebook adopter. She uses SmugMug’s new Facebook album tool, which allows photographers to publish a selection of SmugMug gallery photos as a Facebook album. Those photos lead back to her SmugMug gallery and shopping cart, but behave like a Facebook album, complete with photo-tagging. Monica also uses SmugMug coupons, in conjunction with Facebook marketing, to hold studio specials, and to encourage clients to buy their prints. She holds spontaneous Open Studio Days, when a $25 deposit earns a $25 print credit to purchase prints from the session. She has held special occasion sales (e.g., Super Bowl) via a coupon for 30% off orders placed on that day.

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