The SmugMug Blog

Want to sell more? Who doesn’t! Uploading your photos is a great first step, but there’s way more to business than that.

Today we’ll be sharing a few very simple ways to hook clients and get them buying prints, gifts, downloads and more. Best of all, these features are already built in to every SmugMug Pro account.

1. Custom domain.

You don’t need your own domain to share and sell, but it sure makes you look like a million bucks. But that price is deceiving: Most custom domains cost under $20 per year, which is way less than you make in an hour of shooting. And if that isn’t enough, you can usually get a custom email address wrapped up into the deal. A unified brand says you’re cool, polished and professional.

Get it now: Snag your own URL on SmugMugDomains.com and get set up in 15 minutes. Questions? Talk to our heroes!

2. Keywords.

If a photographer builds a website and there’s no keywords around, does it get found? We’re sure you’ll be sharing your shiny new website on Facebook and forums, but go the extra mile to make sure search engines know you’re there, too. Adding photo-, gallery- and site-wide keywords will boost your Search Engine Optimization and help put you in touch with Google-savvy clients.

Get it now: Start tweaking your keywords using your gallery Tools menu. And check out our full list of SEO tips for maximum marketability.

3. MOO Cards.

Put your name on the map with beautiful custom business cards by MOO.com. These guys love to print and it shows in their approach to getting you fun and friendly cards that are durable enough to hold up to your business. You can print a different image on each one and use them to share pre-gallery URLs or coupon codes at your event. And they even come in two handy sizes: Regular or attention-getting MiniCards.

Get it now: Find great deals on MOO on our ClubSmug page and get your beautiful pocket portfolio ready to go. Get started in your gallery’s Buy button, under “Business Cards.”

4. Print Samples.

Set the hook the first time you sit down with your client. Ordering your favorite images printed across different papers and formats doesn’t just get you up close and personal with our pro labs – it gets your customers excited about printing their own memories on something they can touch, feel and hang on the wall.

Get it now: Check out our catalog and go nuts. It’s worth it. And if you’re not happy with them, tell us! We stand by our guarantee.

5. Thank You Print.

Your customer’s experience doesn’t end after clicking “Buy.” Stay in touch and keep them thinking of you by adding a 4×6 Thank You Print in the delivery box. You can customize it with any image or message you wish (like a coupon code towards their next purchase, *hint hint*) and we’ll pack it up and send it along.

Get it now: Design your image file and upload it to the Pros section of your Control Panel. Read all about Order Branding.

Are you ready to bust out and start making more sales? Even if you’re already a seasoned SmugMug Pro, we hope these tips help you think up more creative ways to share your work and spread the word.

Now go get ‘em!

Links you’ll love:

• How to set up your SmugMug site for wicked good SEO
• Our marketing tips, in a nutshell
• How we help you sell
• Exclusive discounts on stuff we love

Hellooooo, Europe. Loxley is finally here to serve SmugMug Pros who live across yonder seas. (Well, the Atlantic.)

Before we dig into the details, we just want to say a quick, heartfelt “Thank you!” to all of your European SmugMuggers who have waited so long for this sweet moment. Huzzah for the printer!

What’s so special about Loxley Colour?

Where should we start? Their unmatched reputation is the result of over 50 long years of incredible quality and service. They’re a family-driven company, which we dig. And like SmugMug, they’re completely and wholly focused on bringing the best products to photographers and their clients… no matter what. They know the business, and it’s their mission to continue to make sure that artists thrive doing what they love.

In other words, they rock. And we’re thrilled that they’ve said “Yes!” to becoming part of our family.

What products can I buy (or sell)?

Swing by their corner of our catalog and you’ll see the traditional glossy, lustre and metallic prints in the sizes that your clients already know and love. But you’ll also see some tasty new ways to showcase your images, like:

• Glacier Block. Crystal clear 30mm acrylic block creates a unique prism effect.

• Acrylic Window. Contemporary acrylic mount with 2″ frosted borders and corner standoffs.

• Alumini Print. Offers the most vibrant, luminous and waterproof option for your photos.

• Edge Print. Durable 1″ borders provides a polished, modern look without the need for a frame.

Juicy, right? And there’s more, so see it all in our Loxley catalog.

How do I start selling through Loxley?

Simply open your Pricelists manager and create a new Pricelist, choosing Loxely Colour’s logo. Add in the products you want to offer, specify your profit (or price) and you’re done.

Remember that due to the unique SKUs each lab offers, you can’t just switch labs on a Pricelist you’re already using. But it’ll only take a few minutes to set up and apply a new one, you’ll see!

What if I have VAT Exemption number?

Open up your Control Panel and click on the Settings tab, then click to edit your billing info. The last field at the bottom is where you enter that number.

How do I sell to both US and EU markets?

You already are! It’s true. You’ve always been able to sell and ship to anyone, anywhere in the world. And since we added the ability for customers to check out in one of 5 popular currencies, it’s gotten even easier.

Still, if you want to offer different labs to different customers, try setting up separate Pricelists for each lab that you use and apply them to your galleries or photos. You may want to point your US customers to a different gallery than the one from which your European clients buy.

Can I use Loxley if I have a Basic or Power account?

Not yet, but we do plan on including Loxley’s print services to all SmugMug accounts after we’ve confirmed our Pro integration is a smashing success.

Ready? Set? Sell!

We hope that you and your clients love the quality and innovation that Loxley Colour brings to the table. We can’t describe how sweet it is to finally bring you a lab in Europe, and one so highly sought-after, to boot.

As always, tell us how it’s going, how they’re doing and how it’s working for you.

Update March 27, 2012:

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Picture this:

You spent all weekend at the local soccer match shooting thousands of photos. When you got home you made sure to download, edit and upload them all right away. Parents are expecting photos! So you immediately shared the link, anticipating a slew of gushing order emails. Finally you drift asleep, thinking about the hundreds of successful dollars you’ll see in the morning.

But you get nothing.

If this sounds familiar, today’s your lucky day. We’ll talk about four painful symptoms that may indicate that something’s seriously wrong with your business.

1) No Sales. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

Did you forget to enable buying in your gallery? If you’re hearing crickets from the peanut gallery, this could be the case. When it’s off, your viewers have no way to add items to the shopping cart, even though they’re still able to browse photos. They probably think that you don’t intend to sell your photos at all.

HOW TO FIX IT: Visit your Gallery Settings and be sure that you’ve got Printing enabled. (It’s towards the bottom.) To be extra sure you did it right, take a minute to log out of SmugMug and browse your site like a customer.

2) No Download Sales: You Can’t Sell What You Give Away

Are clients emailing you every 5 minutes for their photos, but once you share them you don’t hear a peep? This could mean you’ve enabled your Originals. Don’t do this if you’re trying to make money! With Originals on, any visitor can easily download a full-res version of the image for free. It’s fab for friends and family. Bad for business.

HOW TO FIX IT: Open up your Gallery Settings and scroll down to “Security & Privacy.” Make sure any size other than Originals are selected there. You can go as small as Medium if you’re feeling saucy, but remember people won’t be able to enjoy screen-filling photo goodness that way – but our data shows going too small will harm your sales.  X3Large + Watermarking (see #4) is probably your best bet.

3) No Profits on Print Sales

You’ve received an order, yay! But there’s no profit. Uh oh. This means you haven’t properly set up your pricing and clients are buying your photos at-cost. If you’re reading this post, chances are that’s not exactly what you had in mind.

HOW TO FIX IT: Hit up this tutorial that guides you on setting up your pricing using Pricelists. You can set the amount of profit you earn (recommended) or set your final price that’s shown in the cart. Not sure how much to charge? Just don’t go too low. Here’s why.

4) Surprise! Your Pics Pop Up on Facebook

You’re browsing social sites and to your dismay, you find your photos in your stream being shared by your clients without your credit… or your permission. How did they get there?

HOW TO FIX IT: Make your (water)mark! Look here to see how to turn your logo or name into a transparent image and slap it on your display copies. Any legally-purchased downloads or prints will be clean and clear unless you set a Printmark, too. While you’re at it, enable Right-Click Protection and use the Easy Customizer to type easy buying instructions into the custom pop-up message.

Now we hope that you’re better-prepared  to take on the next few gigs and start setting your sales on fire. Stay tuned for even more tips, tricks and best practices to help you have your best year in the biz.

If you’re located in Europe, you’re going to want to sit down for this one:

• UK print lab, Loxley Colour, will be joining the SmugMug family of labs.

Print and Ship in Europe

We chose Loxley Colour for their impeccable quality, reputation and dedication to the professional photography industry.

We’re still hammering in the last few nails, but expect to start fulfilling your orders through Loxley Colour by March 23, 2012.

You know we never pre-announce features, but this one was just too good to keep mum. Our European Pros have been begging us for years for something closer, and you’ve all waited long enough!

Come See Us in Birmingham

Now that the cat’s out of the bag, come see us at Focus on Imaging this week. We’ll be at stand #C23, so drop by and show us your smiling faces.

Stay tuned for more details!

The response we got from Pricelists warmed the cockles of our heart: Pros were thrilled with the ease, beauty and power of being able to price huge swathes of galleries with just a few clicks.

However, there were a few of you who said there was just one more thing you wanted: to be able to set the final price, not just the profit.

And we aim to please.

How to Set Your Final Price

Our inimitable Sorcerers just released an improvement that lets you set your pricing by price OR by profit. It’s your choice.

Open up your Pricelists manager and take a look at the fields here:

You’ll see that you can easily enter a value for your profit and sleep well knowing that’s the amount you’ll make.

But now the price field is changeable, too. Type in a number and you can print up ads, flyers and whatever else you wish, knowing that’s the price your customers will see.

See the green? We highlight the “active” field when you save the Pricelist, so you know at a glance which one is being used.

Which method should I use?

You should set your profit if:

• You want guaranteed margins on every sale. In the event of currency or base cost fluctuations, you may earn more than you set… but never less. The price displayed to your customers may change as a result of this, but the rounding tool is there to help make those numbers pretty.

You should set your price if:

• You have printed materials that require your pricing to stay fixed. We’ll switch over to profit-based pricing if the base cost ever goes higher than your set price. We’ll just use the profit amount you had when you first saved the Pricelist.

So go and play with your prices and make lots of money. Happy selling!

We know that photo pros build strong relationships with their print labs, and we kept hearing that White House Custom Colour has been a popular choice for wedding and portrait photographers.

It’s true: they’ve been dedicated to the success of professional photographers since 1977, and have quite a reputation.

Today we get to announce that they’ve joined our family, giving Pros who already know and love WHCC another way to turn gorgeous photos into gorgeous prints.

See the catalog now.

Why the addition?

We know that busy pros are hard-pressed to switch away from the labs they’ve used for years, and WHCC has been one of them. You don’t have to switch away from EZ Prints or Bay Photo, but if you’ve been waiting to fulfill your SmugMug orders through WHCC, now you can.

It’s our mission to offer you a huge selection of fabulous, perfect print options. And have it seamlessly integrated with your site and shopping cart so you’re not a slave to your clients.

How do I order from WHCC?

Fire up your Pricelists manager and make a new Pricelist. You’ll see the three labs’ logos on the popup box. Click your choice, add in products, apply your Pricelist to galleries and you’re ready to go.

Do I have to use Pricelists?

Yes. We’re doing everything we can to make SmugMug everything that photographers have ever dreamed of… and more. We know it’s tough to change your routine, but we hope that the benefit of great features like additional print labs is worth the fear of leaving your comfort zone.

Try it. We’re sure you’ll love it!

Can I offer both WHCC and Bay Photo Products on my site?

Absolutely. We love them both and bet you will, too.

You can set different galleries to print through different labs. Just create a Pricelist for each. If you want to offer Bay Photo products for just a few specific photos, make a Pricelist for Bay Photo and apply it to only the images you want.

Remember: You can always price and sell merchandise (fulfilled through EZ Prints) and downloads (fulfilled by SmugMug) no matter what lab you use.

Can I see prints in-person?

Our bulletproof guarantee ensures that you can buy some prints and see their gorgeousness up close. And if you don’t adore them, tell us why and we’ll fix it or replace it right away.

Check out the shiny new WHCC tab in our updated catalog. A special thanks to Monica Toohey-Krause for the stunning sample images!

No sales? Hard time hooking clients? Your deep-discount pricing could be choking your reputation.

It’s not uncommon to offer your services at cut-rate discount with the hope that you’ll snap up eager bargain-hunters. But is this really the right approach?

Successful Pros agree that raising your pricing may not necessarily scare away potential clients – in fact, it’ll do a body good. Here’s why.

That sounds backwards…

Photo by Adriana Klas Photography

“Cheap” sets bad expectations for your clients. If you’re a cheap photographer, clients wonder how you’re cutting costs so much, and if it’s worth it for them to take the risk. They question your ability to manage expectations and communicate with them. Will you effectively guide them through an important experience, or will you simply fire a few snaps, hand over a CD and call it a day?

“Cheap” makes you look as though you don’t think you’re any good. Any business owner who doesn’t think their brand’s the best is probably in the wrong business.

How to Not Be Expensive

Photo by Adriana Klas Photography

Right about now you’re probably worried about scaring away clients by being too expensive. How do your clients really know what “expensive” really is? It’s all about pricing and a concept called anchoring – meaning that they have to compare the value of something new with something familiar.

In English: Clients will be able to better grasp the value of your work by judging their interaction with you.

Here are some tips to help you prove that your work is worth every penny:

• Create a unified brand.  A clean website. Clearly placed information. A custom domain and email address goes a long way, too.

• Be professional. Be prompt, cordial, and friendly. You provide a quality service, which is worth paying for.

• Look and act the part. No one is going to pay $5k to a schlup wearing ketchup-stained t-shirts, particularly if they show up late and forget to bring the paperwork!

How to do the “Free” Thing (the right way)

Photo by Sphynge Photography

Just because you should be paid fairly for your work doesn’t mean you can’t cut clients a break, or even do the “free” thing once in a while. Samples are a great way to give clients a nibble of what you do do without giving away the whole farm. Some quick ideas of how to work this into your model:

Model 1 - Waive your session fee, but be sure to charge for prints and digital downloads.

Model 2 - Apply the sitting fee towards the purchase of digital downloads, making the first (X number) free.

On SmugMug, it’s so easy to offer a few deep discounts by creating a custom Coupon to hand out. There are five different types, making sure that you can keep changing it up and keeping it interesting. How to use Coupons.

Get it? Got it? Good.

Calculate Your Costs to Avoid Going Broke

Photo by Sphynge Photography

The reason most photography businesses don’t survive is because their owners didn’t properly calculate their costs. And as the old adage goes, time is money. Don’t forget that your time and expertise are more precious than replaceable objects like paper and gear; you can hire assistants but they aren’t you. (Yes, it’s our mission to make you feel like a million bucks!)

Here are our suggested guidelines for calculating your costs:

• For prints: Your pricing should be not less than 4x your hard costs, including packaging and shipping. Seem like a lot? It’s not – about half of your balance goes towards taxes, 1/5th of goes towards the base cost of the item and the rest goes towards (ta-daa!) your profit.

• Albums and multi-photo goods: Your pricing should be no less than 3x your hard costs, which may include design work as well as the physical cost of the product.

• For Downloads: Price your larger-than-web-sized digital downloads at no less than the cost of ten prints. Giving away images at any printable size means you have to make it worth your while: They will use that file to print lots of prints, and you also run the risk of having your brand diluted if your client opens Photoshop and makes their own digital adjustments. Check out our resolution chart to find out how big they can print.

The Bottom Line

Don’t be afraid to charge a fair price for your work. By understanding your costs and charging more, you’re sending a stronger message to your clients and ensuring that they value you, too.

If you’re already in business and think your prices needs a kick, remember that it’s simple to adjust your pricing using Pricelists. Look here to see how they work, and don’t forget to ping our Support Heroes if you get stuck.

Wanna keep talking about pricing? Never forget that our photo forum, Digital Grin, has a whole section dedicated to the art of turning your photos into money. Check out our Mind Your Own Business section here and post away. Or just voice your thoughts in a comment below.

Good luck and stay tuned! We’ll be sharing more tips and “best practices” for you, soon.

—-

Links you’ll love:

• Get them buying with custom coupons
• Our different download sizes
• How big can I print?
• How to start selling your photos
• Money matters on Dgrin

There’s no coy way to announce this, so we’ll just say it:

SmugMuggers can now offer pricing for prints, gifts and downloads in one of five international currencies.

That’s right! Your visitors now get to pick their own currency when they buy stuff from your site.

How does it work?

Run (don’t walk) to your galleries and click the Buy button to bring up the shopping cart. At the top you’ll see a fresh new drop-down menu that translates your pricing to the five following flavors:

• USD – $
• CAD – CA$
• AUD – AU$
• GBP – £
• EUR – €

You can click through each one to see pricing in the shopping cart change. We’ll remember the currency that’s chosen and display it consistently when you view our catalog, as well as throughout shopping and checkout.

I’m a Pro. Will I make less money when the exchange rate changes?

No, your profits are safe. We talked about this when we debuted Pricelists, and this is one reason why SmugMug’s custom pricing is centered around profits, not the final price.

Market crash? No prob… you’ll still earn that $100 on those MetalPrints (as long as you’ve priced them that way).

What currency will I get paid in?

We’ve been paying international SmugMug Pros in various currencies since last May. Look here to see how it works so you can get paid in whichever moolah you love best.

Anything else I should know?

Here’s the quick list:

• SmugMuggers of all account levels don’t have to do a thing to start showing the five currencies on your site. We do the conversion automatically for each and every visitor that buys from you.

• The price your customers see on your site will adjust along with the exchange rate. This could happen daily if the market’s feeling feisty.

• Pros: Your customers will see the currency they’ve chosen while shopping and during checkout, but for now you’ll still have to set your prices in USD. We’ll be adding currency support to features like Pro pricing, Coupons, Packages, etc., so please hang tight and we’ll tell you when those are ready.

Whoopee! Now, where can I sell?

In case you were just too shy to ask, you’ve always been able to sell to anyone, anywhere in the world. We hope the new currencies will help your fans get a better idea of how much things cost.

If you want to see the full list of countries we ship to, take a look at this page here and bookmark our handy shipping info page.

What if I have an order problem?

We stand loud and proud on our 100% guarantee on all orders, and, as you know, we’ll refund you – or your customer – if we can’t make it right.

But if your sale doesn’t work out and it was purchased in a foreign currency, please remember the refund may not be the same dollar amount due to the exchange rate differences at the time of checkout and return.

Now, it’s your turn to grade us.

Questions? Comments? Feedback? You’ve asked for this feature for such a long time, we wanna know how we did.

This addition is just Part 1 of this year’s international goodies. We know that SmugMug Pros are dying to set prices in other currencies, too, so stay tuned! We’re building that next.

Hey, SmugMug Pros! We’ve revolutionized the way you do pricing with our new feature: Pricelists.

Traditionally, SmugMug pricing has been done on a gallery-by-gallery basis. It worked OK if you wanted to copy pricing over from one gallery to another, but changing it later (across your hundreds of galleries) was a different story.

But first, our co-founder and president has something to say:

What are Pricelists?

In short: Each Pricelist is like a bucket, into which you can easily drop galleries to price and sell your photos.

Start by choosing products that you want to sell, tell us how much profit you want to make, and then add your galleries (or photos) to that Pricelist. Done.

Isn’t it a thing of beauty?

Why the change?

Pros have told us that doing gallery-by-gallery pricing wasn’t working out so well once they had lots of galleries to manage. Our goal was to make it super-simple and super-fast for all Pros to easily price their stuff and get photos sold.

The new look is clean and modern, and this renovation makes it easier for us to add shiny new features down the road… like new products and foreign currency support. (*hint, hint*)

What does this mean for me as a Pro?

We can think of four big benefits for you right off the bat:

1. Manage all of your pricing from one place.
2. Manage your pricing across hundreds of galleries with a few clicks.
3. Easily maintain different pricing for weddings, sports, or family photos.
4. Decide how much profit you make on each sale.

What do I need to do?

If you’re a veteran Pro with existing pricing, we’ll ask you to migrate to the new system.

Migration is quick and painless. We’ll comb through the pricing on all of your galleries and fold them into Pricelists. The whole process takes just a few minutes and we’ll email you when we’re done. Here’s a new help page (with video!) to help you do it.

During the migration you won’t be able to make any changes to your prices, but your current pricing will remain live and your customers will continue to have the ability to purchase your images at your current pricing.

After migration, your pricing will appear unchanged to your customers, but you’ll have more power to edit them, behind the scenes.

Upgrade to Pricelists in 3 Steps:

1. Log in and visit your Control Panel.
2. Look under the Pros tab > Pricing > Set Prices.
3. Choose “Migrate My Existing Pricing.” That’s it!

You can choose to start over and just build new pricing from the ground up. Or you can delay your choice a little longer. On March 1st, 2012, we’ll migrate everyone over to use the new system automatically, keeping your current pricing structure but giving you instant access to Pricelists.

Anything else I should know?

We thought you’d have questions. Here’s some answers.

• There’s almost zero risk of accidentally selling something with no gain to you. In the old days (like, uh, yesterday), you had to price something at $0 to remove it from your cart, and unpriced items were sold at-cost. Now you manually add in each item you want to sell.

• Digital Downloads now have a minimum cost: $.49 for individual photos and $.99 for gallery downloads. Want to offer these for free? Enable Originals in your gallery, create a backup file to share, or create a Coupon to nuke the charges at checkout.

• You determine your markup, not the final price shown in the cart. UPDATE! You can set your profit OR your price. Set a general percent increase over the whole Pricelist, or you can fine-tune the amount for each product you offer. We also give you the option of rounding up your pricing to make the displayed cost easy on the eyes.

• Choose between Bay Photo and EZ Prints the moment you create the Pricelist. If you change your mind on an existing Pricelist, you’ll need to create a new one with the lab of your choice. Need to compare the two labs to make a choice? Check out the full catalog.

If you still have questions about migrating your pricing over to Pricelists, look right here and check out the video tutorials. And for everything else, check out our pricing help page that’s been updated with a video series on all the details.

So go migrate, play and sell some prints. As always, we’re hoping to add to and improve this feature as 2012 rolls in, so tell us what you think and how it’s working for you.

Merry money-making Christmas!

Let the holidays ring with more cha-CHING! Halloween’s flown by, which means it’s time to dig out the lights, bake some cookies and be the brightest house on the block.

It’s also the perfect time to offer a cornucopia of beautiful gifts to your clients so they can be smiling through the New Year. Here’s how.

Keep the Money Rolling In

• Spike Your Sales With Coupons. Sweeten the deal with Percent Off, Amount Off, Free Shipping, At-Cost and Print Credit discounts. Coupons make buying more fun, and nothin’ says lovin’ like 25% off.

• Package Up Holiday Cheer. Santa-size your sales and save time by bundling your best items into Packages. Make buying so easy, they can shop with one hand.

• Cash in on Holiday Cards. Clients can build their own 4×8 and 5×7 photo cards, then buy them at the price you set. Show them our pre-made templates or create your own using their favorite photos.

• Turn Downloads into Dough. Set your own price for digital photos and videos under the Downloads tab and deliver their memories instantly. Sell videos up to 20 minutes and 3 GB each. 32 different photo sizes are just waiting to be bought.

Get bonus points: Surprise your clients and add a custom Thank You Print to the delivery box. It’s even nicer when you include a coupon code good for their next order. *hint hint*

12 Friends a-Sharing

Looking for gift ideas, or just a treat for yourself? Visit ClubSmug for exclusive nepotism discounts on albums, software and more. No secret handshake required. Just be sure you’re logged in.

Here are some of our favorites:

• Blurb’s Notebooks and Weekly Planners are a beautiful way to merge your photos with function. Get 20% off your entire order when you buy before December 15th.

• MOO’s business cards are just the tip of the fruitcake. Try their stickers, labels and name tags to make guests smile. Check out the goodies here.

Get it by Christmas!

Don’t be a Grinch and show up empty-handed. Our print elves need 1-3 business days to process your orders during the holiday season, so be sure that you (and your clients) check out by these dates:

* 6-10 Business Day shipping – December 9th
* 3-5 Business Day shipping – December 13th
* 2nd Business Day shipping – December 16th
* Next Business Day shipping – December 19th

Happy holiday prep from SmugMug! Don’t burn the cookies and make sure you have enough eggnog to go around.