6 Steps to Running a Super Successful Print Sale

With the holidays upon us, now is the perfect time to offer your clients a special deal while earning some extra holiday cash for yourself. We have been offering a 2-1 print sale for our clients every November, and once we figured out how to make it work, we've had great success with it and I wanted to share it with you. We typically do anywhere from $3,000-5,000 in print sales during this once a year promotion, and it's so easy to do.

We had tried this type of a promotion in the past without much success; we found the difference is in how you promote it. Don't worry about bothering your clients with too many emails, because most orders come in on the last day of the sale, after we send out a final email reminder to get their orders in. Here's how you can do it:

1)    Reactivate all old online galleries from all past clients

2)    Send an email to all the friends and family who have logged into the galleries, explaining that the galleries are back online for 1 week only during the annual print sale, and for any prints they order, they will receive a duplicate print of the same size. By making the deal a 2-1, it keeps things simple for us in terms of time spent retouching, cropping etc. All we have to do is order two prints instead of one.

3)    Play up the holiday gifts angle, and be sure to let them know when orders will get out so they can plan accordingly for gift giving.

4)    Blog about the print sale, post it on Facebook, add a mention in your email signature for the duration, etc. Don't be shy about mentioning it several times, especially on the final day.

5)    If you include prints in your packages, email clients separately encouraging them to use their print credits now, so they can take advantage of this once-a-year deal. Once they start ordering, most clients will get excited to place their orders and order more than what they have a credit for.

6)    Some shopping cart systems will allow you to schedule an email blast in advance, and I recommend sending out three emails-1 to announce the sale is starting, one to remind there are only a couple days left, and then a final email on the last day. Be prepared that most orders will come in that final day (I make it a Sunday) and in fact, you may get orders in the final hour, like right before midnight.

This is so easy; don't let this opportunity pass up this season. Start small if you don’t have many emails, and work out the details this year, so next year you can plan for an even better promotion once you get the hang of it. Good luck and let me know how it works out or if you have any questions with implementation!

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Tagged as: how to do a print sale, photography shopping carts, print promotion, print sale