Archive for January, 2010
In the last blog post we took you through the steps to integrate P1Wired Photography Studio Management with MailChimp. Now that you have the integration set up, you are ready to begin email marketing.
1. Create a list in MailChimp
> Login to MailChimp (you can login directly from P1Wired Marketing using the MailChimp button)
> Click on Create a List
> Fill out the the form
> Be sure to check “people unsubscribe” under “email me at youremail@yourserver.com …”
> Click Save and remain on this page2. In P1Wired you’ll export customers to the list you created in MailChimp
> Click the Marketing button
> Manually tag the customers or run a query
> Click the Query button
>> Select based on your criterion (i.e., customer, order, or by relationship)
>> Choose the value you are looking for (i.e., customer/prospect, category, order date/amount, relationship birthday, etc.)
> Click Query
> Click “Send to MailChimp”
> From the drop down menu you’ll select the list you created in step 1
> Click send
> Go back to MailChimp and click the button at the top of the page, “Import my List”.3. In MailChimp, click the Campaign Tab
> Click the Create Campaign tab
> Select Regular ol’ Campaign
> Select the list your sending to and click Next in the upper right corner
> Fill out the campaign info and click Next
> You can use one of their templates or create your own
> Customize and click Next (towards the bottom)
> In the Plain Text box (for recipients who only view plain text emails) fill out
> Send a test of the plain text to yourself just to be sure it’s perfect
> Confirm your settings one last time
> You can send right now, or schedule for a later date, or at a different time.
P1Wired and MailChimp are integrated so that you can create professional, smart-looking and meaningful email marketing campaigns. Photographers can now closely coordinate their studio management software and email marketing campaigns so that you can build and manage your email list, send emails with confidence and track and analyze emails. And not to worry if you don’t know HTML, MailChimp has templates that you can customize or create from scratch.
You can also take advantage of their “Forever Free Plan” which allows you to store up to 500 subscribers and send up to 3,000 emails a month. MailChimp also has Show Me videos and Help on every screen to assist you every step of the way.
Here are some quick and easy steps to set up the integration (one-time only):
1. Sign up for MailChimp
> Go to www.mailchimp.com
> Enter email and account name
> Log your Username and Password for step 2
> Hit “create MailChimp account”
> Go to your email account and find the email from MailChimp (may take up to 24 hours)
> Click Activate2. Enter information in P1Wired\
> Click the Setup icon (the wrench) in the upper right hand corner
> Select Interfaces
> Enter the Username and Password
> Click Get Key button
> Click the Save icon (the disc) in the upper right hand corner of the interfaces window
In our next blog post we will describe the steps to create an email marketing campaign. We are having fun working with MailChimp and making it work well with P1Wired.
MailChimp
Upon capturing all of the customer information and event details, P1Wired Photography Studio Management allows the photographer to easily generate a contract for their customer. P1Wired currently has three (3) photography contracts to choose from which are ready to send out “as is” or to serve as a template. If the contract is a template it can then be edited with the unique information for the wedding or event.
You can quickly and easily merge the client and event information into the contract. Additionally, you can include a payment schedule for the client which is electronically retained in P1Wired. The completed contract can be sent to the client electronically for signature (coming soon) and returned to the client’s electronic file in P1Wired.
Contract Image
I am pretty good at math when there is no pressure on me, but if there is some pressure I like to have a tool that helps me with the calculation. P1Wired Photography Studio Management has developed a nice easy-to-use feature called Price Calculator.
Just click on the Calculation button when you are adding/editing a product or service and up will pop the Price Calculator.
Type in the Cost of the good or service and select the calculation method (i.e., amount or percentage).
In the screen below, we selected the percent calculation method and entered 40% in the Amount or Percentage field. The Price is calculated to be $16.10 which includes the 40% mark-up from the Cost. There is also a feature to Create a Price Break in the event you want the offer a more favorable Price at some level of goods or services purchased.
P1Wired integrates with Gmail. Gmail was built by Google to make emailing more intuitive, efficient and useful. P1Wired integrates with Gmail so that you can easily coordinate and manage multiple email sources.
It is easy to set up – just add your Gmail username and password to P1Wired. The emails from Gmail will automatically show up in your P1Wired email account. P1Wired will also attach the email to the client’s file when it recognizes the incoming email address.
P1Wired allows you to attach a “follow-up” date to an incoming email so that you mitigate the possibility of overlooking or forgetting an email. Once you have finished the task or to-do, you can then mark the email completed. This seamless email integration will allow you to better manage the email process for your clients and prospects.