Posts Tagged ‘Workflow’

Here at PhotoOne Software we’ve just moved our email promotion tracking over to P1Wired Photography Studio Management.  We had been using PhotoOne’s internal email feature for our promotional campaigns.  We used PhotoOne’s internal email because it was tightly integrated with our prospect list.  The one shortcoming was that we didn’t get any feedback on our promotions.  We had no idea who opened it.

We then started using Constant Contact because it captured this valuable information.  The downside of using Constant Contact was that there was no easy way to get our prospect list out of PhotoOne and into Constant Contact.

So here’s the solution for campaign management.  First run a simple query in P1Wired Photography Studio Management.  The query will tag the prospect and then you can click on the button  “Send to MailChimp.”  P1Wired pops up a prospect list set up in MailChimp and you can then select the desired list and the prospects are transferred.  At this point you are ready to send out an email marketing campaign — it couldn’t be easier. P1Wired will be further enhanced with the “bounce” and “opt out” information sent back to P1Wired so that you can measure your email marketing effectiveness over time.

If you are a photographer that is new to the business, check out the FREE email marketing level in MailChimp. It is a great way to get started with email marketing!

MailChimp

The Workflow feature is your virtual assistant. It outlines your routine and keeps track of each step as you process an order or service. When you complete each milestone in Workflow it auto-generates an email, letting the client know the order status.

This is a useful feature if you like to build routine around the various offerings in your studio or business. With this feature, you can define workflow and standardize it in P1Wired. You can then fine-tune the process to minimize the effort and time needed to accomplish the task. All of this is managed with a set of milestones which measure your progress as each task is completed in the workflow.

Creating a method to your workflow and refining it will eliminate wasted time and energy and allow you to focus on photography and marketing. Check out Workflow in P1Wired by clicking on the “W” icon in the upper left hand corner of the software application.

Tracking your photography events is a core feature of P1Wired Photography Studio Management. You can easily display all of your events on a single screen and quickly review the details that make up the event. You can search your event by month, year, event status, shoot location and/or vendor. Let P1Wired be your virtual assistant with the features offered in the studio management software.

For example: If a prospect asks you if you have shot any weddings at Avon Country Club — you can easily search past events by location and provide a quick response. Since the image locations are stored in the event file, you can quickly find and send samples to that prospect.

P1Wired tracks the event date and time and automatically adds them to your calendar. You can also track event details so you have them at your fingertips when prepping for the event: How many guests are at the ceremony? at the reception? is there a father/daughter dance? who needs to be photographed and when? It’s all stored and available to be printed or reviewed from your browser and/or smartphone. The best thing about this feature is that it is customizable, allowing you to define how you want to cover an event.

If there are multiple photographers or assistants, you can assign them to the appropriate event. You can track the vendors that are working the same event. Who is the florist, caterer, DJ? This important information allows you to leverage your business and build relationships with vendors that will make a real difference for your studio.

Wedding photographers find this feature to be a major plus. Weddings can have multiple locations and associated details — usually so many details that it’s hard to keep it all straight. Let the Event feature in P1Wired help you to organize these details and prep you for each phase of the wedding, including locations, names, “must have” images, vendors and equipment. Why take a chance with a homegrown method for workflow? The client is expecting perfection — use the right tools to convey your professionalism.

Finally, from the Events feature you can create, edit, sign, email and print a contract. The paperwork is electronic, the language is already crafted- requiring only event specific editing, the signatures are obtained through email and the document is available in the client account for easy access in the future. The contract headache is resolved with P1Wired.

P1Wired is a Photography Studio Management software application that’s designed to run in your browser using a Mac or PC. It will be the core software to manage your business and ultimately integrate and connect with other software tools and remote capabilities. Although P1Wired is a new application, it shares many of the best features of PhotoOne, our desktop studio management application that has been an industry leader for over 15 years.

We coded P1Wired in Adobe Flex to provide you a state-of-the-art experience.

As you enter P1Wired you’ll notice that we’ve set up the application with four main areas:

1. We’ve got five icons along the top: Contacts, Calendar, Accounting, Dashboard and Reports. Let’s take a quick look at these features.

First we’ll click on Contacts. The Contacts section allows you to keep a record of your Vendors, Relationships, Payees and Family.

Next, let’s look at the Calendar feature. The Calendar is set up to give you any number of different views, whether daily, weekly or monthly. It also allows you to color code the calendar to make quick visual distinctions. The calendar syncs with Google calendar so an appointment in P1Wired will appear in Google calendar, allowing you access with your iPhone and other handheld devices.

Now let’s click on Accounting. The Accounting feature allows you to tie into order entry. It also allows you to keep track of deposits and expenses through multiple bank accounts. All of this is managed from a central hub called Chart of Accounts which allows you to bucket receipts, expenses, liabilities, assets, and cost of goods sold which will offer you valuable reporting and metrics when analyzing your business.

The Dashboard is a quick snapshot of your business. You can quickly look at today’s weather, review appointments entered on your calendar screen, review sales figures for the month and the previous 3 months along with the cash receipts that have been deposited in the bank. And you can review all open orders and associated balances to allow you to better manage the receivable aging process.

Finally, the Reports feature will provide you with a screen or printed summary of what’s going on in your photography business. Do you want to cross check your P1Wired checking entries against your bank entries? Do you want to run a quick Profit/Lost statement? Or do you want a transaction history by accounts? This will be all part of P1Wired.

2. Right underneath the Icons is a complete Client/Prospect list which is always active. Here you can quickly and easily access a client or prospect and add, delete or edit their profile.

3. Underneath the Client/Prospect listing is the Calendar. As we mentioned earlier, this is another easy and intuitive access point to your appointments letting you see when and where resources are allocated.

4. In the large blank area of the page is the Workspace or the “Make It Happen” area. When you click on any of the features in P1Wired they will open in the “Make it Happen” area which will provide a large work area for you to get your daily activities accomplished. When it’s not being used, you have the option of displaying your studio’s logo or image.

We have also included a Setup function that is accessed through the little wrench icon in the top right-hand portion of the page. As you enter into the Setup function you are able to customize your Customers, Products, Calendar, Orders, Accounting and Security. Each one of these features can be tailored to capture the information unique to your business. For example, if you go into the Customer section of Setup you will find that the Customer can be tagged within a Category and Sub Category. This will help you when you are looking to filter the data before running a report.

The client, through their order, can also be tagged with a Chart of Account and Relationship type allowing for additional client profiling when analyzing your business.

Another great feature in Setup is the Security feature. Here you can quickly and easily set up each employee or user’s clearance profile. Admin will have full clearance, but you may want only limited clearance for an employee based on experience or their role in the studio.

These are just some of the outstanding features of P1Wired! There are many more like credit card processing, multiple color schemes for the application, invoicing, sales tax, promotion capability, email and many others.

Go ahead — try out P1Wired for 30 days. Click the Free Trial button in the top right-hand corner of our website – p1Wired.com. We don’t need your credit card so go ahead and get started! Thanks and we look forward to having you as a member of P1Wired