May 2009 Archives

How Will My Studio Benefit from Family Portrait Month?

Most successful studios employ one or more charitable marketing strategies in support of worthwhile causes. Why? Here are two of the top benefits:

• Personal satisfaction from giving your time and talent to those in need.
• Increased business profits/goodwill because many consumers simply prefer to shop with a business that gives back to the community.

Each year, Operation Smile awards a photographer from the highest grossing Family Portrait Month studio the opportunity to document an Operation Smile medical mission. Read about these life-changing experiences from past Family Portrait Month winners, and you see how important it is for photographers everywhere to support PPA Charities' effort to raise funds for Operation Smile. Read these stories by clicking here.

IMPORTANT NOTE: To be eligible for the cash drawing and the Operation Smile mission, your donations must be received by December 15, 2009.

How Important is My Participation in Family Portrait Month?

Every $240 donation to Operation Smile makes it possible for another surgery to be performed by Operation Smile's volunteers. To date, PPA Charities' donations to Operation Smile have totaled over $150,000. That translates into hundreds of operations made possible because photographers did what they do best: create images for families to treasure.

Think of all the smiles these portraits made possible--in your hometown and throughout the world--and you'll know how important your efforts are!

Next: How Family Portrait Month Works

In developing Family Portrait Month as a high-profile charitable marketing promotion, PPA Charities' leadership has intentionally left it up to individual studios to decide how they wish to market and raise funds to benefit Operation Smile.

How can I participate?

Any PPA-member studio can participate in this promotion if they:

• Make a minimum donation of $25 to PPA Charities (an annual donation, payable each year that you choose to participate in the promotion).
• Contribute a minimum donation of $25 per session made during the national Family Portrait Month promotion.
  
  

What are the requirements?

The only requirement is those minimum $25 donations to PPA Charities for each family portrait session occurring during October. Otherwise, you are free to decide how much to contribute--an entire session fee, part of a session fee, a percentage of each sale, or a specified amount of $25 or more. If you choose, you can even accept donations for Operation Smile year-round, not just in October. 

Other options?

If you prefer, you can make a personal donation PPA Charities on behalf of Operation Smile. Remember that it takes only $240 to buy the gift of surgery for a deserving child. So ask yourself: How Many Smiles Can I Buy?

What information or help will I get?

Once registered as a participant (and your $25 minimum donation to PPA Charities is processed), you will receive helpful information and ideas, and your own information will be listed in several places.

• You will receive an e-mail that provides password-protected access to marketing tips, written resources, and downloads. On this site you will also find real-world information on how different photographers have used Family Portrait Month in their own marketing programs, and other ways in which they have contributed to Operation Smile.These online resources are for your inspiration and use.
• We ask that you check this site often to learn about additional promotional ideas and news items about PPA Charities, Family Portrait Month, and Operation Fee. By subscribing to our feed, you will be notified whenever no items are posted. To do so, click here.
• You also will receive PPA Charities  and Family Portrait Month news through a periodic PPACH newsletter and email blasts.
• Your studio's information will be listed on www.familyportraitmonth.com, on Family Portrait Month materials, and through Operation Smile's promotional materials and Website (www.operationsmile.com).
• As a participant in Family Portrait Month, you will have access to special offers made by industry vendors as they become available.
  
  

What are the important dates?

Remember that Family Portrait Month fund-raising activities can take place year-round and are not limited to October:

NOW!

• Start planning your 2009 Family Portrait Month marketing strategies.
• Download resources from the Marketing Ideas section.
• Order promotional materials so you can have handouts ASAP. You'll need them to encourage clients and prospects to book early.

ANYTIME

• Mention Family Portrait Month in upcoming newsletters or online studio entries.
• Put promotional cards in finished orders as a low-cost way to spread the word.

AUGUST

• Complete your media schedule, including direct mailings.

OCTOBER 1

• Start your Family Portrait Month sessions.

DECEMBER 1

• Final date to forward Operation Smile donations to PPA Charities.

How do I send in Operation Smile donations?
Your Family Portrait Month clients should make all payments directly to your business. Once each week, calculate how much you wish to contribute from each client's session. Write a check for that week's total contribution, making it payable to PPA Charities. PPA Charities will compile the funds for Operation Smile. Send it to:

PPA Charities
Attn: Bert Behnke
20600 S. Old Wolf Road
Mokena, IL 60448

NEXT: Family Portrait Month Marketing Ideas

We want to help you make the most out of your Family Portrait Month promotion. The resources in this section will help you do just that!

Here, you'll find a wealth of marketing tips, written resources, and real-world information on how specific photographers have used Family Portrait Month to benefit their marketing programs. To download items, you will be asked to log in with a password (received in an e-mail after your donation to PPA Charities is processed).

• General Info
  
• Marketing Webinars
• Marketing Ideas
• Other Marketing Resources

General Information

Marketing Webinars

Learn how to make the most out of PPA Charities' Family Portrait Month promotion from the these hour-long Webinars:

• Angela Weedon
• Terry Farmer

In addition to raising funds for Operation Smile, Laura used the promotion to introduce her upscale studio to consumers she might not see during the regular course of business. She added an intriguing twist to the month-long promotion by offering an October 31 Halloween shoot for only $75, which included 5-8 online proofs of each child in costume, from which parents could purchased finished prints. The fee went to Operation Smile and represented one-third of the studio's eventual donation.

To publicize this special event, Laura posted a flyer at a luncheonette and also added it to her Internet blog. To facilitate fulfillment of this special session, clients ordered their images online. Later her blog featured some of the charming images the promotion produced.

Charlene McKay Uses
Family Portrait Month to Introduce
Her New Studio

When veteran photographer Charlene McKay opened her new studio in El Dorado Hills, California in 2005, she decided to use Family Portrait Month to kick off her most aggressive promotion of the year. She began by creating 10,000 4x9 postcards that a local service delivered to each home in her small town for only 10 cents per home. She also participated in two different local business fairs and distributed the cards there as well. The promotional offer Charlene chose was: "Make any donation of $25 or more to PPA Charities' Operation Smile and receive a free session and a 16x20 print." Her plan was to upsell the 16x20 to a larger canvas and sell additional wall prints, gift portraits and frames. 

Charlene photographed 28 sessions for the month and had many clients donate more than the minimum $25, and only two did not upgrade. Most spent over $1,000, and her highest sale was $4,000. Best of all, the promotion allowed her to spread the word about her new business through a very low financial commitment that didn't cheapen her work. "By supporting a charity, it provided a reason for me to offer such a low price for a very valuable product," she said. "I think Operation Smile is a perfect fit as a charitable partner for photographers."

 

Sandy Puc' Gets an Early Start Through Her Studio Newsletter

Colorado photographer Sandy Puc' utilized early promotion of Family Portrait Month in her newsletters to generate community awareness. This motivated her clients to get in for their holiday portraits. She donated a portion of her session fees during the month of October.

Get More Marketing Ideas From "PPACH Pacesetters" by clicking here.

Marketing Resources

PPA_Charities_Logo.jpg.zip

Are you ready to help create a smile?

Family Portrait Month is a national promotion during October, allowing professional photographers and families to raise money together for children in need of smiles.

In 2005, PPA Charities Trustees invited Operation Smile to become its Charitable Partner. This highly respected worldwide organization is the recipient of all contributions made by PPA-member studios throughout the country during PPA Charities' annual Family Portrait Month charitable marketing promotion.

Are you ready to use your art to create smiles with Family Portrait Month and Operation Smile? We're ready to help photographers do just that. You'll find the information you need to get started with Family Portrait Month on these pages:

Why Participate?
How it Works
Marketing Ideas

Questions?
Just ask , PPA Charities Executive Director:
Mail:     PPA Charities
            Bert Behnke, Executive Director
            20600 S. Old Wolf Road
            Mokena, IL  60448
Phone: (708) 267-0657

Next: Why Participate in Family Portrait Month?

In 2005, when we heard about PPA Charities' Family Portrait Month, we knew we wanted to contribute. But October is our busiest month of the year(and typically most lucrative), so we did not have time in our schedule to hold a special photo event or offer special sittings to raise funds. So we decided to donate a percentage of our gross sales for the month of October. This total was $3,500. It was amazing to know how much we could help children around the world just by sacrificing some of our profits during our biggest month.

In 2006, we really wanted to blow that 2005 number out of the water, so we decided to run a year-round promotion to benefit Operation Smile. We started to offer "Smile Cards," which are 5x7 folded blank notecards with the client's choice of image printed on the front. On the back, we print the Operation Smile, PPA Charities, and our studio logos. 

We sell these in packs of 10, and they cost the client just $15.00 for the pack. This is a great value compared to our regular press-printed card line for our customers, and since we print them in-house, we can print them whenever the orders come in. One hundred percent of the price of these cards goes to our charity fund, which is donated at the end of the year. Our clients love these cards, and especially love knowing that they donate $15 to Operation Smile every time they purchase them. We do have a limit of three packs per client, which serves to guarantee that they do not use them as birth announcements or holiday cards. At the end of 2006, our total donation was $8,500, a combination of revenue from the cards and our percentage donation from our October sales.

In 2007, we decided to do something a little different. In addition to the Smile Card year-round sales, we opted to sell gift certificates in lieu of the October percentage donation. (we were building a new studio at the time and needed all that profit we could get!).  In October, we pre-sold 2008 gift certificates for $240 (the price of one smile). Included in this certificate was an 8x10 portrait from the session. Given that our session fee is $300, this was a good value to our customers!  We did have success with this, as some of our clients bought these as gifts for their co-workers and we gained new clients in the process. Our total 2007 donation was $6000. We had similar success in 2008 doing the same program, raising $6,500.

We can't wait until the end of 2009, to see how many more smiles we can buy for such deserving children! So far, we have raised over $5,000 . . . so we are on target to bring our total donation through the years to upwards of $30,000.

You can download templates for Angie's vertical and horizontal Smile Cards here: 

Smile_Cards.zip.

Happy Spring to everyone! I am really looking forward to the warm weather and longer sunny days. PPA Charities is very busy already planning for Imaging USA events 2010 but I wanted to take a minute and thank everyone for the amazing successes of Imaging USA 2009!

Our Family Portrait Month contributions allowed us to present another great check to Operation Smile and this is something that we know will change many, many children’s lives. We also had a rockin’ time at Alice Cooperstown in Phoenix, Arizona. Our Celebration Event was amazing! The crowd, the auction, the food, the wonderful band, what a night! I hope that you all had a wonderful time at our event and look forward to seeing each and every one of you at our 2010 Celebration.

Thank you all for your continued efforts and support of PPA Charities. Please continue to check out our website, ppacharities.com, for future events and opportunities to work with us and continue to change children’s lives, one smile at a time.

Peace, Love and Joy,

Mary Fisk-Taylor
President, PPA Charities