The Event Marketing Help Thread
Andy
Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
We're thrilled to announce our new Event Marketing feature for SmugMug Pros. It's been the #1 most asked for feature over the past year, and it's ready and available for you to use right now. :smo
EDIT: June 11th, 2010: New Events features added! http://bit.ly/ahplkK Enjoy
How does it work? You create an event (example: The Smith-Phillips Wedding) and enter a description, then choose galleries that are part of the event. Add email addresses of key clients (we call them Participants) that you want to share the event with. The emails are sent by you, via SmugMug. The Participant (example: Barbara) clicks the personalized link in the email to go to a special page just for them. This page will have all the event details and any special instructions you want to give your viewers.
Your Participants view the galleries and if they see something they like, can click the heart icon. This tags the photos and automagically puts a copy in their unique Favorites gallery. They can take all the time they wish, and both of you can review those Favorites. Once they're finished, ordering is a snap.
More help for creating events is here, and visitors can use this page for guidance.
We hope you'll use this feature and we hope we've hit the mark with it. As always, ask any questions here in this thread. Of course we want your feedback - it's like gold to us!
EDIT: June 11th, 2010: New Events features added! http://bit.ly/ahplkK Enjoy
How does it work? You create an event (example: The Smith-Phillips Wedding) and enter a description, then choose galleries that are part of the event. Add email addresses of key clients (we call them Participants) that you want to share the event with. The emails are sent by you, via SmugMug. The Participant (example: Barbara) clicks the personalized link in the email to go to a special page just for them. This page will have all the event details and any special instructions you want to give your viewers.
Your Participants view the galleries and if they see something they like, can click the heart icon. This tags the photos and automagically puts a copy in their unique Favorites gallery. They can take all the time they wish, and both of you can review those Favorites. Once they're finished, ordering is a snap.
More help for creating events is here, and visitors can use this page for guidance.
We hope you'll use this feature and we hope we've hit the mark with it. As always, ask any questions here in this thread. Of course we want your feedback - it's like gold to us!
0
Comments
My question is how do I let visitors favorite any photo from any gallery they want. Example, I have a friend who wants to buy a large print - and she knows she wants a cool shot of "trees". How can I use this tool so she can favorite any photo in any gallery (cause a cool tree shot could be anywhere)....
Thanks,
Ryan
www.photographyontheside.com [My blog about creating a part-time photography business]
Create A Gorgeous Photography Website with Smugmug in 90 Minutes [My free course if you need help setting up and customizing your SmugMug site]
Facebook - Twitter
Nikon D200, D80, SB600, nikon 50mm 1.8, nikon 18-135 3.5-4.6, nikon 70-200
Hi Ryan,
I'm not sure I understand the use-case here. Is the friend wanting you to place the order? Or wanting you to modify the photo before she decides whether to place the order?
Sorry if I'm being thick but... why doesn't she just buy the photo when she finds it?
-Anne
SmugMug Support Hero
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Hi Anne
The reason that I have wanted a "favorites" feature is so that people could browse and save the shots they like as they go.
Tree ex.
- Friend/client browses 10 galleries with 500 photos looking for "the one" to order and hang in her living room.
- As she browses (over a few weeks) she "favorites" the ones she really likes...saving as she goes.
- After she's done browsing, she goes to her saved favorites and sees the 35 that she's really interested in.
- She takes her time paring those 35 down to the one she wants to order.
- She orders and lives merrily ever after.
"Favorites" in this case would solve 2 problems:
1. People often don't have time to sift through 500 photos to figure out which is "the photo" to order. This feature would let them work on it over time...
2. It allows people to compare the 35 "favorites".
Does that help you make sense of what I'm looking for?
Ryan
www.photographyontheside.com [My blog about creating a part-time photography business]
Create A Gorgeous Photography Website with Smugmug in 90 Minutes [My free course if you need help setting up and customizing your SmugMug site]
I'm excited about these features, but I'm not sure they're working properly.
- The "share links" are missing part of the URL.
- There doesn't seem to be any distinction between my favorites, and someone else's favorites -- they all just end up as "Favorites". Meaning, when I add a favorite (as a photographer), I don't seem to be able to distinguish that from the favorites added by my client with whom I've shared the event.
Anyone else having problems?
Matt Dudley Photography
Nashville child photographer
Twitter: @mattdudleyphoto
Facebook: facebook.com/mattdudleyphotography
Another amazing feature executed and built beautifully - thanks Smugmug.
I am noticing a couple odd behaviors though - thought you might want to check to see if it is just me or there is a problem.
After creating an event and adding galleries - when I test this out on my work laptop using IE6 - if there are no favorites already choosen - so my favorites is empty - when I click the link that says view my favorites I get an error message saying from IE saying that IE can't open the web page.
Also - when logged in as myself, the pro, and I view an event page I set up - I have the option to add a description - like I do in my normal galleries - however the SAVE button does not work - so it doesn't let me save in this scenario.
I'm getting this too. http:// /share/WuHhBATRyHcYQ
It works, if I manually enter my URL into it.
Malte
This will be a huge help to me. I have not had time to look it over thoroughly as I am right in the middle of a Provincial hockey tournament but from first glance it seems like SmugMug has certainly listened. Packages too!
Monte
Thanks! We'll look into these.
This is our fault for not making it more clear, but you as the photographer don't have any favorites unless you add yourself as a participant. If you click through to a participant's personal page, you're cookied in as them, meaning any favorites you select will be their favorites. Does that make sense?
I played with it this morning...made an event with three galleries, added a participant, saved it. Then, I tried viewing one of those galleries as I normally would, (not from the event page, but just as I normally would go to that gallery by using my nav bar), and the gallery gave me the heart icon and the option of adding to the My Favorites gallery. I did that and I ended up in my participant's unlisted favorites gallery.
I thought the heart icon would only show up when viewing that gallery through the event, not when viewing as a non-event person. Is that right?
By the way, the galleries I added to the event were pass-word protected. Does that matter?
Thanks for all the new goodies lately!
EDIT: Ah, I just saw the above response. I must have been cookied in as them. Hmmm...
Comments and constructive critique always welcome!
Elaine Heasley Photography
Sorry, can you be more specific as to which share link is broken? Where exactly did you get the link from? The event edit page (participant or guest), a participant's event page, or a guest's event page?
I'm still having technical problems:
- The Share links are definitely not populating properly.
- When I "share the event" via email, the email does not always show up in my recipients inbox. It's hit or miss.
- I still can't get the favorites feature to work properly. No matter how I view the gallery (as the Pro, or as a client with whom the event has been shared) the favorites are just blended together.
Some other thoughts and things I've encountered -
- If I'm the mother of a bride, I would like to be able to share the event with my friends... but I'd like to be able to do so in such a way that they can mark their own favorites. Currently, if an invited "event participant" tries to share the event with a guest who hasn't been directly invited by the photographer, they are unable to mark their own favorites. Is that right? I'm not sure what the value of this is, beyond just providing people with another way to share links to the galleries.
- Perhaps I just need time to get used to it, but this Event system feels clunky and complicated, honestly. Here's an example of why I say that... let's say I'm in a gallery, as a pro. And that gallery is part of an Event page that I created. Shouldn't I be able to access (and even edit!) the event details from within the gallery? I want to add Event participants on the spot, for example. Currently, I have to go back to the control panel, and then click "manage Events", and then select the event, and then click add participants. Yikes! Too much effort... for not enough payoff.
- Wouldn't it make sense that packages and coupons that apply to certain galleries be listed on the Event page that contains those galleries? So, when I am invited to a certain event, I get to see the coupons and packages that are relevant to that event? Plus, perhaps, some other notes from the photographer? I wish we could customize that page a bit, and actually use it for marketing purposes. Right now, it feels like a landing page without much function.
- When I think "marketing" these days, I think about ways for people to interact with each other regarding a product. I *want* people to see each other's favorites. When Billy sees that Sally liked something, he is more likely to "like it" as well. This is basic marketing psychology, right?
- No nicenames? I don't feel very good marketing a gallery that ends with 72WY2xoNJDAGI. I'd much rather send them the gallery name, which is personal and specific to their event.
- Honestly, I hate to say it, but I think the way Pictage handles favorites and folders is much more intuitive from a client's perspective. I can create my own folders - more than one, even - and very simply add pictures to them. And photographers can market events with emails about coupons, packages, specials, discounts, etc...
Anyway, I don't mean to be negative. Just offering honest feedback, from a Pro's perspective. From my perspective. I'm definitely going to play with this feature more... but it feels a little half-baked, and I'm not confident I see why I would use it at the moment. I'm happy to be disagreed with - I'm hoping y'all have some better ideas that I do regarding how to integrate this feature.
Nonetheless, thanks SmugMug for working so hard to keep things fresh.
Matt Dudley Photography
Nashville child photographer
Twitter: @mattdudleyphoto
Facebook: facebook.com/mattdudleyphotography
Can I get a bit more info on this? See my previous post.
Are you sure they aren't landing in a junk folder?
Here is how it works: Each time you add a participant and save, we create a new favorites gallery for that participant. If you ever visit the event using that link (or their favorites link), you are cookied in as that participant and will collect favorites to that participant's favorites gallery. Even if you then browse to the event galleries using categories from your main SmugMug site, you will still be collecting favorites to the same place.
If, however, you then visit the event from a different link (either the guest link or another participant's link), you will no longer be in the collecting favorites mode for that original participant. Does that make sense? Our initial focus was on making it dead simple for your customers (the participants and other guests).
The purpose of it is to use it like a sharegroup, but easier to understand and access for the participants. Nonetheless, you (as the photographer) could also create another participant and allow the mother of the bride to share that link so they could collect their own favorites.
We bounced around a few ideas about this, but it makes the interface very clunky to have those controls within the galleries themselves. Remember, a gallery can be part of thousands of different events. Sorry!
We will definitely try and integrate the three features together in the near future. Packages, coupons and event management were all built simultaneously by different people. So integrating while they were being built (and constantly changed) was difficult.
We'll definitely discuss ways to accomplish this. Good feedback.
We'll have to see about that one too. The hash at the end obfuscates the URL for privacy concerns.
Thank you for the feedback. Rest assured we are committed to improving the product as we go. We feel confident that this is a great first version and will be a good start to collect feedback on.
My wife is a part-time wedding and portrait photographer. She often has brides and grooms pick out their favorites so she can put together wedding albums for them. This greatly simplifies the process for her, especially when a wedding comprises four or five separate galleries (engagement shots, bridal shots, ceremony, reception, etc.). Once the galleries are online and set up, she can create an event in less than 60 seconds and send out the appropriate links. She can easily check to see if any of the participants have added favorites by visiting the event management page.
That one was an Other Guests Event Link and it's from the Edit Event page.
It behaves the same in the share dialogue for participants.
Malte
Oh hmm... I can't reproduce myself, but I did find a test case. Thanks, we'll see about fixing that!
The way it is now is just more work for me.
http://www.realphotoman.com/
Work in progress
http://www.realphotoman.net/ Zenfolio 10% off Referral Code: 1KH-5HX-5HU
It simplifies my ability to provide listings agents with their property photos (in unlisted galleries) from which they can pick and choose (and arrange) the photos they like. I can then remove unwanted shots and resend the gallery link back with the share link for their clients.
It seems I will have to send an event link for EACH shoot... even if it's to the same participant. Otherwise, the consolidated favorites (from multiple galleries) would be difficult to cross reference. Not a big deal.
How can I change the text in the email messages that get sent to the participant with the links?
The "Excited yet?" copy would not be suitable for correspondence with sales agents... and having to edit each message every time will get old fast.
NICE JOB, btw!
TIA,
Rick
I've been waiting a long time for this feature. I'm very excited to see this finally come. And the timing couldn't be better for me as my wedding season will be starting soon. Perfect.
Some comments/feedback...
From what I've seen so far, it seems fairly well thought out. The only thing I would LOVE to see is a way to create galleries for the event right inside of the Manage Events screen. Right now the process seems a little disconnected. I know my work flow may not be representative of all your customers, but check this out.
Currently I have to create a Sub-Category, then create multiple galleries for my clients (Getting Ready, The Ceremony, Formals and Portraits, The Reception, etc). Then I have to go to Manage events and then go and pick those galleries. It would be wonderful if you could incorporate the two functions.
--
I did send myself a test email (I created a bogus event and set my self as the participant) just to see what the email looked like and it was missing the URL! Very strange. I sent it to my gmail account and all is said was
"Dear Lou,
I've created a special event page just for you. Drop in to browse galleries from Sara"
The event name was Sara & Josh
Did the ampersand mess things up? It looks like everything after it got truncated.
--
Once the event is created, you can view it and I'm not so crazy about how it's laid out. I'd like to have 2 thumbnails per row. Currently it's 4. Do I have to use custom CSS to style that so it has 2?
--
After I present a client's images, I ask them to pick their 30 favorites, which I then incorporate into their wedding album. This favorites feature will work wonderfully for that purpose. But one big issue for me is that the favorites are only shown in Smugmug gallery view. That's a big downer for me since I can only see one file name at a time.
It would be great to be able to control the view. I would love to see a thumbnail view with all of the file names beneath it. Then all I'd have to do is print it out and viola! Done! A list view (of file names) would be even better!
Thanks for listening and keep up the great work!
http://www.fernandogonzalez.net
Just sayin...
EDIT: Never mind! I just downloaded RapidFetcher and I was able to quickly download an entire event's favorites. SO SWEET! This really helps.
http://www.fernandogonzalez.net
Hi Malte,
We have fixed the issue. Thanks for reporting the problem!
-Brian
Thanks, Ryan. That helps a lot.
As you can probably tell, this feature was primarily designed to be event-specific and to comprise a self-contained group of galleries. The only workaround that comes to mind is to have a customer simply populate their cart as they go and then narrow down the photos before they check out (that's how I do it myself). However, now that the groundwork for favorites is built... enabling site-wide favorites for all visitors may be something we will look into. Thanks, again!
-Anne
SmugMug Support Hero
Totally. But I'm still having trouble. I created an event, and then sent it to an alternate email address as a mock "particiapant". When I am logged in as a pro, and I add favorites, they show up as "my favorites" when I am logged OUT of my pro account, but "logged in" using the participant's event link. The participant can see my favorites as is they are his. Likewise, if the participant selects a favorite, it shows up in "my favorites" when I am logged in as a Pro. I figured this wasn't intentional... I will keep playing around to see if this is a cookies-related issue.
Thanks for the response... and thanks again for the great start with a new feature, and for receiving feedback with an open mind. I look forward to continuing to explore the new features.
Matt Dudley Photography
Nashville child photographer
Twitter: @mattdudleyphoto
Facebook: facebook.com/mattdudleyphotography
Favorites are tied to each instance of a participant link, not each person viewing the event. So if you hand out one participant link to two different people, they will be collecting favorites into the same favorites gallery. If you hand out two different participant links, each person will be collecting their own separate favorites. So, the system can be collaborative or not, depending on how you chose to use it. Does this make sense?
Thanks and keep the great feedback coming!
-Brian
Ah..... yes, that makes a good deal of sense, thanks. That probably explains it -- I'll bet I was testing it using the same link. Makes sense why that wouldn't work.
Ok, so I'm a bride. And I get sent a link from my Pro. And I want to share my awesome pictures with my friends. So, not realizing how the system works, I just forward the link to my pals. The bride has now destroyed the set-up, right? Her favorites are gonna be mixed with her friend's favorites... is that right? She could only have avoided this by sending a new link to her friends... and, in fact, she'd have to send a unique link to each friend, or her friends' favorites would get jumbled together as well? Is that right?
Matt Dudley Photography
Nashville child photographer
Twitter: @mattdudleyphoto
Facebook: facebook.com/mattdudleyphotography
Keep 'em coming, I can't wait to continue to improve this system!
-Brian
Gotcha. Yes, I saw that second email option. So, if she sends a second email, do those guests have any option to mark favorites? Or are people only able to mark favorites if they are considered an event participant, and invited directly by a Pro?
Matt Dudley Photography
Nashville child photographer
Twitter: @mattdudleyphoto
Facebook: facebook.com/mattdudleyphotography
This is going to be killer! I'm a wedding photographer, who does a bunch of pro-bono work for a couple of churches (folks who are not web savvy) and sending them this link will be great! Quick q's and a comment.
1-if I have a password protected gallery, and put it in an event, will the person need the password to get in still?
2-If I have a hidden gallery (no password) and put it in an event will it show up in their list of galleries in the event?
1 or 3.. What is the possibility of having a log in page, where someone could browse to enter a name/e-mail and password and access a share group or event (and be able to add photos to the "favorites" in the event). I have people constantly asking me to re-send them the link to the share group, as they are browsing photos from the share group from 2007 for some new need....
Thanks and as always you guys rock!
www.photobby.com
www.adamstevensphotography.com
The "guest" link only allows photos to be viewed and purchased (if they are for sale). Only the participant links allow favorites to be collected.