Making it easy for people to buy

Hungry · January 11, 2013

what's the secret?

when you upload 100 photos from an event - do we expect the potential buyers to go through all 100 photos to find what they like?

do you use captions?

do you use key words?

this issue is complicated with sports where there are a dozen games during the season. Yes, each game is in a different gallery - but what parent wants to go through 1200 photos to find the dozen of their athlete to buy?
I have had very poor sales (in my view) over the past year, but took some hard prints to the season end basketball banquet last year and parents snapped them up. Do I need to make more prints and sell them that way? Or has someone 'solved the riddle' of using smugmug for this sort of sale?

mrneutron · January 11, 2013

Yes, SmugMug uses keywords for search.
See our help page on how search works. http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/98690
http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93291
http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93290-how-do-i-add-captions-to-my-photos-

For your sports shooting, you can upload your photos, then add keywords such as player number and/or player first and last name. Then they can search and anything that matches the keyword will be returned in the search.

For specific help with your galleries, send an email to help@smugmug.com

MomaZunk · January 12, 2013

Hungry,
Yes you are having the same issues as others in the sports area. And even if you add keywords, or set up events in smugmug for people to save their favorites too, you will only have a few parents that will actually take the time to purchase online.
For pics online, be sure to watermark the entire image. Parents feel like it is no big deal to do a screen shot, and use the image as their own. The watermark will still not prevent this, just makes sure you name is associated with the image.
Make sure and get the pics up within 24 hours of the game, so there is still excitement about them, and keep the photos to the absolute best at 150 or less.
The only option is to shoot games where you are paid to shoot, and offer a credit for prints. Otherwise you can spend a lot of time and effort with only a few prints sales to show for it.
Take a look at some posts in Mind Your Own Business.

Hungry · January 14, 2013

thank you.

MomaZunk wrote: »

Hungry,
Yes you are having the same issues as others in the sports area. And even if you add keywords, or set up events in smugmug for people to save their favorites too, you will only have a few parents that will actually take the time to purchase online.
For pics online, be sure to watermark the entire image. Parents feel like it is no big deal to do a screen shot, and use the image as their own. The watermark will still not prevent this, just makes sure you name is associated with the image.
Make sure and get the pics up within 24 hours of the game, so there is still excitement about them, and keep the photos to the absolute best at 150 or less.
The only option is to shoot games where you are paid to shoot, and offer a credit for prints. Otherwise you can spend a lot of time and effort with only a few prints sales to show for it.
Take a look at some posts in Mind Your Own Business.

Thanks MomaZunk - you hit my nail on the head.
I think I have been the victim of "screen capture thieves" (my guess was that it was the kids - who neither have a credit card, nor a need for high quality prints - or any print at all for that matter).
I have not watermarked the shots - I just don't like to look at them that way. And, early last season, I found one on facebook WITH the watermark - put there by a student who was promoting the student pep group.
And, thanks for the referral to the MYOB forum - I am new here and was wondering where to post the question - after I was told by the person on live chat that maybe I should downgrade from pro if I wasn't selling on line.
In the past few days, I have been working with a coach to come up with a 'middle ground' - so I get paid for some effort and she gets action and posed shots of her 'could be state champ' squad (which includes her daughter). I have done much of this (and more including publishing a 25 page program updated weekly) in the past for nada. My thought was that if the photos got good enough, people would buy. WRONG - whether 25cents or $5 for a 4x6 - minimal sales - and I would say that the photos are great - but with only one apparent customer for each action shot, there isn't much of a market.
I am not shooting all games this season - and sat in the stands for my first home game this week in 3 or 4 years. Not so bad.
But, I have explained the situation to the coach - no buy/no take. And, the only measure of intent to buy is the advance payment, like you are talking about (but from the parents in this case) - though I am working on a fee based thing for the girl's hoops coach - because she has money left over in her budget.
I will see what sort of answers the folks in the MYOB forum have. Thanks again.

FabFierceFotoger · March 11, 2013

We have a team of sports shooterz covering a large league and post roughly 800-1,000 shots a week. One of the cool features of Smug is ability to publish from your Smug gallery to a Facebook fan page (or your personal page). The posting will carry your watermark and you control the size of the photo. You also can include a direct link back to that photo in Smug or the entire gallery. One of the benefits of publishing a sampling on FB is that you can then tag the photos with players names. Then the player and all their friends will see the photo and hopefully link over to your Smug gallery and be moved to make a purchase. It is of course a fine line about what you publish to FB and what you only keep in Smug but we find it is a great way to broaden the audience for your shots and create new potential customers.

David Evertsen · March 12, 2013

Posting pictures on FB is never the answer to better sales for me.. I shoot HS sport 2-3 times a week and found a system using Smugmug smart galleries, Keywords and Photo Mechanic for Code replacement. The parents not only can look at just their kids but can buy a downloadable galleries or I can sell them a CD at the end of the season of just their athlete, It works really well. I use this system for sorting bib numbers 0-100 range etc and male, female for triathalons I shoot.. It only adds about 15 minutes at the end of my post processing. If you have any questions please email me..

Here is a write-up that was done with SM and me on how I do it..

http://news.smugmug.com/2011/09/26/photog-tip-of-the-week-sell-smarter-with-smart-galleries-by-david-evertsen/

Please check my Boone High School galleries for Football, Basketball and Volleyball from this season to see how I do it.. I only shoot for 2 HS and tend to shoot more than 2 games I will do Player # galleries.. It has helped me sell more especially when I talk to the parents in person, they don't like to choose and giving them the oppourtunity for all really helps..

mbonocore · March 19, 2013

David is right on the money. That is a great writeup, and is very helpful.

Facebook can be beneficial as well. The more places the photo is found, the more people see it, the more sales opportunities are generated.

Michael

Making it easy for people to buy

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