Client Presentation – Another Look at Digital Files on Disk

Hi everyone, Christine here. Please welcome this evening’s guest blogger, Nicole Wandrie from Joyful Heart Photography in Crookston, Minnesota. Nicole is a Certified Professional Photographer and one of my virtual BFFs. She shared some photos with me of her digital file presentation and I asked her if I could feature them on Wootness!™ and she graciously agreed to write an article as well, since I was in a bit of a time pinch. So, let’s give Nicole a warm Wootness!™ welcome. (Thank you Nicole – IOU a Wootness!™ shirt!)

Hi everyone!

I’m helping Christine out and writing a short article today. Kind of a followup to her article from yesterday about Digital File Presentation. You can find the original post here.

There are many ways you can customize your delivery depending on your personal taste. One option for creating a custom presentation is to have disks made from your favorite labs. I know Christine likes MpixPro, and they offer custom printed disks. You can be assured that the quality is top notch, and all you have to do is finish your design, send it in, and then receive it in just a few days. I’m more hands on than that, and I prefer to print my own. I recently purchased the Epson Artisan 835 printer that offers a direct-to-disk printing option among other options. The color and quality of the printer is great. And if I mess up burning the information on the disk, I can do another one without waiting for the lab! LOL

My design is based off of a template purchased from Album Cafe. I know Christine hasn’t had a chance to talk about these guys yet, so I get to have the first word! 🙂  Most of the templates I use for album design is from this company. I could go on and on about their designs and the ease of use, but I won’t because you’ll get bored. LOL Let’s just say, their work is great, and at a completely reasonable price.

My trifold card is from Miller’s Pro Lab, the “big sister” company to Mpix Pro. I wanted something that would stand out a little bit, so I chose the folding Luxe card design. The shape is similar to one of the Album Cafe designs, so it worked out really well. I’ve read one of the best things you can do with branding your company is to stay consistent with your designs, so that is a goal I’ve been trying to work towards.

I also include care and printing instructions on the inside of the card in order to help my clients get the best possible prints if they choose not to order from me. The card also has the print release, with information on what they can, and cannot, use the images for. I have gone a step further and I also include a copy of the print release in jpg form on the disk with the images. We encourage our customers to make copies of their disks in order to safe guard their images, but what happens if they take the copied disk to a lab, and forget their print release? The lab (if they are doing their job correctly) will be asking for the release, and then you have a customer who is upset because they can’t receive their photos. With the jpg copy on the disk, it is easy enough for the customer to print that release off right then and there. Including a pdf  or Word file will not work, as the kiosks at the local labs do not recognize those files. Just think of it as one little thing you can do to make your clients’ lives easier. 🙂

Little touches like a professional-looking disk will set you apart in your client’s mind. I recently delivered a disk to a wedding client who was surprised at how nice it looked. She hadn’t even looked at the images on the computer yet, and she was already very impressed. Joking with her, I asked, “Did you think I was just going to give you a plain disk with your name written in sharpie?” Her comment back to me was, “No, but I wasn’t sure what we would get.” A lot of new photographers tend to overlook the final presentation, and in doing so are losing out on one more chance to really leave their customer with a great impression. Would my wedding client be as happy with a plain disk with sharpie? Probably, because she had hired me to take her wedding photos and those were definitely up to her expectations. (Of course! LOL) Did the extra few dollars I spent on a custom delivery make any difference? You bet! Any time she pulls that disk out, she is going to remember how surprised she was, and that is always a good thing.

Thanks for reading through this and I hope I’ve given you some food for thought!

Nicole Wandrie
Joyful Heart Photography