Our digital picture frames are successfully being used by many businesses to gain a competitive edge in their environments. Nathan Sawatzky is a professional wedding photographer in Vancouver who is effectively using his digital photo frame to grow his business. Here’s how he does it.

The number one way that wedding photographers generate new business is through referrals, word of mouth referrals from their satisfied customers. As you know, word of mouth is incredibly powerful advertising, but the trick is, how do you get people talking about you in the first place? As a photographer, if you’re as good during the photo shoot as Nathan is with his clients, you’re bound to get some compliments, and even referrals, but how can you put that into overdrive?

For Nathan, the solution was simple. Get your work in front of people when they will appreciate it the most. He did this with a digital picture frame from DigitalFrameGuy.com. On the wedding day, immediately after the photo shoot, Nathan uses a laptop running Show It software to very quickly edit approximately 40 of the best pictures from the day, on the spot. He then uploads these 40 pictures to a CompactFlash memory card, which is easily inserted into his 17” Digital Spectrum Memory Frame MV1700.

As the wedding party returns to the reception, Nathan slips his MV1700 on the corner of the bar, along with a healthy stack of business cards. Nathan’s frame is equipped with an automatic slideshow feature, allowing him to merely turn it on, and walk away while beautiful photos of the lucky couple start showing all evening long.

Why It Works So Well

The benefits to this strategy should be obvious, but we’re going to lay them out for you just to be certain the brilliance is obvious to all.

1. The bride and groom are delighted to have their precious photos displayed so quickly. At most weddings the guests do not usually get to see the professional photos (only their own), and, for the few guests that do get to see the photos, it is usually weeks later when the couple is back from honeymoon. For that matter, the couple themselves rarely see the pictures until then!
2. The guests are excited about seeing the photos for the same reason. For logistical reasons, guests are not typically invited to the photo shoot along with the wedding party, so these photos are all new to them.
3. Every time someone gets another drink from the bar they will see the photos playing off to the side. Nathan can testify that in many cases these people walk back to their table and immediately tell their friends about the photos that are playing by the bar.
4. The photos get even better the more people take trips to the bar!
5. At nearly every wedding there is someone in attendance who is soon to be getting married themselves, or has a close friend in that position. Nathan says the best time to get a business card into that persons’ hands is exactly as they are being overwhelmed by the beauty and professionalism of the work their friends’ received. Good thing that stack of business cards is right beside the digital picture frame!

Nathan Sawatzky uses a 17″ digital frame in his business – why don’t you too?

On a recent business trip to Dallas, the hotel I was staying at had digital picture frames placed in key locations around the hotel. Naturally, this caught my attention. I noticed them at the front desk, in the lobby, in the windows of some offices off the hallways, and at the reception desk in the restaurant. They were very large, I think only 7 or 8 inch frames, and they looked very classy. Each frame had the same slide show playing; a collection of professionally taken pictures of different parts of the hotel, showcasing their facilities and services.

The brilliant part of this strategy was that it gave the hotel an opportunity to cross-sell their services to their customer. I wasn’t even aware that they had such nice gym, sauna and spa facilities until I saw the pictures in the digital frame. People who stay in hotels on business trips don’t usually take the time to wander the hallways and see what else there is available. They just don’t have time. Therefore, without giving each person a sales pitch when the arrive, most people wouldn’t find out about these things.

Benefits

The benefits in this particular case would be increased use of the hotel’s facilities, presumably leading to increased customer satisfaction, and therefore a higher rate of re-bookings. Anytime there is something you can do to impress on your customer that you are better than the competition, it is well worth doing.

Convenient

The digital frames served the purpose of educating me about my options – on my own time, in a way that was interesting to me, and very quickly. I was free to walk right past if I chose, or if I wanted, I could quickly watch the whole slide show in about a minute.

You see, many businesses just focus on getting people in the door. However, once there, the next challenge is to see how you can serve them best, and therefore maximize their profit potential to you.

Irresistible

People can’t help but look at moving pictures. Have you ever been to someone’s house, trying to have a conversation, and the other person kept watching the TV, even though the sound was off? It’s the same idea. Our eyes are naturally drawn to the movement. Business owners can use this to their advantage by setting up a quick slide show on a digital frame. People will naturally stop and look, even for a brief moment. Use these few seconds to your advantage!

Simple to Implement

Setting up a slide show takes very little time on the part of the business owner, and then digital picture frame will function as a mini advertising node for as long as you want it to. It is not intrusive, and if done well, it will actually draw the customer’s attention for a brief minute, and hopefully give them something to think about.

So now that you’ve learned something that is working in another industry – don’t just file that away for posterity. Stop. Take a moment to think of one way you could use a digital picture frame in your business. It just might be easier to implement than you thought!

Check out our selection of 8″ digital frames!