The Blog is Moving!
05 Nov 2010 Leave a Comment
in Announcements Tags: blossom, blossom publishing, information
Just an FYI: The blog is moving over to a new website, BitsOfBlossom.com. Please change your bookmarks – remain updated there!
Press Printed Card Templates now Alive!
19 Oct 2010 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: blossom, blossom publishing, design, folded cards, greeting cards, information, layout, notecards, press printed cards, press printed products, printing
Hey everyone!
We’ve been busy over the last month working to add some new features and fun to our product line, giving photographers great new products and cool new features to make your business and your life more valuable.
One of the things we’ve been working on is adding custom templates online for our Press Printed Cards. Many sites make you pay to use their predesigned templates, but not us – ours are free when you order any of our predesigned templates!
We wanted to make things easier for you when creating your holiday cards. That’s why we made cool designs for you. All you have to do is upload your photos, enter text, and choose your font! After you’ve chosen everything, you can preview your card online and change anything you may not like. Cool, huh?
How to order custom Press Printed Cards using our online templates:
Step 1: Log onto Blossom’s Press Printed Card Catalog and select either Folded Cards or Notecards. Select Create Your Card.
Step 2: Select the size and style of the type of card you want. Right now, we have three different styles up: Damask, Flakes of Color, and Contemporary designs (click to see low-res samples).
Step 3: Enter some text to be on the card, choose your fonts, and upload your photos.
Step 4: When you upload your photographs, you can crop your photos to include just what you want to include!
Step 5: Preview your Press Printed Card right there by clicking the green ‘Preview’ button. Your card will load, and you can take a look at the low-res version of what your card will look like! Don’t like your font or picture? No problem! Just try a different one and preview it again before ordering.
It’s that simple! You don’t have to do any designing or worrying if your card will show up nice. You’ll see the proof online right away, and can make any changes to it in seconds.
Want to do your own designing? No problem! You can still use our templates to upload your own art to get an equally stunning Holiday Card.
Interested in seeing any samples before you choose your printed cards? Send us an e-mail or give us a call at (800) 972-9861!
A couple things to come…
22 Sep 2010 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: blossom, blossom publishing, canvas by blossom, information, marketing, marketing strategy, new technology, photography marketing, press printed products
As we’ve mentioned on our Twitter Feed a couple of times, we’re spending some early autumn time working on a few improvements to our websites to make your experience with Blossom more valuable.
Here are a couple things you’ll start to see in the next couple weeks:
1) Improving the functionality of Blossom-Publishing.com
We’re not necessarily ‘redesigning’ our homepage, but we’re definitely reskinning it and making it easier to navigate. Blossom-Publishing.com will soon have more content added to help you, the photographer, market your studio.
A preview of Blossom’s new informational sections, geared toward marketing strategy for photographers.
Blossom’s website will have content-specific pages to give photographers ideas, help and assistance on marketing themselves. ‘Content-specific pages’ means having good, essential marketing tips, materials and resources available for photographer to market to the specific demographic they’re looking for.
For example, above you can see an example of a page specifically for photographers marketing to High School Seniors. We will provide specific pages for family photographers, senior photographers, wedding and children photographers to start. Our experts have years of experience helping photographers get more clients; now our insights will be on the web for you to get an idea of marketing’s best practices.
Another upgrade to Blossom’s website will be the organization. People will be able to go to our homepage and know exactly where to go to accomplish what they want to. Photographers who venture our way ready to order a product will still be able to order their marketing materials with ease.
Now, photographers who are looking for resources or marketing help for their studio will be able to find resources just as easily. There will also be special sections on mailing services, list acquisition, templates and guides for setting up your files, so from start to finish you know you’ll be creating a top-notch product for your prospects to see.
2) Working on custom holiday card/greeting card templates on Blossom’s Press Printed Products
Blossom’s Press Printed Products are the way to go when ordering smaller quantities of notecards and folded cards either to send out to friends and family or resell to your customers looking to take family photographs and print their cards with you. We’re adding some great new features to our website to make your press printed cards even easier!
To print any of Blossom’s current press printed cards, users have to upload the entire card that’s predesigned by itself. After hearing feedback from you, we’ve found that users would love having the option of predesigned holiday card templates where they can enter text, upload pictures, and go.
So we went ahead and made custom templates where you don’t have to do any designing! Just upload a couple of pictures, enter some text and you’re done! It takes all the pain and time out of designing Holiday cards or Greeting cards yourself. Take a look at a couple of our sample designs below:
Kick some Damask with our upcoming Damask-patterned notecard and folded card templates!
Our Flakes of Color patterns are perfect for Holiday cards in many quantities!
Watch our Facebook page for the debut of our holiday card templates!
3) Improving CanvasByBlossom.com.
CanvasByBlossom.com is getting a makeover! We will be transitioning from the current site to a more user-friendly, efficient look. Photographers will be able to order their canvas gallery wraps by three simple steps: choose your size, upload your photo, and check out.
Our website will no longer have live previewing of your canvas in the name of faster load times and a simpler uploading system. In talking with canvas customers, we’ve found it’s more reassuring to send each of our customers a PDF proof of their canvas before printing instead of using a ‘live canvas previewing’ system that slows the website down more than it should.
We will still have the same high quality fine art giclee wraps that leaves every customer more than satisfied, but now we will have an easy-to-use, satisfaction guaranteed online ordering system as well! Watch CanvasByBlossom.com in the coming weeks…
Round Cornering Now Available
30 Aug 2010 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: blossom, blossom publishing, design, information, layout, new technology, photography marketing
Blossom’s Press Printed Products now offer custom round cornering! Now your folded cards, greeting cards, business cards and more can dazzle and look smoother and more distinct than typical sharp corners.
A sample of round cornering – it costs $7.00/25 pieces on any Blossom Press Printed Products
Round cornering isn’t only available on Press Printed Cards, either! You can get it on any of your mailpieces also – the USPS will allow for postcards to have round cornering up to 1/8″ in diameter to be mailed out. This can be done on almost any of our mailpieces and marketing materials offered through Blossom.
To order round cornering for any of our marketing materials we offer on Blossom-Publishing.com, simply Just call us at (800) 972-9861 or e-mail us at info@blossom-publishing.com.
Pearl vs. pURL
30 Aug 2010 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: blossom, blossom publishing, information, new paper, printing, purl campaigns
Everyone is familiar with what a pearl is – the small jewel found in the middle of saltwater oysters. But are you familiar with the phrase, “a pURL printed on Pearl?” What about, “a pURL campaign” or “Pearl Cover?”
pURLs stand for Personalized URLs, a great tool for recruiting prospects and new customers into your studio. pURLs are websites made for each of your prospects that we custom print on every mailpiece. For example, one of your mailpieces that is going to John Smith would have, “John, go to www.JohnSmith.YourStudio.com!” printed right on the piece.
These websites are perfect for getting your prospect to spend a little more time looking at your mailpiece and interacting with it.
Not only that, but if your prospect goes to their website and enters their information, you will get to see who entered their information and who didn’t. pURLs can recruit, they can confirm the success of your marketing campaign… they work great!
Blossom is well aware of the similarities of pURLs and pearls.
On the other hand, Pearl is a type of paper our customers print on commonly. It’s a glossy paper, but has some natural texture to go with it that gives it a little extra ‘shine.’ Instead of just being shiny and glossy like a typical gloss paper, but when printed on it adds a luminescent, sparkling feel to the print – ‘pearlescent,’ as one might say.
You can find more information about a pURL campaign by clicking here.
You can order your next mailpiece on pearl paper simply by choosing the type of paper when checking out online. If you’d like to see some samples of pearl-specific products, please request a sample pack and ask specifically for Pearl paper products!
7 Different Uses for Stickers
27 Aug 2010 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: blossom, blossom publishing, information, marketing, marketing strategy, printing, stickers
Blossom’s stickers come in a variety of sizes and shapes – but not prices. Little things like stickers and magnets are two of the more underrated products you can put in your marketing arsenal.
They’re simple, reinforce your brand and logo, and very inexpensive considering the numer of times customers and prospects will see them in a given year.
What are the best ways to use stickers to your advantage? We’ve put together a little list of 7 great uses for stickers:
1] Place your stickers on your studio’s Photo Boxes. When you craft or sell photo boxes to your customers and clients, stickers are great to use as ‘sticky signatures’ on top of your photo boxes. If you design a sticker that’s similar in look to custom photo boxes you use, a really nice eloquent photo box will make your customer feel better about their photographs.
2] Put them on the back of framed prints and canvas gallery wraps. Here’s a hypothetical situation: A guest in one of your customers’ homes walks up to a canvas gallery wrap and says, “Wow, that’s beautiful! When did this picture get taken?”
Your customer begins talking about the photograph, and sooner or later, the guest has been referred to you by looking at the photographer on the back of the gallery wrap — and the new customer now has your logo in their head.
They’re also just great additions to put on the back of canvas gallery wraps so that your customer associates that print to your studio’s work.
3] Use them to tie together belly bands! If you’re putting together a package of prints or a band of brochures, many photographers like to use belly bands to keep them wrapped and look good doing it. Designing a custom belly band sticker to keep them tied together is a great way to add a signature to the belly band. Your customer will really appreciate it.
A great opportunity to put a sticker on a belly band – your logo will be the first thing they see. We can make belly bands too! Call us for a custom quote – (800) 583-5370
4] Stick them on envelopes. Another great idea is to use a custom sticker as your return address label on envelopes that you send to your customers instead of handwriting it. Sticker labels have been used as address labels for quite some time; a 2″x3.5″ sticker is perfect for envelopes. It can also be stuck on the back of an envelope to seal it before mailing.
5] Add them onto gift bags and other packaging for your customers. Putting your stickers on Photo Boxes was already mentioned above (#1), but stickers on packaging doesn’t have to stop there. Anything you place prints into should be fair game for putting your logo on. This could include folders, gift bags, wallet boxes, even cellophane wrap – customers will think it’s an ‘extra touch’ from your studio.
Even putting stickers on your own equipment is a good idea – for example, if you’re taking pictures of each family at a wedding, everyone who’s involved in the pictures will know the studio that’s taking them.
6] Insert them on or into your portfolio. Anytime you hand out or put together an image portfolio for customers (or anyone else) to look through, stickers are a great addition to the portfolio. They compliment the images nicely; it gives the portfolio a little more of ‘your touch’ that could make your customer more comfortable when browsing through your photographs to see if they appreciate your photography.
7] Add them on the inside of any books you distribute. If you’re a photographer that offers wedding books or other ‘photo binders,’ putting stickers on the inside of either cover will brand those photographs with your studio.
Putting them on the front cover will make your sticker the first thing the person sees; on the back cover, a sticker will make the person think, “this studio took all those pictures.”
Do you have any good ideas for stickers? Post them here!
A look at our Gift Card Mailers
05 Aug 2010 4 Comments
in Uncategorized Tags: blossom, blossom publishing, gift card mailers, marketing, marketing strategy, photography marketing, printing
Gift-Card Mailers are quickly becoming one of Blossom’s most popular and successful products among photographers who use them.
Gift card mailers are almost exactly what they sound like: custom die-cut mailpieces with a gift card attached. These gift cards come perforated to you (or your customer) so they can easily tear off the gift card and redeem at your studio. Many photographers who have printed Gift card mailers through Blossom have found cool, creative ways to use them to their advantage!
You may see the word ‘mailer’ and think its best use is as a recruiting mailpiece tool. Indeed, sending gift card mailers to your prospects is a great way to get your prospect to feel like your studio provides the best value and the best services, but there are more potential uses for gift card mailers than an actual mailpiece.
The inside of a gift card mailer – its function isn’t necessarily solely for a gift card, but it opens up into a great looking advertising piece as well.
The picture above is the inside spread of a gift card mailer – as you can see, you have an extensive, easy canvas to work with to show off all your photography – making the gift card mailer not just a single gift card, but a tri-fold brochure to show off your product line as well.
“The [gift card] mailers have been working great! I’m so happy I went with them to get some extra seniors this year.”
– Cortney Larson, Creative Concepts by Cortney
Many photographers use gift card mailers as an actual mailing to prospects. Another option for a photographer to use is as a handout after you’ve already made a sale – handing out a gift card mailer as your customer leaves your studio will be a great add-on to increase retention rates. It gives your customer an incentive to place another order in the future, because giving them a certain dollar amount off gives them a reason to do another portrait session with you.
The ‘gift card’ part of a gift card mailer.
Gift card mailers are also perfect for any wedding shows you go to. Newly engaged couples and new families would love to see a piece that not only shows off your products, creativity and pricing, but has a special offer attached onto the brochure as well – they can just tear off the gift card and bring it into the studio when they’ve made a decision on using you as their photographer!
Don’t forget – gift card mailers are great for mailing to prospects, too! Here’s the back side of the piece, with the mailing panel and everything.
The Versatile and Effective 4-page Magazine
15 Jul 2010 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: blossom, blossom publishing, design, layout, magazines, mailing, mailing services
One of the most underrated products in Blossom’s repetoire is the 4-page magazine. Usually the first thing that pops into someone’s head when they think of the word “magazine” is a periodical like Time, People or Newsweek with around 100 full-color, glossy pages.
Instead, Blossom’s 4-page magazines are essentially an 11×17 sheet folded in half into an 8.5×11. These ‘small magazines’ are great for showing off a large consortium of your portraits, displaying your price list and summer photo offers, or other special offers or products. However, the folding of an 11×17 doesn’t have to stop at ‘just one fold.’ For no extra charge, you can fold the “magazine” again into an 8.5×11 bi-fold or tri-fold. This saves bundles of money on mailing.
Are you planning on mailing an 8.5×11 4-page magazine to your prospects? Consider reworking it into a magazine that can fold into an 8.5×5.5 or 8.5×3.7 to save some dough. 8.5×11 magazines mail at different rates ($0.55 per piece) than bi-folds or tri-folds ($0.31 per piece), and your magazine piece would actually count as a “bi-fold” or “tri-fold” if you folded and tabbed the piece accordingly.
8.5×11 bifold, 1000 qty, standard paper, Standard Mail Rate: $391.00 for printing, $395.00 for postage, $20.00 for 1 tab – $806.00 total
8.5×11 bifolded 4-page magazine, 1000 qty, standard paper, Standard Mail rate: $480.00 for printing, $395.00 for postage, $20.00 for 1 tab – $895.00 total
8.5×11 4-page magazine mailed as 8.5×11, 1000 qty, standard paper, Standard Mail rate: $480.00 for printing, $635.00 for postage – $1115.00 total
For less than $100 more, you can double the size of real estate you have to work with (going from an 8.5×11 sheet to an 11×17) and greatly increase your canvas for your photographs and creativity. For example, instead of scrunching a couple photos and pricing information into a tri-fold, you could for a tiny bit more make an extravagant tri-fold with this same information that opens up into a huge collage of your images of all types (outdoor, indoor etc.) or last year’s seniors.
The image above is a picture of the back of a 4-page magazine folded into a bi-fold…
…and here it is unfolded. To mail, the magazine was folded in half (into an 8.5×11 sheet), then folded in half again to an 8.5×5.5. When the recipient of the magazine opened up their mailer, this is what they saw:
Then, the prospect could open it up again, and find a large 11×17 poster with tons of your pictures; images perfect for your prospect:
4-page magazines like this tend to work. Check out what this photographer said about the above piece: “Your designers did an awesome job! I could have never designed a piece as nice. I am busier than ever!” – Denise, Punt’s Pics
Being able to turn your mailpiece into an 11×17 poster with ease could make all the difference. Many prospects are used to seeing tri-folded brochures or postcards; a magazine folded into one can create more ‘interactivity’ with your prospect as they spend more time looking at your piece and seeing what’s inside. It’s more valuable time spent with your prospect, which could make you stand out above other studios.
Remember, as usual with most of Blossom’s products, we have magazine layout templates available for you to use when designing your piece. Better yet – choose Blossom’s design services and allow us to make the perfect piece for you!
Mailing Your Printed Piece with Blossom – Postage Rates and Info – Part 2
23 Jun 2010 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: blossom, blossom publishing, mailing, mailing services, photography marketing
This is part two of our two-part post about mailing services with Blossom. To read part 1, click here.
On our last post we went in-depth about some of the more confusing parts of Blossom’s mailing services – mail types available to you, postcard sizes and rates, and other such information pertaining to mailing postcards through Blossom. This post will touch on everything else you can mail through us – digests, magazines, bifolds and quadfolds.
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Brochures
Most brochures and magazines mail for a rate similar to that of a standard-sized postcard ($0.31/piece standard rate with a 200 piece minimum, $0.40/piece first class with a 500 piece minimum). Compare that to the typical $0.44/piece you would spend if you applied stamps yourself. This includes any of Blossom’s single-sheet folded products: bi-folds, tri-folds, and quadfold brochures. Even though brochures and postcards are completely different products, the USPS treats them as the same!
The prices for mailing brochures don’t include any tabs the piece will need – scroll down for more info on tabs. They also don’t include inkjetting names on your piece.
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Digests and Magazines
Digests are very similarly priced postagewise with medium-sized postcards, with one main exception. 8-page and 12-page digests ordered through Blossom still weigh under one ounce, which qualifies them for cheaper postage rates than you’d expect – $0.31 for standard rate, $0.40 for first class. (In order to mail any digest, however, each piece will need at least one tab – scroll down to read more) However, 16-page digests are over one ounce per piece, so the postage for mailing 16-pagers first class depends more on weight and list accuracy. Standard rates are still $0.31 per piece (200 piece minimum).
Magazines, on the other hand, mail standard rate at $0.55 per piece no matter how many pages it is. Compare mailing an 8-page or 12-page magazine: if you choose Blossom’s Standard Rates, you can mail your magazines at $0.55 per piece, while the cost of applying a stamp yourself is over $1.00 per piece! By doing your printing and mailing through Blossom, you win with our excellently discounted mailing prices.
If you would like your magazine mailed first class, please call us for a custom quote.
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Tabbing
On any brochure, digest, magazine, or other folded piece, there need to be tabs on the mailpiece itself. How many tabls you need on your piece depends on several factors: which way the piece is oriented, where the mailing panel is on the piece, and what edge is on the bottom of the mailing panel.
The best way to avoid as many tabs as possible is to orient your piece landscape instead of portrait. When looking at your piece (in landscape), make sure the mailing panel is touching the folded edge on the bottom – this will make only one tab necessary as your piece travels through the USPS’ mailing equipment. If your piece is not oriented with the mailing panel touching the folded edge or your mailing panel is portrait-aligned, you may need additional tabe on your piece.
If you folded the cover of this magazine over, the mailing panel would be on the folded edge. This will mean you only need 1 tab. If the mailing panel was upside-down, you would most likely need 3 tabs. (Digests will always need 3 tabs.)
Tabs are charged as follows: If you need one tab, it’s 2 cents/piece. Two tabs – 4 cents/piece. Three tabs – 5 cents/piece. If you’re unsure of how many tabs your piece will need – our friendly customer service team would be happy to help you.
If you have any questions about printing and mailing your piece through Blossom, or want to get started on your next piece, visit us online or call us at (800) 972-9861!
Mailing Your Printed Piece with Blossom – Postage Rates and Info – Part 1
22 Jun 2010 1 Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: blossom, blossom publishing, mailing, mailing services, marketing strategy, self-mailers
As we’ve mentioned earlier, one of the best ways to win using Blossom is to do all your printing and mailing in one wheelhouse – not only will inkjetting your prospects’ names make your piece look more attractive, but it saves you the time and hassle of printing out and applying mailing labels yourself before going to the post office. Saving the time, trouble and money makes our mailing services well worth it… so you can keep on taking pictures.
How much does it actually cost for Blossom’s list and mailing services? How does the USPS price different sized postcards, bifolds, digests or magazines?
No matter what size you do pick, ultimately it depends. You can mail your piece First Class or Standard Rate.
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First Class or Standard Rate?
For most mailers, you can choose between First Class and Standard Rate mailing. The USPS handles each type differently; at the end of the day, when the postal workers are loading up the trucks, the first priority for them is First Class Mail. If they have time before the end of the day, that’s when they’ll get to the Standard Mail. Naturally, since First Class is higher on the ‘priority list,’ it costs a bit more than Standard Rates. In other words, the essential differences between the two are:
-First Class is slightly more expensive than Standard Rate.
-First Class mailers take usually 5-7 business days to reach their destination, while Standard Rate takes 7-10 business days.
-Bad addresses on first class mailers are ‘return to sender’ back to you, while bad addresses in Standard Rate mailers just get thrown out. One thing to consider if you’re doing multiple mailers with a purchased mailing list – first class on the first mailing could save you a lot of money down the road if we take the bad addresses off your mailing list before future mailings.
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Postcards
Blossom has six different sizes of postcards for you to choose from. However, in the world of the USPS, Blossom really only has three: small, standard and large. Each size is priced differently.
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Small postcards are 4.125×5.5 postcards only. These postcards can only be mailed via First Class and postage is $0.26 per postcard (500 piece minimum). Compare that to $0.28/stamp if you apply postage yourself!
- Standard postcards are any postcard that isn’t 8.5×11. All of these postcards cost the same, postage-wise: $0.31 for Bulk Rate, $0.40 for First Class (200 piece minimum). Think about this: If you normally send out 5.5×8.5 postcards, consider upgrading to a 6×11 – the printing costs aren’t much more money, and the postage is exactly the same! You’ll send a larger postcard to your customers – meaning more real estate to show your studio off – without spending much more money!
- Large postcards are 8.5x11s. $0.55 for bulk rate, and $0.79 for First Class (also a 200 piece minimum).
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Inkjet Fees
In addition to USPS costs, we also perform CASS Certification (weeds out bad addresses from the mailing list) as well as National Change Of Address (NCOA) checks before every mailing. When the Post Office measures the cost of any first class or bulk mail piece, one of the things they check for is how accurate and easy the addresses are. If there are a bunch of bad addresses on the mailing list, or they are confusing and difficult for the USPS to locate, the cost will be much higher than a good database. Performing NCOA checks and CASS Certifications before every mailing keeps these bad addresses to a minimum.
This is how we can keep our postage rates so low. By refining addresses before the mailpiece hits the mailboxes, we save money, and we pass those costs along to you.
Mail Inkjetting rates for Blossom. This is a per-piece charge – click above for larger quantities.
Inkjetting rates include every service related to mailing that isn’t simply the cost of postage. CASS Certification, NCOA checks, inkjetting prospects’ names on their mailpieces, and everything else detailed here.
Tomorrow, we’ll post Part 2 – All other non-postcard mailers and tabbing procedures!
