Millers Blog

July 2009 - Posts

• Enter the We Are Miller's Ad Contest!

  COMING SOON! Enter the We Are Miller's Ad Contest and win a starring role in a Miller's Lab ad! It's easy to enter -- upload an image of you with your favorite Miller's product and tell us why you love it or how you use it in your studio. The submission period starts Monday, July 27th at noon CST and will run through August 27th at 11:59 PM CST.  The entries and voting process will be done via the Miller's facebook page. Once posting closes, you'll have a chance to vote for all your favorite entries, as well as invite your friends to vote for the entries too! We'll take the top images with the most votes, and employees of Miller’s Professional Imaging will select first, second, and third place winners out of the pool of finalists. The first place winner will be featured in the national We Are Miller's ad campaign, running in both Professional Photographer and Rangefinder. Additional details coming soon -- stay tuned!   Posted Jul 24 2009, 02:44 PM by Julie Brown with no comments Filed under: Millers, Contests, We Are Millers

• 2009 Baby & Child Contest Winners!

  After much deliberation, 2009 Miller’s Baby & Child Contest winners have been crowned! Thanks to all of you, this year's contest was a huge success. High levels of both posting and voting participation lead to 11,426 entries, easily breaking last year's record. With your help, we were able to narrow the submissions down to eighty fantastic qualifying images. Our panel of judges took it from there, selecting their own favorites, resulting in twenty-one truly stunning portraits, including the Grand Prize winner, Flawless by Carol Scott. With winners now selected, Miller’s will be giving away $24,000 in cash prizes to the families of the winning portraits. We want to express our gratitude to each of you for making this year’s contest the best yet, as well as thank our judges including: Elizabeth & Trey Homan of San Antonio, TX, Brianna Graham of Rockford, MI, Dave Huntsman of Versailles, KY, Michael & Tina Timmons of Vassar, MI, Peg Buckner of Fallon, NV, Damon Tucci of Orlando, FL, and Jessica Vogel of Shelbyville, KY. We appreciate both the time and expertise they shared with us this year. Congratulations to our 2009 winners! If you haven't had a chance to check out the winning portraits, view them here now. Posted Jul 24 2009, 02:30 PM by Julie Brown with no comments

• From Two Leaders Named Bill by Dick Coleman

  Bill Rosenberg, the founder of Dunkin’ Donuts, had a very basic philosophy about marketing. When he was young and beginning to peddle watermelons in front of his dad’s grocery store, he would ask himself, “If I were in their position, why would I buy this product I have to sell?” Then he would create one-line phrases like, “Bring a watermelon home! Surprise your family!” It worked! He then began an industrial luncheon service in 1946 to factory workers in an innovative way. He designed and built mobile “canteen” trucks (very common today) and brought the food to them. You know how successful this has been! Today, Dunkin’ Donuts has 9,000 shops around the world and $5.5 billion in annual sales. That’s a lot of doughnuts! Bill’s philosophy was built around what his father told him. He said, “Reputation, not money, is the most important thing. When you die, the only thing you are going to die with is the reputation you created as a person when you lived. Integrity means when you say you’ll do something, you do it. It will be done the way you said it would be done at the time you said it would be done.”  Being a business partner and son-in-law of Bill Miller for almost four decades, I recall these same ideals coming from his lips and being the foundation of Miller’s. These words should be framed and on the wall of every business.   You have told us that marketing support is a very important “value added” service due to today’s competition. Our marketing coordinator, Julie Brown’s primary role is to help you market to your clients. After all, if you are growing your business, so are we. Hopefully, you have noticed that we are doing this more aggressively than ever. With all that said, this article is to remind all of us to never forget about the basics and what brings clients to us. Standing by what we say is never out of fashion. It will build stronger, faster and longer relationships than any marketing tool. Marketing “gurus” agree that the best advertising is word-of-mouth. Standing by what we say will bring us referral accounts like nothing else. Posted Jul 23 2009, 01:35 PM by Julie Brown with 4 comment(s) Filed under: Newsletter Columns

• Another Terrific Year!

  We just closed out another terrific year of the Miller’s Baby & Child Contest!  We once again shattered previous submission records with 11,426 portraits entered in this year’s contest, and with your help, sent eighty beautiful images into the Final Round to be voted on by our esteemed panel of judges.  They’re working hard right now to determine the 2009 Grand Prize winners, which will be announced by the end of the month.  This year’s panel includes: Elizabeth & Trey Homan of San Antonio, TX Brianna Graham of Rockford, MI Dave Huntsman of Versailles, KY TriCoast Photography of Lake Jackson, TX Michael & Tina Timmons of Vassar, MI Peg Buckner of Fallon, NV Fran Reisner of Frisco, TX Damon Tucci of Orlando, FL Jessica Vogel of Shelbyville, KY Thanks to our panel for sharing their time and expertise with us.  If you haven’t had a chance to view the qualifying images, check them out here.  Again, we appreciate all who participated in the 2009 Baby & Child Contest and look forward to announcing the winners very soon – stay tuned! Posted Jul 08 2009, 11:21 AM by Julie Brown with no comments Filed under: Millers, Baby child contest

• Happy Independence Day!

  On behalf of all of us at Miller's Professional Imaging, Happy Independence Day!  We hope you and yours have a safe and fantastic holiday weekend. We will be closed July 3 - 5, resuming as normal Monday morning. Customer service will be responding to emails on Friday, July 3, and Sunday, July 5, and we'll certainly have production staff here some this weekend too.  (Closed for the holidays typically means something slightly different at Miller's!) Posted Jul 02 2009, 04:08 PM by Jason Becking with no comments Filed under: Happy Holidays

• LayFlat Sale - Now through July 15th!

  Take 50% off all LayFlat Albums and LayFlat Books when added as a companion to a Flush Mount Album.  Upload one design and place your order for any combination of Flush Mounts and companion LayFlats simultaneously. But hurry, sale ends July 15, 2009!  Learn More   *Discount is taken off the full-list price.  Posted Jul 01 2009, 01:53 PM by Julie Brown with no comments