Contacts : Mitch Goldstone, President and CEO of ScanMyPhotos.com (Irvine, CA)
January 15, 2009 By Audrey GrayEver heard of "National Photo Preservation Month"? Don't worry if you missed it this January, it's still a new concept, but proof of a rare form of retail audacity: make-it-up-as-you-go-along marketing.
National Photo Preservation Month was just the latest brainchild of Mitch Goldstone, president and CEO of a photo specialty store in Irvine, California, that has evolved, in recent years, to become the celebrated brand Scanmyphotos.com.
Goldstone wants Americans especially to send him their shoe boxes of old photographs so he can first convert the pix to digital files and then covert those files into high-margin photo books, posters, calendars, collages and Kodak Picture DVDs. And he's come up with a remarkable variety of marketing ploys to get them to do just that, even in the tumultuous last six months.
"The economy has no relevance to what's going on with this business," said Goldstone, a native New Yorker whose ballsy business attitude has earned him a reputation as a doer in industry organizations like the International Photo Marketing Association. "Sales are exponentially increasing day-to-day, week to week... we have tripled our staff in the last year. I just hired someone else
yesterday, even in this economy."
Goldstone's niche success is based on a simple ideas: specialty retailers must change with the times, finding a new niche service for every age, and then use every modern means of communication out there to publicize the niche. When Goldstone and business partner Carl Berman opened their Orange County store, 30 Minute Photos Etc., back in 1990, their niche was to be a quick turn-around photo lab for the thousands of Californians who passed by daily on the freeways. It worked for a while, until the turn of the century hit and with it, the demise of film processing.
"Back then, business was exponentially plunging off the cliff," remembers Goldstone. "It was the perfect storm where after 9-11, people stopped travelling, stopped spending money, stopped film-based picture taking. We were all set for digital, even setting up online ordering, but no one ordered!"
It was time for a reinvention, something Goldstone says they later decided to make a habit. They set about to turn their store into a social gathering place, offering customers a creative space to learn about getting images off of memory cards. Partnering with Kodak, they set up comfortable digital work spaces, put up compelling examples of the latest picture products and created a website with a blog that offers a constant supply of ideas and photography tips. They turned their customers' e-mail addresses into a direct marketing resource, regularly sending out newsletters that included special promotions and coupons.
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