Each location in the Shuttercraft franchise network sends Clarissa and Rachel at least four images monthly. With 32 locations, this adds up to a lot of pictures. These photos need to be accessible not just to the franchise that supplied them, but other franchises and the marketing teams as well.
Before Canto, Shuttercraft used shared drives to store content. The shared drives didn’t have an organizational structure that worked for them, so the team couldn’t search effectively and wasted time combing through their troves of images.
“We didn’t have a structure for finding anything, particularly from a marketing perspective. So building pieces of artwork for magazines or particular campaigns, it was just going through hundreds and hundreds of pictures in a folder on a shared drive to try and find anything,” says Clarissa.
One of the most impactful ways that the Shuttercraft team uses imagery is to show inspiration photos to customers. Without these images, it can be difficult for people to envision the finished product in their space.
“We’ve got customers who are having shutters done in their bedroom. They want to see examples of bedroom shutters and maybe a specific type of install in a bedroom. There was no way to really find those images,” says Clarissa.
In order for sales reps to show customers the product options, they need to be able to quickly find photos of a particular room or certain type of shutter or blind. This was nearly impossible with their photos scattered and unorganized.
“You weren’t guaranteed to find what you needed quickly, or ever. You had to know who had certain things at certain times. And there was just an endless cycle of imagery everywhere,” says Clarissa.
Clarissa decided to implement Canto because of it’s user-friendly interface, duplicate check feature and integrations with Adobe products.
“Overall, the look and feel is really nice. We also love the ability to just upload and download things immediately with all the editing tools, and its compatibility with Adobe,” says Clarissa.
Adobe integrations
The marketing team uses Adobe to produce artwork for national and local campaigns. Clarissa specifically works with InDesign and because of Canto’s integration, her creative workflow has been more efficient and streamlined.
”Before I would export out all of the content from InDesign into Photoshop, faffing about with it then bringing it back into InDesign. Now, I can just build the folder and address the bits that need addressing within Canto. I can bump up the resolution and change the color space without having to go in and out of the big programs. It’s really handy,” says Clarissa.
Storing and sharing images for the franchise network
Every month, the franchisees send Clarissa and Rachel at least four photos from their location’s completed projects. All locations have a folder in Canto to ensure everyone knows exactly where their location’s images are stored.
“It’s really important for us internally to know whose imagery is whose. The network wants to know where their images are. We can drop in their personalized content, like headshots and recruitment stuff,” says Clarissa.
As far as viewing content goes, the Portal is where the network easily finds images to show to customers. Whether the customer is in the store or the sales rep is at the customer’s home, they can access the Portal and find inspiration photos from projects across all locations.
“The hero collection is divided up into the room types because it’s the most common area of customer interest. People in the network can just open Canto, go to living rooms and show customers living room inspiration designs,” says Clarissa.
Organization with tags
Clarissa decided to create a tagging list of common terms so everyone would be on the same page when searching through their library. The team is set up for success to quickly find the assets they need.
“We’ve made a strict tagging list to make sure everyone can always find what they need without having to guess what someone’s called a particular room in a house. We’re trying to build the structure around tagging that’s as foolproof as possible,” says Clarissa.
Since Shuttercraft started storing and tagging content in Canto, the team has been able to expand their media library to include seasonal images. They tag assets by season, allowing them to search for timely images.
“We have publications that go out quarterly, so we’re now starting to pick up things that are seasonally themed. Since we started using Canto, we have a feel for the images in a far more artistic sense,” says Clarissa.
