Want More Customer Awareness?
Ideas to Maximise The Use And Circulation Of Your Photos
by Daniel Moncur-Sime, 06-07-2008
Many SME businesses and marketing professionals can struggle to get their photography in print in wide circulation. Inevitably they can then come to the conclusion that it’s difficult to achieve.
Not necessarily so!
Just how do you get photos of your products published across a wide variety of magazines free of charge and seen by as many people as possible thereby making it as profitable as possible to do regular high quality photography sessions?
Let’s dive straight in…
The Importance Of An Excellent Image
Would you be impressed by a muddy sports car? Probably not, but a 4x4 caked in the stuff would produce a gasp – ‘how did they survive that?!’
It’s a truism - an image is worth a thousand words, so it’s my humble opinion to get the best possible and to use the image as productively as possible in every way. And there are many ways to use a photo, but first you need to have useable photos.
Which brings you to…
The Photo Shoot
This is something you need to prepare for. List out everything you want photographed and if your products come in sets separate them in that way.
Check the photographer’s creative flair and quality of their end result. This is easy to do and the time will be worth it because once you find one that’s truly excellent and will help you generate sales it’s easier to find them again.
Be there at the first shoot to provide oversight if necessary, but an experienced commercial photographer will be able to follow a creative brief. The brief should contain agreed upon sketches of your end result photos. For simple product shots a brief won’t be detailed but for lifestyle, fashion, advertising etc, the recommendation is to have your eyes on what’s going on - unless you trust the quality and creative process and your guarantee is in place.
You should aim to get out what you want. Those stylish product shots, people benefiting from your product, the sunrise over your property or whatever. Write down on paper and agree this with the photographer and work to these goals.
Get a number of different setups and angles done. Sometimes concepts will be become difficult to execute and problems might develop thereby cutting into time. So take multiple shots momentum keeps you going and you’ll have a wide choice which will help later with distribution and print.
After The Shoot
Get as many of the best images from the photographer as possible – they may not want to give you them all, so think of it like this: a painter will make several sketches before showing a final oil painting. A photo session will produce many ‘sketches’ and the photographer will decide which ones are the ‘paintings’.
Create A List Of Where The Photos Are Being Sent And How They Are Being Used
This is very worthwhile as it allows easy tracking of the photos. Using a simple excel spreadsheet will enable you to list
- publications,
- advertisings,
- brochures,
- editorials,
- websites,
- galleries
the dates and photos of submission.
Distribute Original Images
Make editors feel privileged to have something unique. And an editor will always prefer to use an original image rather than reprint something seen in a competing publication or in your brochures.
Create Spreads Of Image Sets
It’s easy to create an index sheet of all the images for you to look over. Split the photos into sets which you can rotate over months to the publishers. Then provide index sheets of those sets along with the individual images.
Provide High and Low Resolution Images
From an image editors or designers speed of working, it’s great to open a disk where there are 2 folders - low resolution images and high resolution. They can whiz through the low resolution ones without having the time delay waiting for large image files to open up.
Email Them – Everywhere!
Small libraries, regional publications, specialist and industry specific trade publications often don’t have big budgets for new and original photography. Make friends with them by providing regular photo updates for their sections and features that are relevant to you.
Here’s a list of potentials
- PR companies
- Magazine publishers – art directors and feature editors
- Online magazines
- Newsletters
- Your customers
- Trade or public shows you exhibit at
- Television and Radio production companies
- Celebrity’s agents
- Industry specific copywriters
- Poster and Calendar Companies
Create A Photo Mail Pack
If someone asks for photos in the post can you send it easily – all you have to do is have a series of pages with the photos on saved as a document ready to print on demand. Your photographer should be able to provide you with a multiple page contact sheet pdf of selected photos. You can print straight from this to mail on demand and even email it too – make sure each photo is labeled.
On Your Website
This should be a matter or course to put new photos on your website. If you develop a press section you can easily put the photos online for download, along with an associated story.
Benefits are reduction costs of printed mail outs and cds and the bonus of driving very relevant extra traffic to your website.
Create An Associated Story
Something of interest to the editorial team, not just about your company. An idea would be to make it relative to something happening in the industry. If it’s fashion, what are the colours, what is the cloth, the overall style (retro, futuristic, eco-friendly etc), how does it make the wearer feel…
There are many ways to get started and craft great copy, but suffice to say if there’s story you can provide it shows the editor you really want to make it easy for them.
Use Different Photos For Editorial To What’s In Your Adverts.
The deal with advertising is always to bargain for editorial space with your advert. Magazines are generally financially supported by their advertisers so use this to your advantage.
To get the most provide different photos to what’s in your advert. This is where is pays to have those extra scene setups done in the photo shoot.
In Your Brochures
You’ll have multiple photos from the shoot so use them here. You can be using ‘scenes’ of the whole product and then close ups of the products showing details. Any good graphic designer worth his weight will know how to best lay photos out on a page to maximise impact, but work closely with them so they understand what your customer needs to see and what features you need to show and promote.
Postcard, Flyers And Thank You Cards
These are all low cost and highly efficient ways of getting your photos seen. It’s easier to convey a message with a photo and a headline on this small space than reams of small font size text. They provide excellent support to your product resellers who can distribute them to their customers.
Be Creative With Your Uses
Thinking outside of the box is the key. Where do people see your product? If you are a jewellery designer ask you local department store if they can give away your postcards with every purchase made in the jewellery department, whether your stock is purchased or not.
Do Things That Your Competition Aren’t.
A bit of market research is useful, but don’t get overwhelmed by what others are doing. Call them up and ask for postcard, brochure and advert examples. Ask where you can find them and what magazines they are published in. Show the interest as if you are a customer as too much attention to detail might arouse suspicion.
Then copy and experiment what they are doing that gets them results and try the things that they aren’t doing.
Hopefully you’ve found something you can take away and use, and you’ll come up with many more as you experiment. By investing in great photography you’ll see how favourably people will respond – following up with these little things you’ll find people will become more aware.
At the end you might be wondering why you didn’t do it sooner - a professional creative photographer who is out for your interest is worth so much more than what you’ll spend.
To your success
Daniel Moncur-Sime
Photographer, designer and entrepreneur
Written by Daniel Moncur-Sime, for your business success. To contact me at your convenience, email me dan@studio33red.com or call 01432 341800.
Feel free to copy and distribute, but where you do please use this attribution statement, keeping the links intact.
Attribution Statement: This article was written by Daniel Moncur-Sime, entrepreneur and expert photographer, first published at www.studio33red.com. To sign-up to receive your own FREE subscription to the Red Alert e-zine and claim FREE money making e-books go to www.studio33red.com.
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