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What Do Photo Buyers Think? A New Report Released

July 16, 2010 Marketing & Self Promotion, Negotiating & Sales 1 Comment

Have you ever wondered just what photo buyers think? If not you should be. Photo buyers are your bread and butter, your meal ticket, and are the key to the success of your outdoor and nature photography business.

Mikael Karlsson in association with Photosource International has just released his new eBook/survey on just what photo buyers think, about many different things related to working with stock photographers.

The key to successful marketing is to know and understand the needs of your target audience. In this fast paced world of ours knowing the needs of your potential clients isn’t always enough. You must know enough about your marketing targets to get them to look at your promotional materials in the first place.What if you send out a promotion that manages to contain the pet peeves of your recipients? What if you’re launching your new website and it is filled with the things photobuyers state will send them running?
When we were preparing the 2010 edition of our Photobuyer Survey report we asked ourselves these types of questions. Questions like what are the most irritating things on websites? Are photobuyers willing to open promotional CDs with images? What about big attachments? Music on your website? How about a nifty Flash-site with state of the art effects?
All these things are answered in the 2010 Photobuyer Survey Report from PhotoSource International. A large number of photo buyers from a wide variety of sources participated and answered questions.

The information provided is useful, insightful, and even sobering in some ways. For example here is one question and some of the answers from the photo buyers:

In your opinion, what are the biggest mistakes new photographers make as far as customer service and how they work with you as a photobuyer/researcher?

“Resistance to letting go of non-watermarked comps and hi res files. Insisting on negotiating a fee before my clients have decided to use the image.”

“Slow in responding. Suspicious of your motives, i.e. think that you are going to use their stuff for no payment.”

“If it becomes an issue of education. I hate wasting my time. I can’t squeeze 15 years of my knowledge into a 5-minute explanation. I expect them to trust me.”

“Stop pestering me about irrelevant things. I can’t get you a comp copy of the book. I don’t know when your check will be mailed.”

“The campaign we work on has very specific criteria. Not following the instructions we provide is a waste of our time and theirs…”

“They refer to the antiquated Pickerell Guide as a reference for rights and fees. Publishers do not expect to get something for nothing for photography usage but the advent of the digital book, in all of its forms, has changed everything.”

“When a specific image is requested, supplying images that are irrelevant.”

“Sending a [promotional] CD – don’t!”

“Too much time is spent on negotiating prices and often they have unrealistic expectations regarding market rates – they are quoting rates from some published guidebooks which just don’t apply to markets in which I work.”

“A few years back I was more than happy to coach them on delivery formats, methods, and even educate about pricing etc—but my clients have pressured me to now have to work much, much faster and there’s no time for coaching anymore. I just can’t spend the time teaching these things to new photographers and hope to make a living. Personally I hate that my work has come to this as I prefer a more congenial way of working with folks, helping those who need help (like others helped me when I started out) but it just isn’t possible.”

“Reply to me quickly. Not a week or two after I contact you.”

“Adding on fees not discussed upfront”

“Submit way too much. They don’t stick to the specific request. They send way too much unsolicited material. They want to be put on a wants mailing before we’ve even seen or published any of their work. Get real!”

“Not enough editing on submissions”

I purchased this survey at only $19.95 and it certainly got me thinking about how to better work with photo buyers. If you are interested in purchasing the eBook you can visit the online store at Photosource here.

eBook: What do Photo Buyers Think?