New Business Models

David Hobby (Strobist) has a good post asking for input on the different ways that photographers are changing their business to reflect the changes in the industry. Digital has provided some amazing abilities that on one hand let creatives create more while simultaneously presenting a lowered cost of entry which makes competition very stiff. Add to that the tremendous decline of what is considered exceptional, the influence of Photoshop (good and bad), and a general lack of understanding of business in general and you have a volatile situation that can overwhelm those who are not quick to see trends and act on them.

But I know there are other models that allow shooters to do events and such (and even stock) that return far more of the money to the actual shooter.

Photostockplus, for instance, keeps a 15% cut and returns 85% to the shooter, while offering websites for them to display the photos and engage in e-commerce.

Apparently, a lot of photographers are using them. Is anyone here using their model?

If not, how are you doing it? Other sites? Face to face?

I know we have a large number of readers that fall into this part of the bell curve, and I would be eager to know your choices and experiences.

Go on over and participate. I commented there and thought I would elucidate on that comment here:

As a photographer and web designer. I really believe that the website should be a vehicle for making business happen, not just an online brochure. Too many shooters have websites that simply mimic the old passive model. “Here are my pics, got a job?”

As the web moves solidly into a more interactive mode (Google Videos, YouTube, MySpace, Flickr, Zoomr and more, it makes me wonder why photographers are creating websites that are more web 1.2 than web 2.0. (Before you write, yeah, I am over that term too, but for now it is apropos.) Again and again I visit photographers sites totally done in Flash with no visible search engine ranking, no collaboration, no customer tracking, no interactivity – and, no, chasing your thumbnails to click on them isn’t interactivity.

They seem to turn a deaf ear to the basic tenets of the new web, preferring to have monstrous, slow loading, nearly impossible to update sites that look far more like a commercial than a resource. I am sure that will change, but it seems like it takes a long time for some to catch up. I see it first hand as a web designer. Recently I had to turn a design job down because it just went against all that I believe in on creating useful sites instead of brochure sites. The photographer has nice images, and is just starting in the business, yet insists on having a site that will never be indexed and will drain him of assets while he has to traditionally market his website instead of having it found by people looking for what he does and his services.

And with a careful eye toward his budget he will end up with a beautiful site, with music and 60 images that will cost him a fortune to change out. No interactivity, no collaboration, scheduling, estimates, client area, CMS or CRM… just a site with images. And every time he wants to add an image, or change an image, or whatever, he has to go back to his Flash designer with the change, and some bucks. That restricts him too much in my opinion. Yes, there are some Flash designers who can build a backend management system for him, but not for his budget. So, to me, it seems like wasted bucks on a site that needs even more bucks to promote it, and will only be seen by those who have been prodded to visit.

Definitely last century web-think.

I have four must-have’s for photographers online.

1. Online Sales: Photographers must sell their images, or at least be a part of that marketplace. I hear so much about how photography had become a commodity, and yet I see few taking advantage of that, spinning the paradigm from negative to positive.

2. Content Management: If you cannot easily change your content, images and Meta information, then it is last century and an albatross, not an eagle.

3. Search Engine Friendly site: Sure, have your Flash, but do it smart and embed it instead of build in it. Search Engines are far too important for most beginning photographers to forget about.

4. Multiple channels of content: You must have a blog, a sharing site, and other things that you can do to increase visibility. I have seen portfolios on YouTube, Flickr and Zoomr. I have heard podcasts on Photoshop and Photography marketing. Be creative and provide some other ways for people to see your work.

Of course those of you who have read this blog for a while know that I own a software app that allows photographers to sell images online. This is a print-based sales tool, not “digital stock” sales as we currently do not offer electronic file downloading. The PHOTOtool is an app that helps photographers do business. It works with every photographer that uses it. It is not a panacea, and a photographer that simply installs and waits for work to come in will find the same success (0) that doing the same thing without the PHOTOtool will provide. My comments are on using online proofing and can be done with other products.

Context

Using online proofing provides context for the photographer looking to build the business beyond current levels. It provides a platform for displaying images and putting those images into the context of sales. From ‘art’ to commissions, it allows a place for customers to come and see images, save them to ‘Favorites”, comment on them and collaborate with their friends and family on the images and purchase ideas before placing them into the shopping cart. So the context of the photograph changes from passive to active. It can be printed a variety of ways, on a variety of papers… all at the ease of use for the consumer.

Simple ‘Spec’ Shooting

We have users that have taken the idea of street photography to a new level and income possibilities. One of our users visits the beach in her town and does family portraits during vacation season. Free. Then she hands them her card and the login for that days images are on it. Averaging 60% sales, and average sale is around $600. Understand that she is a very good shooter and makes excellent portraits. An afternoon on the beach brings in nearly 2k per weekend. It also brings in portrait commissions and high dollar weddings. This keeps her around doing her fine art without having to drive a cab.

I went to a Veterans Day Parade and shot a lot of old vets in their uniforms. It was really interesting and I posted the images for them to see, giving a free image of their choice. The images brought in over 2k in profit from family purchases and gave me a cool set of images.

One of our users shoots couples when he finds them in a more romantically inclined area of Santa Barbara. currently he does over 3K a month in purchases from his online galleries. He currently is doing at least that much in commissions from the people he has met. From business portraits to kid portfolios, he is very, very happy. Another new user spent last weekend shooting couples and families on the pier in San Francisco. Within the first hours of posting he did nearly $200. And he was able to meet and give his card to 12 couples, two of which are getting married next year. I have to mention that he is also building a cool portfolio of couples on the pier… get it. Synergy.

We have a part-time photographer who spends her weekdays doing women’s hair and nails and her weekends once a month showing her flower images. She sells them at the shows, from her salon and now online. That has made it easy for her clients to let their friends in other parts of the country see the images. She makes a very nice side income from her images. And now, her clients are asking her to take portraits of their kids. Hey, she is busy as hell, and lovin’ every minute of it.

I am not going to cover the wedding, portrait uses of protected, online sales, other than to say that there are some clever and inexpensive techniques that our users have developed to bring in an additional 1 – 2k per wedding in print sales. That is a hell of a lot of print dollars, and yet we have several users doing just that. I tried one on a wedding I did Saturday and had $350 in orders by noon on Sunday (and I didn’t get the images posted until 10:30…).

Becoming a business that creates images for people to enjoy gives the images context. It gives the photographer context in which to ask someone if you can photograph them. And providing an easy way for people to see the images, share them and purchase them brings the context of being professional.

Tomorrow I will post on collaboration and strengthening the client/photog relationship.