Who is calling names? I called David Dopey, I don't consider that a mean spirited name?Originally Posted by William Gregory
Who is calling names? I called David Dopey, I don't consider that a mean spirited name?
Anyway... I think you are torturing the poor magazine guy, he needs to sell ads so he can "make money" since we can pretty much surmise how "profitable" being a magazine publisher can be. So more power to him and good luck with it, however he manages it I respect anyone who can get the job the done and he is doing it.
As for advertising itself, I have to wonder about the wisdom of photographers advertising to other photographers. I've been in a bunch of photo mags and all it brought me were a bunch of sales calls and inquires from people looking for assisting jobs. Right now my website gets about 1000 unique visitors a day but I suspect most of those are from other photographers, not potential clients.... so when or if I do advertise, it will be more targeted and direct to a limited number of highly qualified potential clients.
Even in the realm of the $20,000 per ad Communications Arts or Luzur's Archive advertisers, you don't see many photographers advertising and those who do are usually one notch down from the top-tier. I suspect the top people spend their $20K making direct sales calls and the guys blowing $100K on an ad campaign are gambling with their retirement money. Just my two cents.
Have you ever noticed that advertising agencies themselves hardly ever advertise? Hmm....
They know the best, biggest deals come from personal contacts, word of mouth, and referrals. Old school marketing. Get em drunk and laid and they give you work ;-)
Nothing beats word of mouth and reputation and pressing the flesh. The website and portfolio are only bona-fides, they need to be great as a matter of course, but you rarely get good work because your work is superior untoitself. You need to have superior work and also you need to kick ass and take no prisoners...
Zig Ziglar away... ;-)
Even these mellow bearded hippie landscape photographers turn into real salesmen if they are going to make it in the photo world. Kind of scary but true.
I always torture magazine people Frank, can't help myself, I spent to many years in the magazine business, owning my own company that published 7 magazines in a different industry, and one thing I would not let my editors or salesmen do was to make statements that could not be backed up with numbers, far to many magazines, make claims and just expect you to believe them, that is not the way it works, anytime someone makes claims about how effective magazine advertising is, better have the numbers and statistics to back it up.
And Don was torturing him also!!
But I still have not seen anyone using mean spirited names in this thread?
Dave
As for advertising itself, I have to wonder about the wisdom of photographers advertising to other photographers. I've been in a bunch of photo mags and all it brought me were a bunch of sales calls and inquires from people looking for assisting jobs. Right now my website gets about 1000 unique visitors a day but I suspect most of those are from other photographers, not potential clients.... so when or if I do advertise, it will be more targeted and direct to a limited number of highly qualified potential clients.
LOL...you took the words right out of my mouth! In the six months I was on B&W all I got was e mails and requests from people wanting to sell me something. Archival supplies, ink jet, ink jet paper, printers, mat board and framing, etc, etc. I guess these are the people who are buying the magazine...lol.
I get the feeling that Focus is in a similar position, the people who buy it are photographers to see what other people are doing and look at their ad or people trying to sell something to photographers.
Maybe I have been unusually lucky, but I have yet to call a gallery where I have been unable to talk to the gallery director or owner. A simple polite question like "I have read the submission requeirements on your web site and I think my work would fit your gallery, would you mind if I send you a sample of my work on CD? And to whom should I address this to?" works wonders and it only costs you a phone call.
My experience was also that some of them are busy/in a bad mood/don't want to talk on the phone, and are sometimes a bit short, but many times I also had a very nice conversation with some of them.
It would be great and maybe to focusmag's benefit to provide references to his claims. I would love to hear from those photographers advertising on his magazine who have gotten tens of thousands of dollars worth of sales (as he once claimed) or have gotten gallery representation from galleries contacting them, without them having to do a thing but place an ad on his magazine.
Just a small clarification on a couple publications. Being in Lürzer's can be accomplished by having an ad for which your image was used appear in their magazine. There is no fee to do that, other than mailing/sending them a copy. If a photographer manages to do that, then they can buy advertising space in Lürzer's in a future issue. Since they define themselves as the best selection of advertising in the world, and maintain high standards, it is not as simple as just having the money. Check out the client lists and work of the few photographers in Lürzer's Archive, and you will find them doing quite well . . . maybe not at the very top, but quite good.
Communication Arts is a different animal entirely. The newer postcard size ads in the back of each issue cannot just be purchased into. One has to make it into the CommArts Photo Annual, or be featured in an article in the magazine; so only then can one qualify to buy ad space. This is also something that did not happen until recently, since prior to the tear out cards in each issue, there was no open advertising for photographers nor illustrators. So the cost really is just the entry fee and material preparation for the Photo Annual; quite small in the scheme of things.
Just to throw in another example, LeBook is a sourcebook targeted to the fashion industry. The cost is not much different than Focus Magazine, yet the distribution is targeted to 16000 agencies and associated industry companies. One job coming out of an ad in LeBook would easily cover the cost of the page, because this is an industry that understands the value of imaging to their products.
So this is what I think should be considered: the return on investment. If all you are doing is selling prints, then how many do you need to sell to pay for advertising . . . anywhere. This is very different than commercial imaging, in which the pay levels are at higher values, both for the clients, and for the photographers.
Frank is very right in all this that you need to have all the other pieces, because everyone else will have them. Walk the walk, talk the talk, though beyond that meet the right people. There is no formula to success, but you have to be ready for it . . . if and when it comes to you.
Ciao!
Gordon Moat
As I believe the publisher of another magazine has done on another forum, I'm going to give you guys a basic 101 in magazine publishing, with the main topic of circulation and marketing. I invite the publisher or editor of that other publication to come here and further explain their specific marketing and circulation strategies.
There's a reason why your ad didn't sell, Jorge. That other publication is primarily distributed in bookstores. For the past 2 years, this biggest artfair in North America, AIPAD has only had FOCUS and photograph magazine with distribution. That other publication hasn't been distributed there since AIPAD moved to the Armory. We are at every single photography art fair, whether it's AIPAD, Photo Miami, AIPAD Miami, Photo London, Paris Photo, you name it. In the past year, I believe that the other publication has only been distributed at Photo LA and let's say, for argument's sake, Photo Miami.
Now, think to yourself: How many photographers here on this forum go to bookstores? I would say an overwhelming majority of you. And out of all of you who go to bookstores, let's say 60% of you buy magazines when you're there. Take those numbers, spread them out for the population of photographers across the country and you've got a heck of a lot of photographers at bookstores. In fact, I would bet that if bookstores removed everything photography, from books to magazines, the overall attendance of bookstores would fall so sharply that I would bet some major chains wind up closing a good deal of locations. No matter where I am, I never fail to see a photographer, camera strapped around the neck, reading a photography magazine at a bookstore. It is almost a guarantee. And that's fantastic, because I need photographers reading my magazine. As does that other publication. Photographers are an essential audience for our magazines, because without you, we wouldn't have anything to write about. No photographs = no photography magazine. So, we can basically assume that photographers buy both FOCUS and that other publication off of newsstand shelves.
How many? Well, according to my estimates, 90% of that other publication's readers are photographers. Given the number of their circulation available on their website, the number of copies distributed on newsstands and the number of subscribers they have, the amount of copies left for distribution and marketing at places where collectors are is pretty low, probably about 2000. I can verify this as I have the data for every single photography magazine on newsstands in my category and how well they perform. That other publication is an excellent seller on newsstands and there are a great number of bookstores they do very well in. They sell more magazines on newsstands than the number of copies of FOCUS distributed to newsstands (although this is changing very soon). The thing is, you can take every single copy of FOCUS and that other publication sold in bookstores and throw them away, because over 90% of consumers who buy our magazines on newsstands are photographers. Are there some collectors mixed in? Yeah, probably. But I doubt that many.
So, out of 24,152, 12,058 are distributed on newsstands. Now we have 12,094 copies of FOCUS to work with. FOCUS has 3,602 subscibrers. I can formulate that about 55% of my subscribers are collectors. How? Well, minus newsstands and subscribers, I have 8,492 copies of FOCUS left.
We're distributed in over 100 photography galleries with an average of 40 copies per gallery. My overall gallery circulation is 5,992, which will, again, be increasing.
So now we have 2500 copies of of FOCUS left. Well, we were distributed at Photo LA in 2007 and Photo Miami last year, like the other publication was, however; we've also been distributed at AIPAD, Photo London and Paris Photo. On top of that, we just had copies of our last two issues distributed at the photography auctions at Christie's, Swann, Phillips de Pury and Bonhams and Butterfields. We hope to get Sothebey's next time around for the Spring auctions.
So, are we reaching photographers? Absolutely. Out of 24,152 I can project that 13,859 reach photographers and 10,293 reach collectors. That's about a 55-45 split compared to the other publication's 90% photographers, 10% collectors split.
Is it any wonder why your advertising campaign didn't work, Jorge?
Stating that, to my knowledge, making money was increasing the amount of money you have and not making profit, I was being honest. I never said anything about profit. Please don't assume you know if I was being honest or dis-honest. I'm on a public forum with a number of people who read my publication... besides just being wrong, it would be too risky to be dis-honest. I find that lies eventually have a way of uncovering themselves and biting you in the ass. Just ask my ex.
Depends on your campaign. If you want to just place 1 full page ad, and you sell your prints, priced at the low levels that Jorge sell his prints for ($475), you would need to sell two and you'd make a profit. If you do the Photographer marketing package, you'd need to sell 6. Honestly, I think Jorge's photography is undervalued and is not the best example. I've seen photographers who do editions of 50 gelatin silver prints who sell their 8 x 10s for a couple hundred more.
That and 8 x 10s arent the print size that really sell these days. Medium and large prints are. Let's say Jorge sold one of his photographs for $1000 at 20 x 24. He'd need to sell 3 prints to make a profit off of the campaign or 1 print to make profit. It's not that difficult, really. If people have disposable income to buy art with, they're really not going to get a small 8 x 10 print. If they just want to add something to their collection, they will, but then they'll buy more than one usually. This is just my knowledge through conversations I've had with other photographers. I could be completely off-base with some of your experiences.
With my wedding photography business advertising does one thing only, keeps my name fresh in the minds of my clients, oh and maybe to have my phone number handy. It doesn't bring any clients I wouldn't have got anyway by word of mouth, etc.
As far as fine art is concerned there seems to be a clash of market expectations here. Fine art is sold as an investment but probably not by the likes of myself. On the other hand there is a market who wants to buy a nice picture for their walls or hotels or whatever. Seems to me that these two markets would require very different approaches in marketing and that for either a busy photographer would do far better employing an agent to do said marketing as an agent will know how to get into gallereries and/or hotels and will have the drive of comission.
Does anyone here have experience of working through an agent rather than doing all the experimentation and footwork alone?
If you mean an "artist's representative" of the sort you find in the major cities....
The best agents want to see that you already have a track record and sales -- which sort of negates the reason most photographers want to have an agent (because they all say "I hate marketing myself").
Indeed, you have to be a hell of a good marketeer to get a really good agent.
Whether the agent is worthwhile is another matter all together. It seems to me like at least half the agent-artist relationships don't work out or fail to earn more money for the photographer.
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