It’s a great hope that every image sent to clients will be looked at, considered and compared to its rivals, and a decision made on merit as to which to use and buy. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.
Although everyone in the image business knows this, efforts to hit the target with as many images as possible is often token and/or ineffective. That’s primarily because in many instances the necessary human input doesn’t exist. Here are some ways of getting more hits, and not relying on hope:
- Specialise – Find a niche that isn’t be serviced, and assemble a library to fill that niche. That need not be according to subject matter either. www.vectorstock.com in New Zealand has a big market share of vector images – finding a niche according to file format.
- Curate your images – Display the best, and get a reputation for having the most appropriate images in the market.
- Curate your image feeds – Make sure you aren’t sending too many images, and that those you send are relevant to the people they are being sent to, by time, territory and the type of client.
- Have multiple channels for customers to see/receive your images – Using FTP alone for image feeds can sometimes see the images fail to get through. Make sure the images are on your web site and that other delivery methods such as dropbox are also available for clients who want them.
- Use keywords, not just pre-prepared searches – Many libraries have pre-prepared searches of popular stars and subject matter. This is normally a substitute for poor keywording. It also limits how precise your research can be – whether that’s done by clients or internally.
- Actually do research – Researchers are often amongst the casualties of belt tightening. Removing them has a cost though, usually to the relevance of imagery that is sent to buyers.
- Tell the world – Don’t just send out images. Make sure you tell your clients what’s there – whether that’s by email, txt or social media. You can’t rely on others to do the job for you.
At Picsell Media we can help curate your images, make your image feeds more targeted, give a hand with research, and alert clients to the latest production. To find out more about our services, click here.