The business side of photography
Who started this myth that digital photography is free or cheap?
Last week, two similar sounds passed by my ears:
(i) While chatting with a writer whom I haven’t seen in many years, he remarked that I must be happy with digital photography because it’s free.
(ii) After giving a quote to a potential client, he replied, “Why is it so expensive? You use a digital camera, right? It shouldn’t really cost anything.”
Photographers, feel free to make a loud and heavy moaning sound.
There are currently four new cell phone companies about to start up in Canada. Three of them, DAVE, WIND and Public Mobile will be operating in the Toronto area. Let’s compare their marketing strategies to date.
Web sites:
DAVE is plain and boring and has no useful information. There’s no attempt at excitement and nothing whatsoever to engage the customer. The business image is “we’re cheap and boring.”
WIND is better. This company obviously knows the value of relationship building and is doing everything right in this regard. Unfortunately this site has but a couple of lousy photographs, there’s almost no useful information, and it seems to be trying too hard to be trendy. But at least these folks are thinking about customer engagement.
Public Mobile has some useful information for its customers. The site uses no photography but has some video with its executives. They do try to engage the customer through a blog where potential customers can get answers to their questions.
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Chess, bridge, billiards, power-boating, hot-air ballooning, flying an airplane and dancing are among several activities that have been recognized by the International Olympic Committee as being a “sport”, although none are (yet) part of the Olympic Games.
From olympic.org :
If it is widely practised around the world and meets a number of criteria established by the IOC session, a recognised sport may be added to the Olympic programme on the recommendation of the IOC’s Olympic Programme Commission.
It’s high time that photography be recognized as a sport. It could even be in both the winter and summer games.
Photography is certainly widely-practised. It is one of the very few sports that can be played and enjoyed by people of any age, weight, height or sex, able-bodied or not.
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I received an e-mail from the communications director of a large insurance company who’s thinking about creating a photo library of their key employees. He was looking not just for a price estimate but also suggestions on how to start this project. He realized that having an up-to-date photo archive would benefit his company many times over. However the communications director wasn’t sure if his company would even go for the idea.
Newspapers have long known the value of having their own photo library. Various levels of government and some universities also have photo archives. This is done for both public relations and historical purposes.
In today’s digital world, setting up and maintaining a photo archive is quite easy compared to the old film days. So why are many businesses so slow or hesitant to do this?
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Does it feel like you’re working in a crowded market? Too much competition and not enough elbow space for you to grab the ball and run with it? How can you get the attention you deserve?
The easy answer is always, “Be different. Set yourself apart from the others.”
But the million dollar question is, how do you set yourself apart from the crowd? Do you have to be outstanding to stand out?
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I just finished three days of following Prince Charles and Camilla through Toronto and southern Ontario. The Royal couple are currently on an 11-day official visit to Canada.
My first thought is that this is a colossal waste of taxpayer money. I can’t imagine how many millions of dollars are being spent on this. Many events were not open to the general public and most media events were only for a handful of pre-selected media organizations.
However if you consider, or at least pretend, that this is a marketing or public relations event, then perhaps it might be money well-spent if it had been properly planned and executed. This applies to all marketing efforts and not just royal visits. The client, (in this particular case, the Canadian taxpayer), must get their money’s worth.
Why spend time and money promoting a product, service or brand when that effort is only half-assed or squandered? Why just go through the motions? Marketing success needs both media and public exposure. Otherwise it’s just a tree falling in the forest.
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There’s a joke that asks: “If price and worth mean the same thing, why do priceless and worthless mean the exact opposite?”
Price is set by the seller and worth, or value, is set by the buyer. Price is usually influenced by various market conditions and worth can be affected by marketing. The two are connected.
Ideally, a client wants high-value photography for free. On the other hand, a photographer wants their images to sell for a very high price. Does this mean that a photographer and their client are opposites?
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