Brent Posted March 11, 2014 Share Posted March 11, 2014 HI guys I have a question. What is the best way to get potential buyers to buy a license for my photos? Is it best to call them and direct them to my site? Should I Email them and hope for the best? Thank You in advance Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Todd Posted March 11, 2014 Share Posted March 11, 2014 Do you mean your Alamy images or do you have your own website you want to sell from? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dov makabaw Posted March 11, 2014 Share Posted March 11, 2014 The whole point of Alamy is that they market, administer and sell your images. They have a significant quantity of images online which are marketed worldwide. They provide a lightbox facility which helps you make focused mailshots should you wish to make a targeted campaign. Stock photography is considered a numbers game and to succeed in this sector you would, IMO, be spending your time more productively increasing your portfolio. Good luck - we all had to start somewhere dov Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Robinson Posted March 11, 2014 Share Posted March 11, 2014 Get your captioning and keywording as good as you possibly can. The only way customers will use your images is if they find exactly what they want in a particular search. If they don't come up in searches, nobody will see them; if they come up in the wrong searches, nobody will use them. The only real way to sell images here is to take the subjects people want and make sure they find them when they want them. I wish I was a lot better at what I have just recommended. Having said that, I've just had a look at your images and your captioning and keywording seem pretty good to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brent Posted March 11, 2014 Author Share Posted March 11, 2014 Alex, Im thinking about having my own. would this be in violation of the contract? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jill Morgan Posted March 11, 2014 Share Posted March 11, 2014 Alex, Im thinking about having my own. would this be in violation of the contract? Selling from your own site is not in violation of your contract. You can even sell on other stock sites as well. Jill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sami Hurmerinta Posted March 11, 2014 Share Posted March 11, 2014 EDIT: It seems Jill was a tad faster in answering Brent's question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niels Quist Posted March 12, 2014 Share Posted March 12, 2014 Alex, Im thinking about having my own. would this be in violation of the contract? No, not unless you sell at Alamy under the RM -E licence (exclusive) - I don't think any does this nowadays. http://www.alamy.com/contributor/help/image-licences.asp Good luck. Niels Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Baigent Posted March 12, 2014 Share Posted March 12, 2014 Hi Brent HI guys I have a question. What is the best way to get potential buyers to buy a license for my photos? Is it best to call them and direct them to my site? Should I Email them and hope for the best? Thank You in advance Good question. I think that if you specialise in specific subjects.You should be tracking down potential buyers and emailing them. You could follow up with a call after asking in the email what a good time to phone is For instance I have a lot of images shot in the county of Essex, I have uploaded then to zenfolio where I sell digital images. To market them I have built a list of ad agencies, PR companies, tourist offices, county magazines.... amyone who may be interested. Then I printed a "pretty" photograph on postcards with my details and the website and posted them to the potential buyers.. my experience is that people keep these postcards and even pin them to a wall. If you shoot a bit of everything then it gets more difficult to identify the potential buyers. If you are planning to sell to magazines this book is useful a it lists buyers. http://www.thebfp.com/books/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allan Bell Posted March 12, 2014 Share Posted March 12, 2014 Mark, I note you use Zenfolio and assume you are using the professional paid for use. Just wondered if you found it to be a profitable outlet? The reason I ask is that I do not usually like to put images with a "paid for" site and risk not returning a profit. i.e. "Money down the drain." Allan PS if you do not want to reply on the forum you could PM me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Todd Posted March 12, 2014 Share Posted March 12, 2014 Mark's answer pretty much sums it up. You should have your own website just to show potential clients some examples of your work anyway. I've directed clients to images in my Alamy collection in the past only for them to say they wanted them but the calculator price was too expensive for their use. Needless to say a deal was done, they get the license required and I make more than my normal 50% cut and it's paid within 30 days and not after 6 months Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Baigent Posted March 12, 2014 Share Posted March 12, 2014 Hi Allan Mark, I note you use Zenfolio and assume you are using the professional paid for use. Just wondered if you found it to be a profitable outlet? The reason I ask is that I do not usually like to put images with a "paid for" site and risk not returning a profit. i.e. "Money down the drain." I originally chose Zenfolio as a customer proofing and finished file delivery system, I shoot a job, upload low res proofs the client selects images to be "finished" which when done are uploaded for customer collection. The plus point of this is that the clients can visit their folders years later and select more proofsd for finishing. This works well for me and the clients and generates reorders with little effort. It is worth the money for this alone. But other benefits soon grew on my such as UNLIMITED STORAGE this makes zenfolio a great offsite back up area. (I believe that they also back up elswhere as wel) Then digital sales appeared which I have not made the most of... but I will. I do plan to put some more stock images on zenfolio but of course that means I have to put the effort in to market them effectively. I have had a few stock sales which is surprising given how little effort that I put in. In addition to the above I get a very simple to set up website. Oh, there forums and tech support are excellent. I highly recommend it. Note they just offer the website you have to do your own marketing. For me it covers its cost and should I work on it a bit more returns would hopefully go up. My current marketing efforts are targeted at commissioned work and the site is great for that. I highly recommend zenfolio and anticipate being with them a loooong time. Does that help?Oh if you sign up use this referral code to save us both a few pennies JNT-A8S-KPR http://markbaigent.zenfolio.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allan Bell Posted March 12, 2014 Share Posted March 12, 2014 Thanks for your quick reply Mark. I will delve deeper into the site and what they are offering to see if it would be of use to me. Will have to see if there any downsides, apart from having to carry out my own marketing. The storage alone could be of benefit, when my collection reaches Jeff Greenberg proportions. Allan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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