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February 20, 2013 @ 11:15 a.m. in The Business Lab by Suzanne Sease | Suzanne Sease Productions View Comments
When you asked to bid a job and it’s awarded to someone else, there are many factors to consider, from how you handled the creative conversations to your estimate to how you presented your work.
But the most important factor to remember is that the client has seen your work, liked your work and considered you as a realistic candidate to shoot or illustrate the assignment. Whether you got the job or not, you have opened a door to this client.
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November 19, 2012 @ 2 p.m. in The Marketing Lab by Amanda Sosa Stone | Amanda Sosa Stone View Comments
Big agencies are inundated with emails every day, as are smaller agencies. The average result on email marketing is still between .05 and 1% – that’s how many recipients, on average, are likely to click through to your site, out of the 10%, on average who actually opened the email. (i.e., 1,000 people would result in 5 to 10 click-throughs to your site).
But the bigger question is – what to do with those other 99% of the people who are not clicking through?
October 18, 2012 @ 1 p.m. in The Marketing Lab by Daniel Fishel | Daniel Fishel Illustration + Design View Comments
Email marketing is one of the quickest ways to put your work in front of a potential client. And using self-serve email marketing tools, you can not only send emails to specific lists of potential clients, but get statistics on the effectiveness of your campaign.
After you’ve sent out three or four emails over three to six months, you can get a better sense of who continues to open them, how many times they’ve opened your emails and if they clicked on the links to look at your website. This is all helpful information when you want to take your promotions another step further.
September 5, 2012 @ 10 a.m. in The Business Lab by Marc Scheff | Marc Scheff View Comments
The best way to ensure a good follow-up is to do a killer job on the current assignment. There is no substitute for pure awesomeness and art directors love working with people they don’t have to spend a lot of time managing. In my world of illustration, the artists’ names I hear art directors mention over and over are the ones who always deliver and exceed expectations. The way they usually follow up is by picking up the phone when the art director calls!
Whether it’s common or not, for everything from prospecting to post-project follow-up, having a system in place will solidify your client relationships. The trick is knowing how to follow up with each person. Your system must be flexible enough to adjust to each client’s preferences and needs.
Fortunately, because they’re clients, you don’t have to guess. You can just ask.
*reprinted with the permission of PDN's PhotoServe.com / appeared first on PhotoServe.com's Guest Editor column
Over the past 15+ years, I’ve put my heart and soul into the magazine and publishing industry. My most recent gig was as Rodale Publishing/Runner’s World Magazine’s Photo Editor. But if you haven’t already heard, I’ve recently decided to take my career in a slight different direction. Between earning my bachelor’s degree in photography and working as a photo editor, I’ve always felt personally close to the photography world. Working as a consultant at Agency Access means I get to directly help you – the photographer - advance your career. So I figured I’d give you some first-hand, working knowledge on my life as a photo editor, and where I stand now as a consultant. Enjoy!
Follow-ups are usually about getting to the next step – permission to add someone to your mailing list, show them your portfolio, quote a job or, if you’ve lost a bid, find out what you need to do differently to win a job from them the next time. Before you start thinking about adding creativity to the mix, make sure you’re clear about what each of your follow-up efforts are supposed to accomplish.
For every great photographer or illustrator, there are hundreds more vying for the attention of the same creatives. In a world where you’re not the only one who can shoot great photos or craft brilliant illustrations, few things are as important as your relationship with clients – and that goes double in a down economy.
In this dynamic Dialogues Podcast, expert and experienced artist’s consultants discuss the most effective methods for maintaining excellent client relations. If you think it’s just a matter of being friendly, think again: From important steps you must take with every new client to making proactive between-job connections, there are many crucial steps to winning the creative’s heart and mind … and becoming a trusted strategic partner.
As a noun, “follow-up” is the act or an instance of following up, as to further an end or review new developments. As an adjective, “follow-up” means intended to reinforce or evaluate previous actions. Either way, follow-up is often as important as the initial contact in gaining new clients.
So, the question is, do you actually “follow-up?” Effective follow-up is worth its weight in gold, but do you know what would be effective?
Clients are like you and me: BUSY. They’re bombarded by emails and phone calls and not likely to reply to a boring email or generic voice message. I can relate; I get emails from photo assistants, models, make-up artists, fans and marketers; and there are lots.
I answer the nice emails from fans and try my best to answer the others, but let’s face it – that’s not always possible. I feel guilty, sure, but that was one of my promises to myself recently: stop answering every email I get. I have lost days of work this year, maybe weeks, just answering emails that get me nothing in return.