# Photography Leads



## photographerleads (Aug 31, 2009)

My friends and I have started a Photography Leads business. We wanted to get some feedback from photographers on what they most wanted from our business. If you wouldn't mind could you take a look at our site www.photographerleads.com and then give us some ideas on how we could better our service. Thanks for your time!
Also we are still in our research phase of our business, we are still trying to get pricing and other issues nailed down. Again thanks for your help


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## craig (Sep 1, 2009)

Looks like a good service. Wiling to pay the price, but I need a lot more details.

I have many questions. My main concern is; are these leads region specific? Are they type specific? I am a commercial/editorial photographer in LA. Can you provide me leads specific to work in my region as opposed to retail clients looking for head shots in Michigan?

Love & Bass


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## craig (Sep 2, 2009)

Good job on not getting back with me. 

Love & Bass


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## JerryPH (Sep 2, 2009)

... that will be $20 for his services in ignoring you... lol


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## craig (Sep 2, 2009)

Kids these days... 

There is no excuse for not getting back with a potential client. I have been a photographer for years. In addition to my photography skills; customer service is what brings my clients back time and time again. For some reason customer service is not high on a lot of photographers list. In my previous market I got a lot of my clients because they could not stand to work with certain photographers.

I do lack marketing skills. Plus I am now in LA. I am dying for some immediate help. As always I will muddle through until I get back on my feet. 

Love & Bass


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## photographerleads (Sep 2, 2009)

Craig,  Thanks for checking out photographerleads and for the feed back.  Sorry for the delay in the response. To answer your question, we sort the leads by area code, type and style of photography, as well as number of other criteria.  When a photographer signs up for our service they create a profile.  They indicate their type of photography, area code, ect.  I hope that answers your question.  I'll have to revise the site so these answers are easier to find.  If you are curious to see how we generate the leads go to www.photopricequotes.com .  Once again sorry I took so long in replying and thank you for your help.

Mike


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## damonb (Sep 6, 2009)

Is the site taking a cut of the lead? Or are you looking at this as more of a directory of sorts for event and wedding photographers, for example?

While I couldn't poke around the site too much, you would want to have some support of support for displaying a limited gallery of the photog's work and/or website. People will make their decision to choose a photographer based on the perceived skill shown...


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## craig (Sep 6, 2009)

I registered. Still have not seen a response from this company.

Love & Bass


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## KmH (Sep 6, 2009)

craig said:


> I registered. Still have not seen a response from this company.
> 
> Love & Bass


I haven't been impressed enough to even visit their web site yet.


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## c.cloudwalker (Sep 6, 2009)

craig said:


> I do lack marketing skills. Plus I am now in LA. I am dying for some immediate help. As always I will muddle through until I get back on my feet.



No the best at marketing myself so I used a rep. He was paid a percentage of the contracts but it was worth it since he was getting me better paying jobs than I was getting by myself. I imagine those guys/gals are still around.


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## KmH (Sep 6, 2009)

c.cloudwalker said:


> craig said:
> 
> 
> > I do lack marketing skills. Plus I am now in LA. I am dying for some immediate help. As always I will muddle through until I get back on my feet.
> ...


Yep, their still around and good ones can really boost a career. There should be a ton of them in the LA area.


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## PhilGarber (Sep 6, 2009)

Maybe a discount for your first couple potential customers? First page posters in this thread possibly...?


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## PhilGarber (Sep 6, 2009)

To be clearer, I _am _interested in your service. Sounds like a sweet niche you've found.

Edit-_Woa, woa, woa._ 60 bucks for one exclusive lead that may not even work? 12 dollars for a non-exclusive seems a little BS'y also (someone correct me if I'm wrong).


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## craig (Sep 6, 2009)

c.cloudwalker said:


> craig said:
> 
> 
> > I do lack marketing skills. Plus I am now in LA. I am dying for some immediate help. As always I will muddle through until I get back on my feet.
> ...



I have been considering that as well. Have not gotten too far. My major concern is; don't you have to be billing at least 20k a year for them to consider you?

Love & Bass


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## KmH (Sep 7, 2009)

craig said:


> c.cloudwalker said:
> 
> 
> > craig said:
> ...


Ask the reps. I don't know what they're doing these days.


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## c.cloudwalker (Sep 7, 2009)

Is photography a side job for you? If you are doing this full time, in LA, you should be making way way more than 20k a year. If not, you really need a rep. I do realize you said you were new to the LA area. That doesn't help business as a big chunk of it usually comes from relationships. The old networking thing. 

And if you are just starting in the business, that's ok too. Some reps are just starting too. That's how I got mine. The guy had a lot of contacts in my field but he had never done it. We made a deal.

The only thing I can't really tell you is how to go about finding one because I personally got lucky. We got introduced by a common friend.

I used a lead company for another business and, frankly, it didn't do much for us. I can see it, maybe, for what I call retail photography (weddings, portraiture, and such) but not for commercial photography. Just can't imagine the big players going thru a lead company.


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## Antithesis (Sep 7, 2009)

I think this is a tremendously good idea, but so far it seems like very poor execution? You need to revamp your prices or work on a commission rather than charging a flat fee. Nobody likes paying that kind of money for a possibly bunk lead. 

I was always a bit concerned about finding work as a photographer. It seems difficult to do full time while your waiting for word of mouth to spread around, regardless of your quality of work. I always hoped that there would be some sort of listing for work without any elitist exclusivity to it. It must just relight the fire for me if there is an easy listing to find work. I suck at marketing myself.


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## craig (Sep 7, 2009)

I was with Service Magic. They provided some lame leads mostly retail browsers. I just emailed a trial offer Agency Access | Photography and Illustration Promotion and Mailing Lists Services

A quick google search landed a couple of high end agencies. The search continues...

Love & Bass


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## photographerleads (Sep 9, 2009)

To answer some of the questions,  We don't take a cut out of your deal, our profit comes from when you buy the deal.  As far as the pricing for exclusive and non-exclusive leads.  I was hoping to get a little feed back on that as well. We were assuming that the average price of a wedding is around $2,000, with that in mind $60 to be the only photographer with that clients info seemed reasonable. Is $60 too high?  What is a fair price for a lead then?  Thanks for all of the feed back so far.  If you are  curious to see our site is is photographerleads.com  and our lead generation site is photopricequotes.com.  Thanks for the help, I'm hoping to offer a fair service to help your business succeed.

Mike


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## manaheim (Sep 9, 2009)

Honestly, before I think you're going to get a heck of a lot of valuable feedback you need to take the community here a bit more seriously.  This is just my opinion, but I've watched this thread with genuine interest ... at least initially ... and then I've felt that you have been slow to respond to others with genuine interest ... and then not always with a lot of detail (if you even answered the questions).

Lots of folks here are your potential target audience... myself included.  If we're not inspired to use your service, that might not be ideal.


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## Antithesis (Sep 9, 2009)

photographerleads said:


> To answer some of the questions,  We don't take a cut out of your deal, our profit comes from when you buy the deal.  As far as the pricing for exclusive and non-exclusive leads.  I was hoping to get a little feed back on that as well. We were assuming that the average price of a wedding is around $2,000, with that in mind $60 to be the only photographer with that clients info seemed reasonable. Is $60 too high?  What is a fair price for a lead then?  Thanks for all of the feed back so far.  If you are  curious to see our site is is photographerleads.com  and our lead generation site is photopricequotes.com.  Thanks for the help, I'm hoping to offer a fair service to help your business succeed.
> 
> Mike



My thought was that if you guys took a percentage of successful business to client connections, you might be more inspired to come up with more realistic leads. I don't like the idea of shelling out cash for a lead that might not go anywhere. It makes it so you just act as a middleman where none is needed, thus taking money from the photographer for a service that he could find elsewhere for free, on his own. At least with agents, my understanding is that they use the percentage model giving both the agent incentive to get sure leads,and the photographer a peace of mind because he doesn't have to shell out cash for every possible client. The emphasis being on *possible*.

But, if it worked out that I paid $60 for a sure job every time, that would be a different story. That is reasonable, but I wouldn't want to pay a premium and then have to resell myself to the prospective client. That should be the agencies job.


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