Progress Thread: Stock Photography

[EPerceptions]

I haven't found any stickies or such that explain specific formats for this area so I'm not sure what all I should include (or not). After researching and brainstorming heavily all week though, I wanted to share a bit of my excitement

Today I started massive execution. Results:

--> I have my basic digital ordering and automated delivery system in place, tested and functioning.
--> I have the sales letter/licensing terms (my hook) written and live but there's still a lot of refinement needed.
--> I have the website focused on selling my products directly instead of leading people off to distributer sites.
--> I have multiple products for sale with live, working buy buttons

I'm pushing 14 hours for the day so I may be missing stuff but overall, awesome start

 

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[EPerceptions]

The website updates are not fully completed and I don't have referral tracking in place yet so I don't know where exactly it came from but I got my first sale this morning

 

[nextgen]

can you place a link as I use stock photography for some of the websites I design.

 

[Lexauton]

Hey Eperceptions! Congratulations on your first sale, that's a beautiful thing. Looking forward to your progress, start tracking your #'s and scale up like a boss .

 

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[EPerceptions]

Thanks everyone I knew it was just a matter of time, especially since I haven't begun any serious promotion but the first sale is a definite proof of several concepts I only have a couple hundred pics ready so far but the site is ElectronicPerceptions.com I'll try to post more on my progress when I'm not on android.

 

[jon.a]

A little speed for selling something

 

[EPerceptions]

ok, I'm going to attempt to use this thread for accountability and brainstorming. I've got a lot going on so this update might ramble a bit.

I started creating and selling stock photos on the side in 2006. I've followed the slowlane path and put my pictures at various online agencies instead of selling them directly. This was an excellent education though. I've consistently sold photos month in and month out through those sites, and probably sit in the top 5 to 10 percent of photographers in that respect. That's important in this industry because while its super easy to snap photos, its not so easy to get images accepted at stock agencies. It's even harder to sell the images that are accepted and it takes one heck of a lot of skill and effort to sell anything consistently.

The problem is lack of control. Pay control is my biggest issue: Some agencies pay as little as 25 cents per download to the photographer. I decided that since I've been successfully marketing and selling online since 1997, I can do a heck of a lot better with this.

I've had a lot of pieces in place for many years, so for the past month I've been cleaning, organizing and planning.

I have my initial website redesign finished. I have the initial purchase and delivery system in place. I initially decided to leave the buying process out of things for people browsing on the smallest mobile screens but I'm now rethinking that decision due to recent mobile commerce research I came across.

I have my backend automation in place: Photo resizing, watermarking, publishing to the site. I have sales copy, initial FAQs, terms, etc polished and live. I have a free use option setup to help with promotion and I'm beginning the design of a new plugin to expand on that.

I've started a linked In company page and am working on forcing myself to be more social.

I have about 200 photos for license and another 700-800 are going up this week. From there I should be ready to start mass promotions and creating new photos.

I've had a few little speed bumps slow me down but overall I think I'm on track.

Comments, suggestions and questions all welcome

 

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[Thriftypreneur]

I think the demand for stock photography is going to continue to increase, so I like getting into this space. I've thought about trying to find my way into it as well.

I spend a fair amount of time hunting stock images for my projects, so I'll offer some advice.

1. Initial homepage design is a little clunky. As a regular purchaser of stock images, I want to be able to browse, sort and select with ease. I'm completely uninterested in how amazing your quality is on photos unless I'm planning on buying it, so the large, over-sized thumbnails are a waste. Unless I'm interested in learning more about an image, and click on it specifically, it should always be in thumbnail form.

Homepage focus should probably be to get people into your photo category pages and not showcasing photos themselves (it took me a minute to realize that I had to click the small category link to see the category page). Biggest problem I have with most stock photo sites, is they're a pain in the a$$ to navigate and browse to easily find and sort specific picture sets I want. I have to search and search and search. Make your site as clean, simple, and as easy to navigate as possible.


2. I'm sure your probably already aware of this, but some photo pages don't have option to buy enabled. Stock Photo: » Chicken Alfredo @Electronic Perceptions

3. As an individual stock photo site, instead of trying to cover tons of niches, why not add a feature that allows your visitors to request image sets. For example, on one of my sites I need lots of images related to fruits, vegetables and juicing. I'm having to scout and scour different stock images sites to compile this collection for my site. If there was a place I could simply submit what I want and have a photographer supply me with the set, I would buy a license for every single image in the set.

So instead of taking random photos and hoping someone needs them, this way you know every picture you take is going to sell a license. Also, it's a great way to get paid while you build up your initial image database.

4. On images that are currently for sale, I see you only do one price and one size. I would try to incorporate at least one size/price version for bloggers/niche site builders/etc. Like 500x400 for whatever price. Reason being, this part of your market has zero use for full size images and will be seeking a stock photo site that can supply this solution.

Anyway, that's all I got. Looking forward to updates! Good luck.

 

[EPerceptions]

Excellent feedback, thank you so much! Speed +

1. Initial homepage design is a little clunky. As a regular purchaser of stock images, I want to be able to browse, sort and select with ease. I'm completely uninterested in how amazing your quality is on photos unless I'm planning on buying it, so the large, over-sized thumbnails are a waste. Unless I'm interested in learning more about an image, and click on it specifically, it should always be in thumbnail form.

I have reservations about the homepage as well but didn't want to get stuck in the perfection loop. Ideally it will evolve over time as I get traffic and user stats to gauge against.

The images adapt their size based on the screen size of the viewer.

Biggest problem I have with most stock photo sites, is they're a pain in the a$$ to navigate and browse to easily find and sort specific picture sets I want. I have to search and search and search. Make your site as clean, simple, and as easy to navigate as possible.

Agreed. I was initially going for a combination of speed and adaptability. You are absolutely correct on the importance of navigation as well.

2. I'm sure your probably already aware of this, but some photo pages don't have option to buy enabled. Stock Photo: » Chicken Alfredo @Electronic Perceptions

Correct. The buy button appears once the full sized image is available in the delivery system.

3. As an individual stock photo site, instead of trying to cover tons of niches, why not add a feature that allows your visitors to request image sets.

Dennis suggested a very similar thing in my brainstorming thread and yes, packages /sets are in the works. The idea of getting requests and suggestions for them is excellent.

4. On images that are currently for sale, I see you only do one price and one size. I would try to incorporate at least one size/price version for bloggers/niche site builders/etc. Like 500x400 for whatever price. Reason being, this part of your market has zero use for full size images and will be seeking a stock photo site that can supply this solution.

This is something I plan to re asses as time goes on. My initial USP is simplicity: One size, one price, one simple license.

Again, thank you so much for the feedback!

 

[EPerceptions]

Today's updates: I made a few changes to the home page. It is better but may not be the final version. I also fixed the search and added 570 files to the delivery system.

I've identified my first 8 to 10 photo sets and will be putting sales tools & copy in place for them over the next several days. Still working on implementing Analytics sales tracking and building up the Linked In company page. I've found and joined several content marketing groups there and am lurking for now to get a feel for each.

I've authorized a former customer to update and distribute one of my plugins in exchange for promotion of the stock site. Not sure that will go far but decided it couldn't hurt. I may still release a free update of my own for promotional use too.

 

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[EPerceptions]

I have the first 6 photosets live but got side tracked with shopping cart code. Currently images can be licensed one at a time and I'm working on changing that so that all or some in a set can be licensed in one go.

 

[EPerceptions]

Changes...

I've decided to break this off from my established business site so that it can be more scalable, and have better potential for acquisition if desired in the future.

The new company is Perception Stock.

I realized during the buildup that my backend is a mess. I've been working with Word Press for many years and just added on or worked around to make things do what I wanted. Even customized though, its not the tool for this job. So I tried out photography specific solutions in an attempt to not lose tons of time with more of my home rolled. Unfortunately those are also not ideal for this project.

So custom it is. I now have my programmer setting up the DB and scripts, while I work on the design. Most of the functionality exists in various bits that I've created over the years, so we're primarily integrating and streamlining.

My programmer is my unofficial husband of many years and he's quite good. I rarely tap him for my needs though because we hate each others code and usually fight about the how, why, etc. He is not business oriented but at the moment is deferring to me on this project so the stress is at a minimum. With most of the pieces already functioning I have hopes that the base he's working on won't take to long.

Meanwhile I'm still doing content work to keep food on the table. Kindle and affiliate sales are slow in July and August so I'm supplementing. One I have the site up and running properly, I plan to start building and advertising like crazy to get out from under that and into my fastlane.

 

[EPerceptions]

Yet another month gone but now we're finally just about there! we compromised and went half and half on custom & established CMS.

The site is live at Perceptionstock.com and I'll have buy buttons on the first several packages this weekend if testing goes well. The high res import system is also getting the finishing touches and I have fingers crossed that all of those photos will be live shortly too.

Still need to do dozen of little things, plus get a mailing list setup. So close!

 

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[JasonR]

Good job on taking action.

What's your USP? I currently use stock imagery from Big Stock Photo, and am a happy customer. Why should I switch to you?

Answer that, and you just may have something.

 

[EPerceptions]

Briefly: simplified licensing. More when I'm off mobile Thanks

 

[EPerceptions]

Whoo Hoo! The first five image sets are now live. The mailing list is setup and functional. The importing and image tools are working for new items, currently sanity checking edit functionality. Still quirks to work out but overall we've made excellent progress

on USP: I'm focusing on easy licensing, no membership requirements and themed packages primarily geared towards content marketers, bloggers and small independent publishers.

 

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[EPerceptions]

I soft launched early this week! Been pulling 12-14 hours of super focused days so I haven't had time to post anything here.

I got ticked off at pre-made CMS software so I dropped back to my own two weeks ago. It took just 10 days from that point to have the most important features operational.

I now have both full size and web size photos live and available for sale. There's over 700 online now and I did five new photo shoots this week. Automated delivery is fully operational. Mailing list is live. Backend admin systems (Import, finances, editing, etc) has all of the important parts live and in place.

I haven't decided yet if I'm going to bother with a blog. I've made my living as a writer for over 15 years and I'm burnt out on it, but I may fall back to it as a promotional/marketing tactic if need be. I've taken on some photo work-for-hire projects to help keep the bills paid while this gains momentum. This is so much more enjoyable than writing web content for hire. It also makes it much easier to create new photos for my own site as I go.

This weekend I'm sitting down and listing all of the little pieces that are still left to do, and planning a full scale marketing plan. Not sure if I'll keep adding updates to this thread or start putting them in blog posts here so they won't get in the way of active discussions.

I'm proud of myself

 

[miked_d]

Any sales?

 

[EPerceptions]

Not yet. Just started working on marketing this morning. Only a matter of time and effort Thanks for asking!

 

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