Advertising Solutions For Photography Professionals

When beginning you own photography website, it is imperative that you perform some type of due diligence on the marketing solutions available on the block today. Many companies are simply out for the money – others that may get limited exposure could very well be the best around. Look for these 4 main points when choosing a digital advertising agency for your photography website:

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Shoot For Experience

It’s vital to choose a digital agency that has already done what you’re looking to achieve. Do you need your website redesigned? Do you want to make a splash with social media? Are you looking to launch a creative campaign to introduce another product? Whatever your needs, the prospective agency should show samples of their work that demonstrate a similar approach to what you want to do. Everyone will tell you they can do what you want. But if they can’t or won’t show you their previous work, you’re just rolling the dice with your company’s future.

Also, searching for experience doesn’t always mean looking for a marketing director with the most gray hairs and dozens of photos of the great grandchildren either. While it’s possible that they’ve kept up all of the new social and interactive marketing techniques, it’s likely they may not be as “hip” to these important aspects of digital advertising and marketing as they should. The right combination may be someone who has plenty of real world experience, yet is young and keen enough to be on the cutting edge of digital marketing trends as well as new technologies.

Find Reliability

Nothing ruins the weekend like missing a Friday deadline because your agency partner bumped you down the priority list for a bigger client. Make sure the prospective agency has a solid reputation of being on time with their deliverables. Talk with some of their clients and ask about their dependability. Obviously, an isolated incident is bound to happen once in a blue moon, but for the most part, these clients should be giving glowing reports on the agency’s ability to meet deadlines.

Reliability also means the agency answers their phones or gets back to you promptly. If your calls always go to voicemail or your emails for unanswered for days, you’re either too low on the agency’s totem pole or they’re just plain flaky. You would be wise to steer clear of any agency with a pattern of poor communication.

‘Size Up’ The Agency

When it comes to agencies, the bigger, more prominent ones may not always be right for your specific needs. Bigger agencies also mean more levels of red tape and bureaucracy. Approvals may take longer to be signed off on, which could stand to delay your launch / release dates. Small to medium-sized agencies on the other hand often have the ability to be more flexible than their heavyweight counterpart. This affords them the opportunity to be more “nimble” in their decision making and less rigid in their operating procedures, hence being more inclined to accommodate a client’s special needs.

Big or small, make sure your prospective digital agency is excited about your business and the creative challenge that lie ahead. The size of your company, or your budget, shouldn’t matter in the quality of customer service you receive.

Is The Chemistry Good?

Are the people at the prospective agency easy to talk to and do they seem approachable? If everything goes according to plan, you may be working with this agency for years, so it makes sense to pick one that you feel good about and can push your pictorial website or photography business the best.

Make sure you know the people you talk with initially are the same people you’ll actually be working with. Many agencies have a pitch team that wins your business, only for you to realize you’ll be working with a grumpy, tired rep. There may be a reason why they didn’t want you to know who would be handling your account up front… and none of those reasons will wind up benefiting your business.

Greg Henderson is the mogul behind the free reverse lookup site Free Phone Tracer while he also dabbles with helping others to find friends with a free email search service that pinpoints old and new email addresses.