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Entrepreneurial Marketing
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Photo- or other content-related businesses
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Cris and I had an interesting chat today (see chat logs) about a business related to selling photos (could also be video, music, or other multimedia content).
I know that others of you are working on this so I thought I would start a forum discussion here.
What ideas do you have for selling this kind of content, especially in an environment in which there is so much good free content available?
Ideas we talked about on the chat were:
- partnerships with specialized group (for example, in the case of food photography, you might partner with food clubs, cooks, restaurants, or travel agencies)
- connecting with others via social media (Flickr, Twitter, FB, etc.)
- stock agencies
- YouTube or other similar sites (There is a lot less free video available than photos)
- sites like Associated Content or other content resellers (see also this article) - We talked about this in the Thurs. chat too. The trick is finding sites that specialize in your content area.
What other ideas do you have?
What about partnering with online Advertising companies (preferably smaller or newer ones) who havent got there own photographer and simply need images and a lot of them.
You could also look at an upload option for non-professional photographers to upload their work and then make a % of the sale if their photos sell, this would also open up your database?
This is a very interesting topic which reminds me the business model of satellite radio. Although most people can listen to any radio station, satellite radio sells itself on the quality of the content provided by a DJ or music curator. An expert that is able to work with customers and make suggestions based on feedback, preferences and goal of the images they are looking for. Pandora uses an algorithm to help their listeners and Pandora itself fine the music and the channels. The same could be said from an online image or video that is specific to a certain industry but the ingredient that would make a difference would be the human factor. The account manager behind the content or the media curator that could work with the client to help them select the right image and at the same time upsell additional services.
I'm talking with a friend right now who wants to start up an online business. He has thousands and thousands of photos on his hard drive. A lot of them are from his travels, others are just old family photos--some of these show him as a boy sitting on top of the anti-aircraft placements and cannons in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park during WWII (preparations for an attack that never came). We're meeting a little bit later to discuss how to make products out of the photos that he can sell.
My sisters have both used cafe press. One is a sem-professional dog breeder with lots of trophies for her Siberian Huskies. She sells calendars and christmas ornaments and other things with pictures of her dogs -- for people who just love Huskies.
http://www.cafepress.com/sk/tajasiberians
She's getting pretty good with Photoshop.
I like the self-publishing angle, and there's no reason you can't do business direct and also work through resellers. I think people used to be really concerned about competition, channel conflict, etc., but today that's just how business is done. Other direct sales channels might include Ebay, Etsy, etc.