All righty, cap deployed Photographerblue.com a minute ago. Go check it out, if you’re a photographer, sign up right now, and if you’re not, why not? Anyone can be a photographer, just grab a camera (preferably disposable) from KMart and start a-snappin’!
Just kidding, really. Not everyone can be a photographer. We could spot your amateurishness in an instant, if you had a listing on photographerblue. Because we put your actual photography front and center. You know, like ‘good photos’ are the most important thing about a photographer. Weird.
Check it out at http://photographerblue.com.
Now I start the fun, markety part! Wish me the best of luck.
I saw your post about photographerblue.
I have some questions, if you don’t mind.
Why is it useful? Yes, it’s a listings site. But there’s already plenty of those. Many of them with critical mass, established links with vendors, plenty of traffic, strong reputations as an information resource for prospective clients, some of them free, and (most importantly) already known. Not sure I see the attraction for photographers at this point. Kind of like the online version of standing in an empty room and hoping someone walks by…. So, since you’re starting at a disadvantage, presumably you’ve got a compelling USP instead. In which case, this is the time to explain it, as it’s not clear.
What’s the commercial model? I assume you’ve built this as a revenue engine, so who pays? And how much? If the client pays, then anyone who’s listed with you is at a financial disadvantage, since the client would have a better deal with a direct approach to the studio. So that’s possibly a slight disadvantage for the photographer, too. And you’ve already said the site isn’t advertising led, so I guess the only other revenue point is direct from the photographer. But if the photographer pays, I wonder why that isn’t mentioned in your sign-up page?
And who are you? You say ‘us’ which suggests the idea of a busy marketing force hard at work behind the scenes. Maybe you’re a well-organised team, about to unveil the latest, greatest social networking resource on the internet, and plugged into active marketing campaigns in leading media. Or maybe you’re a lone programmer who’s built something in their spare time with no collateral whatsover, beyond a hope that ‘if you build it they will come’. But it would be nice to explain either way.
Hope you don’t mind the questions. I looked for an FAQ in case it would give some context, but there wasn’t one.
Hi Neil! Thanks for the questions — those are all very important things to know, and I obviously need to explain them more clearly!
Usefulness: Photographerblue is a listing site at heart, and the goal is to be the simplest, easiest to use listing site for clients.
The big problem solved by all listing sites is that photographer websites, as a whole, while great as portfolios of the photographer’s work, aren’t easily findable by normal search mechanisms (Google). With Photographerblue, we’re trying to solve the technical/design/focus challenges that make standard search interfaces not work as well for finding photographers.
In a nutshell, we want to make it easier for people to find you. To that end, we’re very much focused on the user experience of the site, and on having as few and as targeted features as possible. We don’t want to be everything to everyone, we just want to be the most straightforward way to find and compare wedding photographers.
As far as other listing sites, yep, we’re familiar with them, and we think we can do better on the technical and design front. We have a lot of work to do to achieve the critical mass, but there’s no barrier to entry, we don’t charge any upfront fees, so there’s no downside to creating a listing. We aren’t trying to replace your personal site, or manage your entire portfolio; just give us a couple pictures and a link and you’re a member forever. As far as already known, we’re working on that too. :)
Commercial model: We charge $99/month for a premium listing. This will be a useful option once we’ve gained recognition and that critical mass of searchers and listed photographers. At that point, it’s an advertising expense to basically show up first/more prominently, if you’re in a hot market. We don’t pressure you, or punish your listing for staying with the free option.
And for who I am: manythingsblue is my company name; I’m Taylor, the (full-time) founder and lead developer. My wife Anya is working on a lot of the marketing. For feature consulting and product feedback I’m working with some local wedding photographers I know. Nope, not a big company, but we don’t have any intention of leaving this up to hope and chance; My full-time job is developing and supporting this product, and we’re going to put everything we’ve got into marketing it as well as we can.
Neil, thanks very much for the questions! Much-needed push to me to think through and write these things down, and I’ll put much of this information into a clear FAQ page as soon as possible. I appreciate your taking the time to look it over, and let me know if you have any more questions or suggestions.
Thanks for the answers, Taylor. I get the basic business model and I can envisage your goals.
Some feedback:
You should probably explain the revenue element in the sign-up page. It’s good that you have a free and a paid option, and entirely reasonable that the paid service has more features and search weighting. But, since you don’t mention fees at all, most prospective photographers may assume your terms are adverse, and fail to sign-up at all. Since they’re not adverse, you may as well let people know.
I think the benefit to the photographer needs thinking through. You say “we want to make it easier for people to find you”. I don’t see that. What I see is “we want to make it easier for someone to find all photographers just like you”. Which is counter-intuitive to the needs of the photographer. Success – and client reach – depends on differentiation, not aggregation.
You may be familiar with the 1/8 page advertisement in bridal magazines. They’re useless. The main problem is they don’t permit differentiation. Everyone is equalised by the 200 character strapline and 3 inch image, and therefore indistinguishable. The reader calls no one on that page because they can’t see anyone who stands out.
Unfortunately your search results seem geared to the same end. Everyone becomes the same. And therefore less findable, rather than more findable.
Most photographers want to be the only result for a search. Hence SEO, and defining their site in terms that suit their business, market and locality. Your site would offer more potential value if it worked that way. Randomised results are a bad thing, not a good thing, since you’re disconnecting photographers from the triggers they have with their potential prospects.
$99 a month is pricey. That would buy a lot of Google adwords, and their reach is bigger. Photographers will always spend their marketing budget with care. Careful targeting and deepest reach are the main influences for a photographers when judging spend. Until you’re in a position to compete with more established and proven alternatives, you may want to downscale your fee expectations.
Neil, thanks for the feedback. I’ll definitely rework the sign-up page to explain the revenue model. I agree that not knowing isn’t the most comforting thing, even if there’s no hidden fine print.
I do want to make it easier for you to be found, as a photographer. I also want to make it easier for clients to find photographers. Those two goals aren’t always hand-in-hand, unfortunately, and in judging between what a photographer might want and what end-users are looking for, I’m honestly all for the end-user.
I think a user-focused mindset will help me keep the site simple, even when perhaps photographers would wish for more complexity so they can be the only one in a specific search category.
I wholeheartedly support a photographer’s SEO efforts for their studio site; unfortunately, I see a lot of content-free Flash-based gallery sites. If you have a USP and the content to support it that will bring you to the top in organic search results, I applaud you.
Photographerblue is for people to find photographers.
I think focusing on the user means the site will be beneficial for photographers as well, but I don’t want to compromise usefulness to the user in favor of the photographer’s desire to communicate their uniqueness.
To clarify a few things that differentiate between Photographerblue and the listings you mention that would appear in a bridal magazine: I envision users first narrowing down their results by selecting their location and price range, those seeming to be the most common filters. Already we have a focused list, so the user won’t be overwhelmed.
Next, if you click a photographer, you’ll see their profile page, something I need to add a screenshot/description of to the site. You can see an example of this completely photographer-focused page here: http://photographerblue.com/1-sample-photography-studio
I’m open for feedback on pricing, and I agree that the value may not be there until later, when we have significant numbers of both photographers and search traffic. Since there’s a free listing though, and since the $99 is completely month to month, without long-term contract, photographers can judge for themselves the value as the site grows.
Thanks for the feedback!
I’m all for user focused sites as well, but the value has to be there for both parties.
Given that your product is a database of suppliers, your primary concern has to be how to build and service that database. You need a critical mass of photographers to attract clients; otherwise you’ll be at risk of joining the many other hundreds of unsuccessful listing sites. Without a database of proven high-calibre suppliers, your site has no content and no product.
One thing I get from your pitch so far is you lack direct experience of how people buy and sell wedding photography. At least I assume that’s the case, as you’re picked the least favorable route for both photographer and client: shopping by price.
Of course budget will always be a dimension, but starting a search process based on price and location assumes that all suppliers and services are equal. That’s pretty much never the case.
You might consider other factors, including and not limited to professional experience, photographic style, published work, client review.
Allow a client to say “Show me all photographers in California who’ve shot at least 25 weddings, who have professional credentials, who are specialists in photojournalism, are able to shoot film and have been published in blogs or magazines.”
That’s a lot more meaningful than “Show me all photographers in California who charge between $4,000 and $6,000.” How does the user know what they’re charging for? Or whether they first picked up a camera ten years ago or the day before yesterday? Or whether their visual style is appropriate for the client’s preference?
It’s that sort of innovation and value-added thinking that will bring you customers. But if you just want to build a price comparison site there are hundreds out there already.
Sorry – accidentally submitted the previous post in mid-flow.
Please don’t take my feedback as negative. I’m genuinely interested in the idea, and would love to see this work. But I think you’ll need to work through some of the teething pains as you refine the model and the concept.
You’ve got plenty of good ideas – they just need the right packaging.
Neil,
I agree that I have to add value for both parties. I think that the ideal setup for a site like mine is different depending on what side you’re on, and that’s where I’m going to go with what the user wants.
Here’s what I mean.
I don’t believe all suppliers and services are equal. But neither do I believe they’re easily reducible to a set of statistics. If I think about it, the only two things that are actual needs of the client when they’re searching are the ones I have: Price and location. I think those are going to be primary filters for a user, not secondary. It doesn’t matter if a photographer is awesome, if your budget is $2k – $3k and they charge minimum $10k.
If I look at the factors you suggest, they’re greatly useful for the photographer who scores well in those categories. But for the client? What does professional experience mean? Yes, experience may imply a level of proficiency, so why would anyone ever choose less than the maximum allowed? Would anyone ever search for a photographer with 1-5 weddings shot, if 25+ is available in the dropdown? The only reason I could think of to do so is because of price constraints, so why do I even bother letting you search by experience?
And once you’ve filtered by price, if I then let you narrow down again by professional experience, does that bring the best to the top? Who’s going to have the most weddings? Seems like it would be A) the best, B) the cheapest, and C) the oldest. Why do I want to favor the old studios, or the ones that used to charge $500/wedding and now bumped their price after getting a lot of ‘experience’? I can’t guarantee that the ones with experience are better than the ones without, so it seems kind of an arbitrary criteria, solely to make a list of possibilities smaller.
I also don’t want to give bad incentives to either clients or photographers. When we start asking questions like “Can you shoot film?”, or “What do you specialize in?”, no one wants to be the only studio who doesn’t show up if they want someone to shoot film, or if they want a photojournalism specialist. So the incentive is going to be to check as many boxes as you can possibly stretch, so the actual specialists are going to fall behind in search results.
That’s because of user behavior: It’s natural to associate ‘most’ with ‘best’, whether in experience, or in specialties. So if there’s a list of specialties or styles or whatever, and I let you check them off, they’ll gravitate towards the ones that tick the most boxes. Again, artificial constraints, meaningless to the user. I think that eventually punishes the photographers who do specialize, who don’t try to game the system. Lose lose.
I think for a photographer, the idea of being reduced to a price and location amongst similar prices and locations sounds kind of crass. But digging deep enough, those seem to be the only fair criteria that have meaning to a typical user.
It also seems that the other qualities you mention go hand-in-hand with price. More experience, higher price. If someone who picked up a camera yesterday wants to charge $8k for a wedding, he’s going to stand out amongst the veteran photographers. I understand the desire to stand out in a particular category, I just think the obvious ways to do it (more options) aren’t actually in the best interest of anyone.
What do you think? I really do appreciate the time you’ve taken to offer feedback, and don’t want to seem like I’m dismissing counter-ideas out of hand. I just want to make sure I don’t accept common wisdom without questioning, or add features without ensuring their benefit. If you know of a site that you think does this right, I’d love to see it.
Thanks again.