Today's Guest: Bob Coates of Successful Photographer Newsletter
Today's Host: Damien Allen
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Successful Photographer Newsletter
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Bob Coates Expert PageANNOUNCER: This VTalk Radio's Spotlight is sponsored by morephotos.com the online photo sales solution to professional photographers worldwide. Welcome to the VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight with your host, Damien Allen.
DAMIEN: Good afternoon and welcome to the VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight. My name is Damien Allen, and today we have with us via phone Mr. Bob Coates. Welcome to the program, Bob.
BOBOB: Thanks Damien. Good to be here.
DAMIEN: Well I understand you are in the process of launching a brand new photography newsletter. Why don't you tell us a little bit about it.
BOB: Sure. The name of the newsletter is Successful Photographer and hopefully that's self explanatory. The sub head on it is Business Marketing in the Art of the Photography are the subjects that we cover. I did throw in the art of photography because I didn't want to scare everybody away. Photographers like to see pictures and we don't want to just, you know, do totally business and marketing, but that's what photographers need to make their businesses go. And I've noticed over the last oh, especially the last three or four years it's been a huge influx of new photographers into the business, and most of them have started because someone said, oh man, you make really nice photos, really nice images, you should become a photographer. So they go, hmmmm that's a good idea, and the problem is they don't have any business experience to back it up, and they don't charge enough for their time. They don't charge enough for their product and it becomes...either they don't stay in business very long, or they do eventually learn and then have to work on getting their prices up to a reasonable level to be able to support a business.
DAMIEN: So this is a monthly newsletter then?
BOB: Yes, it comes out monthly and it's available, I don't encourage the pdf version, but I did have a lot of requests for it so we're doing a pdf version that can be delivered via email. We also do a hard copy which is the one I recommend, and then we also supply an audio product where we are interviewing people about, you know, the marketing and business part that people can pop that CD in their car while they're driving. I think Zieg Ziegler was the one who coined the phrase "Going to windshield university". So that instead of driving your car and, you know, listening to music or something, you can actually make it a productive commute. I'm not quite so sophisticated so I call it going to car college.
DAMIEN: As a musician I understand that form of learning...that's 90% of any learning at that point is done by listening repetitively. It sounds like a fine product, and we've just learned how to get it. How much does the product cost?
BOB: The pdf version would be $11.97. The mail version is $13.97 and the mail version with the audio product is $18.97 a month.
DAMIEN: So for a very low amount of money monthly you are able to get business training. Are there any photography tips in this as well or is it just basically...
BOB: Oh absolutely. We cover the gammit with the newsletter, and it can be everything from, you know, how to sell better, how to market better, how to run your business and one of the things that I think is really important about the newsletter is I'm tapping the, you know, the top people within the industry who are on the cutting edge of marketing. As photographers we tend to learn from photographers who have learned from photographers who have learned from photographers. So the marketing...a lot of the marketing...that's out there now is kind of inbred and one of the things I'm doing in addition to tapping the top talent in the industry now is going outside the industry to like carpet cleaners and to hair stylists and direct mail marketing people, and you would say, why would you do that? Well the actual answer is marketing is marketing is marketing. We can take a lot of ideas from other industries and change them over to work really well in the photography industry. For example, from the hair styling industry their customer service ideas are incredible. You know, some of the things that they do just to make the customer service experience stronger, of course, brings you back more repeat business. From the business side how, you know, how carpet cleaners attract customers. From the direct marketing how direct marketing/direct mail campaigns work in order to, you know, increase your business.
DAMIEN: Sounds like a very, very, very well thought out magazine. How does one subscribe to this magazine?
BOB: Well you can check out www.successful-photographer.com and basically you can go in and download the inaugural issue. There's a pdf posted on there so you can kind of check and see the materials for you. There's also each month newsletters going to have the first paragraph or so from each of the stories you can kind of you'll start to get, you know, more of a taste of what the newsletter is all about. And, of course, I do want to emphasize that we still add some art ideas in there and how to do some artistic things with digital and painting images and things like that so it's not totally business and marketing, but the business and marketing part I think is the most important. If I wasn't as good a marketer as I was, I wouldn't be in photography today, because my photography was about medium when I first started out. I had some composition, you know, could do ok with that, but knew nothing about lighting and kind of while my marketing was working and keeping me busy, I was learning my craft and now I think my photography has caught up to my marketing skills, and so therefore, I'd really be in business for a while.
DAMIEN: Well this sounds like a nice little piece to add into any photographers tool box, and we appreciate you coming on the program and telling us about it today.
BOB: My pleasure, Damien. Thanks so much.
to check it out. You have been listening to the VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight. I'm Damien Allen. Have a great afternoon.
ANNOUNCER: You have been listening to the VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight; only on www.vtalkradio.com . Radio for the 21st Century.