Previous articles in this series have addressed the long tail as it relates to stock photography, and why it is an increasingly important concept to understand for those who want to maximize earning. Constantly adding to your customer base, rather than earning more from existing customers, is at the core of the long-tail theory.
Traditional stock-photo sellers tend to focus on serving the customers that are easiest to find and have the biggest budgets. Most agencies disregard a much larger and more diverse group of image users, whose needs are occasional and who cannot afford traditional prices for the images they need.
Part of the reason for this traditional focus is that small users can be very difficult to identify. Producers have generally come to the erroneous conclusion that the cost of marketing and servicing these customers will be greater than the revenue they are likely to generate, making them not worth pursuing.
However, the Internet offers those selling stock photography some unique advantages. Image databases enable customers to search through millions of images and quickly find something that fits their needs. Payment can be made online, and the credits system enables customers to conduct very small transactions. Delivery of the finished product takes place instantaneously. Communities provide education and useful information to both buyers and sellers, encouraging further participation.
Thus, it appears that the only barriers to getting customers to a new Web site are in making them aware of it and keeping prices competitive.
There are also other important considerations—for example, the fact that marketing a new and cheaper resource to traditional professional users can do more harm than good, unless the seller can find a way to maintain prices for large commercial uses and only offer low prices for certain limited categories of small uses. If the goal is to expand the long tail, it means focusing on customers who are only occasional users of photography and those with limited budgets.
One thing that has worked for growing traffic is allowing amateurs to sell their pictures online. The combined total of microstock contributors is probably somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000. The vast majority are making few sales, if any, but the advantage is not financial. If they ever need to use a picture, they will go where they are selling their own. If a friend asks them where to find a picture, they will direct the friend to the site where their own pictures are licensed.
Most teachers and professors need pictures from time to time, but they are not used to buying them. How does the seller make them aware of his resource? Chances are that none of these people will ask a graphic designer or photographer for suggestions.
There are more than 480,000 churches and religious organizations in the U.S. today. All of them need pictures at least a few times a year. Some are using pictures in PowerPoint presentations every Sunday. Some have graphic designers on staff or as members of the congregation, but in most cases, a secretary or the pastor is responsible for finding pictures and creating the marketing materials and event announcements they need.
Traditional sellers may think they have good contacts with large businesses organizations and the graphic designers that work with in such companies. But how many people in these companies regularly create PowerPoint presentations and never think to ask the professionals in their company where to get pictures for inclusion? And how do you reach them?
And then there are social networking and personal Web sites.
Finding ways to communicate with each of these groups can be daunting, but each individual in these groups is also in online communities of some type. If you can identify and break into such communities, their members will spread the word about your service.
The big microstock companies have clearly proved that there is a very big market out there. Their success may be because they were first to establish a presence. They may have already captured the low-hanging fruit. But there are still opportunities they have not exploited. There are still people who do not know where to go to easily find images when they need them. Places where there has been some editing and quality control and where the images are organized so they are easy to find. Like it or not, this is the future of stock photography—not in selling more images at higher prices to traditional customers.