In August, our team engaged with clients in a variety of ways. The Client Outreach department, consisting of Liz Wolf, Gil Corujeira, Adrián Alarcón Sánchez, Bridget Barrett, Laura Derežanin, Hanna Quevedo, Josip Portner, Lana Jergović, Denise Florendo, Sara Maričević, Craig Oppenheimer, Bryan Sheffield, and Andrew Souders produced some noteworthy updates.
We added 398 companies and 582 people to our database this past month. Additionally, we updated 1,995 companies, and 2,170 people, and sent out over 533 emails to producers, art directors, creative directors, marketing managers, and photo editors. Below are some examples of the projects our team has been diligently working on.
In August, I spent the most time in the Publications role. In order to research Companies that are Publications, I first looked at any data records for Publications that were missing an employee count. This information helps us determine the size of the Publication, as many digital newspapers and blogs only have a few writers or editors compared to larger national or global news sources. In addition, we can determine whether or not the Publication has been acquired by any media groups so we are aware of their parent company and other relevant publications. The size primarily will help us discern whether or not the Publication will have the budget for editorial photography, or if they rely on stock images. From there, I was able to add any relevant contacts for these Publications so that we can reach out to their photo editors to share and promote relevant photographers.
The past month, my focus was on managing records for our Client Companies, including Publications, Agencies, and Brands. My responsibilities involved updating and verifying details and links within our data records and their profiles on our website. On top of that, it is essential to have a person of contact within these companies to whom we can promote our services and photographers. Regularly updating these links is essential to ensure we have accurate information. We’re always on the lookout to see if these companies still align with our Member Photographer’s needs so we can provide them with the best opportunities.
In August, I worked on records for Client Companies. I spent some time on Publications and Agencies as well as Brands. In these roles, I have been working to update and check all the details and links of all the data records and corresponding profiles on our site. I evaluated new additions and added new Client People that could be good prospects for promoting our Photographers. Updating the links ensures that we have all the correct information, and we are constantly evaluating if these Companies remain a good match with what our photographers need so that we can offer our best to them.
This month I worked on evaluating and updating our records for Client People that work for Publications and Agencies. This process involves checking the person’s LinkedIn profile to determine whether or not they are still with the same company and updating their information accordingly. Once their data record was updated with the most current information, I sent them an email to learn more about their needs and share our capabilities. I also included a link to promote one of our Member Photographers based in or near their city who might be a good fit for that Client. Through sending those initial emails, I arranged a meeting between our producer Andrew Souders and an award-winning Creative Director at HarperCollins. A meeting was set up for September for her to see what our website has to offer and get a Premium login so she can access even more features.
I’ve transitioned from my previous role to take on a new responsibility at Wonderful Machine. Initially focusing on updating Client Brands, I now also manage Out-of-Office Replies. My current tasks involve reviewing incoming emails – primarily out-of-office replies – for new information and promptly update data records when necessary.
Additionally, we implemented a unique approach to office hours within the Client Outreach department. Each team member, including myself, now has a dedicated one-hour time slot per week. During these slots, all team members from various departments have the opportunity to join in if they wish. This arrangement fosters a collaborative atmosphere where we can collectively address edge cases, exchange insights, and enhance our overall team communication.
I have been updating Client profiles, focusing on Brands for the majority of August. Then, I changed to my new role, “Parent Companies.” Working with Brands was interesting and has turned out to be good training, especially now that I am working on Parent Companies. This role involves working through all of the Companies in our database that are marked as Parent Companies. After updating them, I sort through their subsidiaries to understand which subsidiaries we already have (and updating those) and evaluating any for addition that we may not yet have. We track Parent Companies in our database for a few reasons, but namely so that we understand the relationships between companies (sometimes related companies will share a creative team), and because they can lead us to other other good prospects that might hire professional photographers (a Parent Company’s subsidiary might be a good prospect for us).
I was in the Industries role this month. I alphabetically went through our Industries in our database (which correspond to the industry names LinkedIn uses) and evaluated our target number that we wanted to track for each one of them. Also, I analyzed the smallest companies in each Industry and marked the ones that I found no longer to be good prospects for deletion. My new task at the end of the month has been to again go through the Industries that are the highest prospects for hiring professional photographers, and check LinkedIn for new prospects at the Companies in these Industries. While doing that, I also evaluate the target numbers again and evaluate if we should stop keeping track of some of those Industries.
I was in the Vertical Market Lists role this month. As part of my role, I compile lists that include various Companies, such as “Fashion: Jewelry” for example. I conduct quick research on the internet and then, using the online lists of brands I’ve found, I begin the process of adding or updating individual Companies and sorting them into different Vertical Market Lists that are important to our Member Photographers.
I was doing the OOO Replies role for the majority of August, but I transitioned to the Oldest Promoted role halfway through the month, in which I take care of promoting Member Photographers to different Clients around the world.
I trained and assisted Laura in transitioning to the OOO role. Separately, I also had meetings with Sara, Josip, Adrian, Lana, Bridget, and Liz.
With the Oldest Promoted role, I was able to promote photographers to the following: Foreign Affairs Magazine, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), Aktuality, Prophet (Hong Kong), Telerama, Ogilvy (Frankfurt), The Guardian Weekly, Interbrand (Madrid), VMLY&R (Shanghai), Australie.GAD, and others.
In August, my primary focus remained on enhancing the quality and comprehensiveness of our records. While we’ve made progress, the challenge of maintaining data accuracy and timeliness persists. Within my Industries role, I’ve been dedicated to ensuring inclusion of the largest companies in each industry and keeping our existing database up to date. Moving forward, I will continue to prioritize database enhancement, aiming to maintain its value for our department and the entire organization.
In August, we connected with Cencora to discuss multiple corporate headshot projects, as well as a series of healthcare lifestyle productions. We also connected with IHG as a followup to a capabilities presentation we gave them a few months ago to discuss and bid on a large hospitality production at a hotel in the NYC area. Additionally, we connected with Robard to discuss a still life and video project to capture content featuring their beauty products. And finally, we connected with Edelman to bid on a project for eBay, and discussed a corporate event coverage project for McCann Health.
My current Client Outreach role is working on the People that work at Brands, focusing on Producers and/or those in production positions. I filter our data records for People working at Brands and make updates to those records. From time to time, people will change companies or roles or careers, which is why LinkedIn is such a great resource in this kind of role.
In August, I was in theStar Keyword Outreach role. This role involves researching, updating, and emailing Clients with the “*Star” keyword in Daylite, who are particularly good prospects for our shoot production services. I’ve recently been taking a closer look at these larger brand’s in-house creative agencies/teams — they are not always apparent or public, but researching them and understanding their structure and people’s roles within them and the brand’s ecosystem can help us make our outreach more effective and targeted. I also visited with the Business of Photography class at Philadelphia’s Drexel University in August and presented an overview of Wonderful Machine, discussing how we came to be, what we do, as well as sharing some professional advice with the photography students there.
One connection I made in August was with a Branded Properties Manager at John Deere. They responded to my email to let us know the contact info of their new Visual Services Operations Lead connect, who we could contact for promoting photographers and sharing our shoot production services with.
Have questions about how we promote our photographers? Check out our Membership page. Want to know how you can get the most out of your Wonderful Machine membership? Check out our Jumpstart page or just reach out!