In the midst of peak summertime, our client outreach team — which consists of Stacy Gold, Emily Hoskins, Andrew Souders, Ashley Vaught, Suzanne Lindsay, Gina Martin, Denise Florendo, Larry Westler, Julie Clement, Laura Wontor, Marianne Lee, Bryan Sheffield, Craig Oppenheimer, and myself — have been focused on adding new contacts and updating records of client companies and individuals in our database. During June, the team added 289 companies and 227 people to the database. We also updated 1,348 companies, 9 people and sent out 218 emails to producers, art directors, photo editors, and marketing managers around the world.
In this month’s client outreach article, we’re going to start by giving you a closer look at some of the roles within Wonderful Machine’s client outreach team, so you can get a better understanding of what everyone has been working on behind the scenes.
On a high level, our outreach team is responsible for reaching out to clients, leading capabilities calls, updating records, and creating connections for our member photographers but each person has a specific focus area to work within. While some roles in our outreach team do have a lot of interaction with clients, others focus more on research and prospecting so we have the most up-to-date information for companies that routinely hire photographers and the most appropriate contacts for each client company. For example, I’ve recently been working on researching agencies and have gone through multiple records where there have been acquisitions and mergers. I review the individual record and links to ensure they are still active and make updates to that company as well as their parent company if necessary. A merger usually triggers a lot of changes within a company and the staff so I also update the agency type, relevant specialties, and go through each person’s record to ensure we have the appropriate contacts at each agency. Senior Photo Editor Stacy Gold, who joined the team last month (welcome, Stacy!), is focused on updating the oldest records on WordPress, while producer Emily Hoskins is specifically updating publications and Andrews Souders is updating brands.
Similarly, we also break up some of the company research and updates by industries to make it more manageable. Marketing Specialist Julie Clement is currently going through all the industries we have in our database to ensure that we have current records for each of the top 25 biggest companies per industry, while Marketing Specialist Laura Wontor is focused on updating and adding records for the largest companies in the Marketing & Advertising industry specifically. In Julie’s words:
My current role ensures that we are keeping track of the leading companies in each industry, which is important for our work with our member photographers and across the board at Wonderful Machine. In going through each industry, I’ve found it interesting to learn how big some industries are compared to others. For example, in certain industries, the 25th largest company still has thousands of employees, whereas in other industries, the employee count is much smaller. I’m also seeing that some industries are very popular in certain countries. I’m currently working on the “Gambling Facilities & Casinos” industry, and I’m finding a lot of the biggest companies in this industry are in the UK!
Here are a few highlights of our team’s connections and successes last month:
Marketing and SEO consultant Ashley Vaught splits his time between consulting projects and client outreach. In his current role, he contacts people who work at various publications (magazines, online publications, trade media, etc) to discuss our capabilities. Last month, Ashley sent 52 emails to various people at publications and unfortunately received no replies this round. However, he was able to update a large number of outdated records for publications this month and delete several outdated records.
In June, Larry Westler, who also actively reaches out to clients, was focused on matching several of our member photographers up with potential clients within their specialties. His outreach was focused on showcasing our capabilities and promoting photographers who could be a good match to showcase their work and secure new client connections for our member photographers.
Suzanne Lindsay is currently focused on agency people and she’s been emailing clients we haven’t been in touch with recently to reconnect with as many clients as possible. When reaching out to clients, she promotes a member photographer whose location and specialties closely match the usual needs of that particular client.
A few months ago, Suzanne connected London, UK-based photographer Richard Boll with an editor at The Telegraph. At the time, he didn’t have any suitable submissions that lined up with what they needed but in June he attempted to reach out to the contact to pitch a project. However, their email bounced back so he reached out to Suzanne. Suzanne did some research and was quickly able to determine that the person had moved on from the company so she provided him with another contact at the publication.
Our Senior Producer Bryan Sheffield works with clients and photographers to plan, produce and execute photo & video shoot productions. He’s also very involved in pricing and negotiating contracts and fees with clients on behalf of photographers. In June, he produced a multi-day shoot for a medical company in St. Louis with photographer Lydia Daniller. A talented producer and photographer in his own right, Bryan also produced and shot a real estate assignment with Philly real estate developer Carl Dranoff for Philadelphia Magazine. He also had a creative call with Craig and a national agency to put together an estimate for a client in the alcoholic beverage industry.
In addition to updating records for brands and coordinating productions, Associate Producer and Photo Editor Andrew Souders helps lead production calls. In June, Andrew and Craig met with the product imaging team at Amazon’s Toronto, Canada location. They connected over a video call to share our capabilities and hear more about the team’s e-commerce needs.
Our Executive Producer Craig Oppenheimer splits his time between consulting with photographers and working directly with brands and agencies to help them find photographers and coordinate productions. In June, Craig connected with Chicago-based Leo Burnett Worldwide to discuss a potential project for a financial institution, and with several leading agencies to bid on projects for a credit card company, a global corporate headshot project, an auto manufacturer, a beer, and a tequila brand.
Craig also coordinated a production through Ace content for Carhartt with photographer Nick Hagan and connected with Lista Design to bid on a project for a US government agency. He is currently producing shoots for a major hotel brand in Turks and Caicos with photographer Bryce Boyer and in Brazil with photographer Andre Klotz.
Need help researching clients? Email our project managers.
Have feedback about the clients we’re promoting to? Email Bill.