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John David Pittman is a commercial photographer based in Little Rock, Arkansas. He first started capitalizing on our consulting services with the Branding & Marketing Plan. Since then, he’s really amped up his presentation on every level. John David is not only really nice, but he’s also positive and obviously excited and passionate about his work. He’s extremely fun to work with, and one of those people who invigorates and inspires you when you talk to him. Talent goes without saying.
When John David approached us wanting to work together on an emailer design, we were fully on board and ready to jump right in. He was looking to design a template that was clean, minimal, and cohesive with the branding on his site. We got to work designing a few options based on this direction and a variety of content he could potentially include in his email marketing.
While John David liked the options, they didn’t quite have the edge and uniqueness he was looking for. After all, you can’t always hit the nail on the head the first time. We scheduled a call to discuss and brainstorm. During that conversation, he mentioned that he wanted the emailer to feel like a feature article in the Times; something where his current and potential clients could better visualize his images in use and be even more inspired to hire him. As designers, we’re familiar with tons of Photoshop mock-ups that allow for just about any design on just about anything—from mags to mugs to canvas tote bags—which come in very handy when pitching ideas for brand stationery and collateral. As soon as we hung up, we did some research and found some magazine mock-up templates we knew would work.
John David had sent over some recent images of Matthew Silver, a street performer and internet sensation, so we popped those into the template with a catchy headline and some “lorem ipsum,” to create a feature spread. We then took the mock-ups we’d created and pulled them into some new email designs. While we realized that this was a lot more involved than your typical emailer prep, John David’s not a typical guy and we knew he’d be up to the challenge. He was, and he loved them.
After some consideration (and hopefully not too many sleepless nights), John David decided on the option below. This template is simple, but it’s got it all: the large image of the feature, logo, headline, editable live text, a catchy personal sign-off, contact information and some sleek social media links.
After John David made his choice, the only thing left was having the emailer coded. We also had o figure out how we were going to host his images since he didn’t use an FTP. After a bit of sleuthing, we figured out that we could host images using DropBox. We just needed to tweak the URLs a little bit. We received the coded template back in all its HTML glory, soon enough. Next, we got all the images linked, and set up his first emailer in Agency Access. All that remained was making sure John David knew how to do all this himself when the time came. As a result, we wrote a comprehensive step-by-step guide chock full of vital information and encouraging comments like, “11. Pat yourself on the back” and culminating in “Congratulations! Your emailer is out there dazzling the masses! Keep up the awesome work!”
We completed the guide and handed over all the necessary files. John David was ready to share his emailer with the world. He was pleased and had this to say about our work together:
Working with Melissa was great. For her to be able to successfully navigate the creative chaos that exists inside my mind to produce exactly what I wanted is pretty damn impressive. As an artist, I love the idea of collaboration and working with Melissa was exactly that.
You can see more from John David Pittman on his website.
Further Reading
Wonderful Machine: Emailer Template: Brett Hemmings
Wonderful Machine: Expert Advice: Email Marketing For Photographers
Wonderful Machine: Expert Advice: Wealth Management And Financial Literacy For Photographers