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Keeping track of all the most important clients around the world is the single most valuable thing we do to help our photographers. And since there are millions of companies out there, we divide them into smaller, more manageable categories so we can conduct our research efficiently and so we can concentrate on clients that photographers care about most.
We’re gradually rolling out pre-built lists of clients called Verticals, where we can provide lists that target a specific vertical market at a significant discount compared to our custom-built lists.
Years ago, when we first started collecting client information, we simply assigned them Specialty keywords identifying the kind of photography they used. But as we gained experience, we realized that it would be useful to divide clients by Type: Publications, Agencies, and Brands (we currently track 3137 publications, 5629 agencies, and 11,795 brands). That allowed us to research those companies more effectively, because we find them using different sources and we have different criteria for evaluating them. And when we add people to each of those companies, the company type helps inform our choices around job titles and messaging.
Next, we divided those types into sub-types that we call Industries. Since publications and agencies are particularly important to photographers, we devised our own custom list of industries. However, because there are so many brands, and since every company has a LinkedIn profile, we simply assign the industry that shows up on LinkedIn to each of the brands we track (LinkedIn provides over 150 Industry tags that companies can use to identify themselves).
While those LinkedIn industries have given us a framework to do a lot of valuable research over the years, since LinkedIn’s list of industries is geared towards a general audience and because companies often make arbitrary choices from that menu, those industries don’t always yield the exact client lists our photographers need (without a lot of additional curation). That brings us to Verticals. Verticals (short for vertical markets) are a more photographer-specific version of our Industry tag. The reason this is so useful is because if a photographer finds success with any one client, it’s likely that they’ll match up well with other clients in that same Category.
For example, one of our photographers, Teri Campbell is a highly skilled and experienced food photographer in Cincinnati. One of the Categories he targets is QSRs, which stands for Quick Service Restaurants (fast-food chains to you and me). Since QSR isn’t a LinkedIn’s Industry, we have to find lists of QSRs in restaurant industry publications or on Wikipedia.
Since we’re now in the process updating all of our companies with this new tag, we’d love to hear from you. What verticals do you care about?
By sharing your priorities with us, it will help us target the right clients that we promote Wonderful Machine to in general, and it will also help us provide cost-effective lists that you can buy. Here’s our current list of Verticals that we’re working on. Please email me with your suggestions for additional Verticals that you think we should be covering.
Agriculture
Architecture
Art Museum
Automotive
Beverages
Chemical Company
Drug Maker
Education
Fashion
Financial Services
Firearms Brand
Food
Furniture Brand
Gaming
Healthcare
Hospitality
NGO
Non-Profit
Outdoor
Personal Care
Pet Product Brand
Restaurant
Retail
Shipping
Sports
Vacation Rental
Need help building your prospect list? Reach out!