2018 came in with a bang and we are all shocked at how quickly this year has progressed. Here are the Wonderful Machine outreach efforts for January.
In January, Matt focused on scheduling portfolio events in New York City and landed meetings with some top agencies, including McgarryBowen and Rokkan, through 121 phone calls and 109 emails that produced 15 connections. He is looking forward to a few more trips up to NYC in February.
Claire continued to outreach to advertising agencies across the world, learning more about their photography needs and recommending Wonderful Machine photographers for upcoming projects. Outreaching to 325 and connecting personally with 25 individual art buyers and creative directors, her connections were happy to touch base and welcome recommendations. One call ended with a Creative Director in Toronto providing her with a list of creative decision-makers to reach out to at her company as well as an invitation to come by for a visit next time we found ourselves in Canada. Additionally, Claire was able to set up a production call with an agency based out of Miami which resulted in a video research project.
Besides celebrating his birthday in January, Sankha found the time to continue his research efforts with a primary focus on publications. He located 95 new publications, along with 55 new advertising agencies and 32 brands. He made sure to connect 171 new contacts to these new companies while adding 248 contacts to companies already in our database. Other routine tasks for the month included managing our internal CRM to make sure WM email lists were up-to-date and maintaining documentation to ensure the research process is replicated systematically over time. Looking forward to awards season, Sankha is excited about this year’s advertising annual awards releases and anticipates making some interesting discoveries on the agency side.
Julia continued to work on her progress from 2017 by tackling brand outreach with an optimistic point of view on prospective client relationships. With a total of 278 phone calls and 295 emails to prospective brand clients, Julia made a total of 32 connections and out of those connections scheduled three production capabilities phone calls. Julia received a great response from Tim Rasmussen, Director of Photography and Print Media at ESPN,
“Julia, I have sent around Wonderful Machine’s URL to my team a couple of times and we have used it to find photographers!”
In addition to some positive email responses, Julia scheduled a few production capabilities phone calls with three brands including Four Seasons Hotels, Environmental Defense Fund, and Starbucks. Each phone call came from either an email response or a direct outreach call and created the possibility for future projects. Paula Trotto, the Photo Coordinator at the Environmental Defense Fund, uses Wonderful Machine to search for photographers in a variety of specialties such as agriculture, portrait, reportage, and lifestyle. She is also interested in motion and drone work and hires photographers throughout the United States and internationally. Lastly, Julia reconnected with Eric Pokorny, Manager of Interactive Content at Starbucks, who we met with in Seattle for a portfolio event back in 2016 and caught up about current projects and needs for motion photographers.