Having had the pleasure of working with San Francisco-based fashion and beauty photographer Samantha Wolov a handful of times over the past year, I know a few things about her: she’s incredibly driven and she’s incredibly organized. She considers herself a New York fashion photographer with a west coast ZIP code. And because she has family and shoots on the east coast, she’s in NYC every few months.
We’ve worked with Sam on past visits to help her set up portfolio meetings. But on her most recent project, we decided to switch up our game a bit. And we must say, we were pretty pleased with ourselves when all was said and done.
Sam approached us with the idea of combining all of our resources before deciding who would be the best prospects to reach out to for meetings. She is a user of Agency Access’ Campaign Manager Pro program, wherein AA regularly sends emailers and print mailers as well as make phone calls on her behalf. They also send her statistics at the end of each cycle, detailing their work. Together, we created a spreadsheet that combined AA’s efforts with all the past outreach we had done to set up meetings. Then, Sam went through the past year of emailers and noted the people who had opened and clicked through to her website. She also made notes of prospects she was connected with on LinkedIn. By the end, we had a very powerful master list to work from.
Basing our search on all of these notes and statistics, we went through the list and decided who to reach out to. We didn’t want to request a meeting from anyone who was already super familiar with Sam’s work or who she had met with recently as this could potentially overwhelm them. Once this list of fresh and potentially-interested contacts was finalized, we sent emails and made follow-up phone calls to the prospects.
While we were working on that, Sam jumped on a plane to DC (her hometown), where she stayed for about 36 hours before packing herself and her gear onto a train bound for NYC. Her final schedule in the Big Apple looked like this:
Friday – Train arrives in the afternoon
Saturday – Beauty shoot
Sunday – Fashion shoot
Monday – Meetings with an artist rep and two large magazines
Tuesday – Meetings with two very large fashion magazines and a large fashion brand
Wednesday – Meeting with fashion brand and large magazine, head back to DC
Thursday – Surprise! Shoot with the fashion brand from yesterday
Unfortunately, the fashion brand with whom Sam was supposed to meet on Tuesday had to cancel at the last minute, but she more than made up for it by scheduling a shoot with the other brand she met with Wednesday morning. The designer booked her on the spot for the following day! It pays to be prepared with your book and gear on hand!
The moral of the story for Samantha and ourselves was that organization and some hard work in the beginning will more than pay for itself in the end. We were so glad to have the “master list” that we’ve begun making another copy for her clients in San Francisco and Los Angeles!
“Being a fashion photographer who isn’t based in New York, I’m aware that I’m already working with something of a disadvantage, but to me, that just means that my marketing efforts need to be that much stronger. Working with Jillian to make my Master List means that I can take a far more tactical approach to making contact with potential clients. Every project I’ve taken on with Jillian has been a true team effort, and her assistance and feedback has truly been invaluable.”
See more of Samantha’s work on her website.
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