Pete McArthurPhotographer

Assignment:
Creating & Promoting an Online Stock Photo Business

Over the last twenty years, Los Angeles-based photographer Pete McArthur has developed a highly recognizable and award-winning signature style featuring playful, clever concepts, bold composition, lush, highly-saturated colors and more than a dash of humor.

He's published scores of covers and spreads in Fortune, The New York Times, Bloomberg, Kiplinger's and many other publications. His high-tech clients include Dell Computers, Hewlett Packard, Xerox, Microsoft and more.

ADBASE saves me on so many occasions -- just having an up-to-date source for where your clients are. This is a wonderful little tool for keeping yourself out there... very inexpensively.

Like other photographers in the mid-1990s, McArthur noticed the growing trend among art directors and designers for using stock photography in digitally-created layouts and promotions, so he decided to launch his own self-managed stock photography program online. Since then, stock-generated sales have been a healthy and growing part of his business - boosted by promotions using ADBASE.

The ADBASE system of defining people as either frequent assignment users or stock users has worked out very well for me," McArthur said. "I became much more interested in direct mail in the last couple of years just from cutting back on my expenses.

An Alternative to Sourcebooks

One of my biggest expenses was advertising -- buying space in trade publications, as well as source books. It was like a money flow. I'd buy a Source Book page... then wait nine months or however long it takes for the thing to be published... and then I'm in there with 1200 other photographers. All in the same brick. On the day it's delivered, sure, everybody sits down and reads through it at lunch. But you have no control over its distribution or when people get it," McArthur said.

"I wanted to get more. So instead of using that as a brand builder and potential prospect filter, I thought, lets just take care of our existing customers. Make sure their needs are being addressed."

The ADBASE system of defining people as either frequent assignment users or stock users has worked out very well for me.

"Even when I don't use it for mailings, there's so many times, especially working on the West Coast, that I'll get a phone call request for a portfolio. And I'll put it off until 4 o'clock or whenever. And I'll go to find the persons address... and I can't. Or they're closed and all I have is their phone number. You can pull up ADBASE and cross check names and addresses. It saves me on so many occasions just having an up-to-date source for where your clients are. This is a wonderful little tool for keeping yourself out there... very inexpensively."

McArthur has also used ADBASE to revitalize his entire list of clients in order to market his services. "I was able to go back a couple of years and update everybody, to make sure they're there. If they weren't on ADBASE, I'd pretty much figure they're in between jobs and just put them in a holding pattern. I was able to dump that stuff into my excel spreadsheets and re-build and fix my existing client database."

Working More Efficiently

Like many photographers, McArthur is paring down his business, trying to work as efficiently as possible. ADBASE gives him the ability to "outsource" the management of his client and prospect lists without having to hire extra staff.

"You don't want to have a big crew nowadays. You don't want to have a lot of employees. You rent this and you rent that. This is one more thing you rent."

Having launched the stock photo division successfully, McArthur is now going back to his clients to remind them he's still an active assignment photographer.

"I built a mailing campaign based around this idea of being a tool for designers. I'm a commercial photographer and fine artist. You're thought of as one of the members of the design team. I'm one of the things in the tool box and it's a metaphor for what my portfolio is."

"I wanted to send a message that I was still shooting assignments and not retiring. So I wanted to make sure people understood that and understood that I'm a collaborator. That's where the toolbox idea came in," McArthur said.

"Depending on the post card you send out and the kind of phone traffic and requests you get for more samples, you can really kind of tell whether your mailings are effective or not."