2010 Commercial Photography Self Promo
March 8th, 2010
A year in the making, I was excited to ship my official introduction to nearly 300 of the top creative folks in the photo industry last month. After a successful 2008 and beginning of 2009, I realized my commercial work came mostly through word of mouth and that I had made no marketing efforts. I knew in order to take my business to the next level, I needed to start marketing myself on a national level and more importantly, I had only one chance to make an awesome first impression.
“As an art buyer, I get a lot of little promotional pieces. I am spoiled. BUT, yours was so well put together and well done that I stopped everything I was doing and went to your website. NOT to my surprise your work is just as thoughtful, innovative and touching as your promotional piece. I officially have a work crush on you. Please come and see us so we can put you to work ASAP.:)”
This promo would be the first time the agencies and art buyers would hear about me so I wanted to fill it with items that told something about who I was. The challenge was how to fill a box with multiple items and not make it feel like a junk box. I worked closely with Suzanne Sease and Rob Jefferson to find items that were relevant to the audience of art buyers and creative directors and compiled my mailing list with Suzanne using Agency Access. I needed every piece of this promo to have a wow-factor so I worked exclusively with the most talented Robb Major to design everything from the screen printing of the shipping box to the design on the matchboxes. To tie it all together, I included my “to-do list” which is below.
“Cool promotional box! So much so in fact that I feel compelled to use you for our next photo shoot. I have a client in ————. Are you available and interested? Wow, this just goes to prove the power of good advertising.”
“This is the most amazing promo I’ve ever received in my 12 years of art buying! I truly hope to work with you soon and I hope this gets you a ton of work! Its genius!”
“I just received your magic lunchbox and I gotta say it’s quite the spread. The San Cristobal just made my drive to NY tomorrow night that much better. If you’re ever in ——– for a job let me know and I’ll set you up with a portfolio review with my art producer colleagues so they can get to know you. Thank you and stay in touch.”
It took two snowy days and a dozen awesome friends to put all of these boxes together and shipped in early February. The response has been outstanding and I have received an amazing amount of free T-shirt cards back full of comments request for portfolios as well as phone calls. The big task now is follow through….. and thinking about a 2011 promo!
Want a retro (empty, sorry) lunch tin of your own? Leave a convincing comment below and I may just feel compelled to mail you one.
Well done Casey. The response from this should keep you stocked in Diet Coke and Cuban cigars for years to come.
All the best.
Chip
I am so proud of you and the response we are getting!!! The squirrels in my brain are actively churning for 2011!!!
So glad I know you!!
THIS IS DA BOMB!! Keep up the great work Casey!
WOW! That’s fantastic. Well-thought-out and compelling. I’m not an art buyer but if I were, I would have been hooked.
AWESOME job Casey! I’m trying to figure out how I can use this strategy for my own business!
Nice man, way to think inside the box. How did you figure out the optimal way to make a coffee mug ring without ruining the card?
Fantastic idea, it all looks really great and seems to be working out well judging from all the responses. In this day and age it’s a real treat to get something so tactile.
Man, this is brilliant. I am in awe.
I’d love one of these boxes, but if you send me one you do so at your own risk because I’d dissect it piece by piece looking for inspiration!
Casey,
What I admire the most about this promotion is the giant sack of brass balls required for sending out your to-do list to perspective clients.
Come on, way to make the rest of us mildly talented, lazy, low-creativity photographers look bad. Can you please go back to passing out business cards to important looking people and trying to pick up women in bars by telling them they should model for you. Please?
How else to you expect the advertising world to stay static and boring and litered with the same trash with you being all “exceptional” and “innovative” and “using words in quotes?”
p.s. If you have spare tins, I would sleep with one under my pillow in the hope of learning via osmosis. After I drank the diet coke.
Thinking outside the box led you to think inside the box – excellent concept, brilliantly executed.
Thank you for sharing your process. You are an awesome conduit. It looks as if you took your inspiration and expressed if fully. I have been frustrated at my failures to complete or even try to let my creativity out through my own capable but clogged conduit. Your example has stirred me. Thank you for that. I look forward to following your adventures and, to being inspired by your work.
A retro lunch tin would serve me as a reminder to dish out what I’ve got inside.
“Thoughtfulness is thinking of something nice to do and then doing it.”
I saw a magnet with this quote on a friend’s fridge. It is consistency in the action steps that challenges even the most successful artist. Your devotion to following through on your projects proves that you are one of the very best. I am inspired by your collaboration with other artists to market your brand. I wish you every success and I wish myself a retro lunch box!
All I have to say is fantastic. You have inspired me to step up my game. Thanks!
The best effect and probably what you wanted – it certainly made me stop in my tracks, take notice, and then want to find out more. Well done. Inspirational.
Hey Casey, such an awesome promo, even better with the reply card for the free shirt – love how you were actually able to gauge accurately the response from your prospective clients, will pass this on to some of my classmates thinking of graduating soon!
P.
i like this! Did you send one to Free Agents!? I wonder if the creative team is hoarding it…
As an old fart that has been shooting since the ’70′s and has been dragged kicking and screaming into the digital age by my photographer/photo editor wife, it was cathartic to see your promo. Without too deeply revealing my Jersey roots, the lunch box idea was fucking brilliant! Art for art’s sake, while showing a sense of whimsy that all the great photographers have. It brought me back to the days when people actually cared about Communication Arts and AD’s and Art Buyers actually talked to photographers without having to siphon every conversation through legal. I hope you make a fortune while keeping your integrity and sanity intact.
As an undergrad college business major/journalism minor I am in awe of this! This is absolutely incredible! What a way to have your clients get a strong first impression of your personality before ever even meeting you. Watching the video makes me want to meet you
[...] Casey Templeton, a commercial shooter up in Richmond who’s done pretty well already, decided to go well beyond a postcard mailing to launch his 2010 promotional campaign – check out the kit he built and shipped to 300 editors. [...]
I’d rather eat worms than to have missed this most awesome marketing effort of yours. Today, you are my hero as this is such a superb execution of marketing that we all aspire to. Well well done Casey!
[...] Photographer Casey Templeton showed me some of the amazing responses he received from a promo he did recently and I thought you might want to hear more about what went into it. You can see more behind the scenes images and a video about it on his blog (here). [...]
Amazing promo piece! Great job. Perfect example of the fact that this self promo stuff works…when done wonderfully.
That is seriously awesome Casey. I can’t imagine getting one of those in the mail, I would stop my day, show it to everyone in the office and then prop it up on my desk. Nice job!
This is awesome Casey… This makes me wish I was a photographer or creative director rather than a scientist!
COME BACK TO JMU and rub off a little of whatever you’ve got on us lowly college photographers.
Very cool Casey. I used to do a lot of stuff like this, and because money is tight due to the recession wiping out a lot of my clients, have stopped doing it. Guess it’s a vicious downward spiral, so I will get my thinking cap on and see what I can concoct with a similar impact but without the budget
Spike, Nottingham, England
P.S. APERTURE ROCKS!
Brilliant. Great job! Congrats.
I would love a retro lunchbox! I carried my lunch to school in a bag, so always felt less than cool. One of these might just help!
Great idea, I’m already being inspired with new creative thoughts!
amazing and truly inspiring stuff, man.
Brilliant!
Casey,
With everyone (and their brother) owning a DSLR these days, serious photographers truly need to make their work stand out in a sea of mediocre images. The ones who engage creative marketing as part of their branding and advertising will take their work into the future by grabbing the attention of people right now. I love it when I see creative and professional marketing packages – this has to be the best I’ve seen (Chantal Kreviazuk did something similar when shopping her debut CD to record labels – the case grabbed the attention of the powers that be, and the rest was history!) Fantastic work, and I’ve no doubt your initial investment is going to pay off in spades. Now how about sending one of those fabulous cases my way? I really, really, really want to see the work of LostLuggage up close and personal, and I’d love to have this as my own symbol of inspiration for working hard and persevering. Great work and collaboration!
Just really excited for you Casey!!! You do wonderful work and your great, caring personality shines in all that you do!!!
This promo piece you have put together was brilliant. In one fell swoop you have have showcased your outstanding work, your creativity and your personality. In a field that is saturated with competition you really came up with a way to make yourself stand out. Kudos to you and the team you worked with because this just plain rocks.
Always inspired by such amazing levels of creativity. Just found your site through this post and can’t believe I haven’t learned of you sooner. Great work. oh and +APERTURE ROCKS!
Great Idea, read about at APE. I stopped by and lookeded at you work and I love the fact that you present it as it is (Real Life) with a lot of thoughtful creativity. Others should learn and apply the creativity to what they do, because this crosses borders. God Bless you this year
[...] from A Photo Editor Photographer Casey Templeton showed me some of the amazing responses he received from a promo he did recently and I thought you might want to hear more about what went into it. You can see more behind the scenes images and a video about it on his blog. [...]
Casey – your site was forwarded to me by the studio manager. AMAZING. The creativity encapsulated in the lunch box is one thing but to also offer a part of “this is my day – come share a part of it with me” is the most inviting part of the promo, I think. From the moment the intended person opens it you have started a dialogue, a creative conversation with them saying “this is who I am and what I enjoy – come play/work with me and see where we can take this together.”
Genius!!
If you gave me your tin, I would THROW IT ON THE GROUND! I don’t need your handouts! I’m an adult. Please! I ain’t gonna be part of this system……………maaan!
* special note to anyone not infatuated with Andy Samberg. I am not actually an a@* hole and would love to have the retro lunch tin. This idea is so cool.
[...] …hopefully it would turn out even 1% as cool as this: Casey Templeton Photography Promo [...]
hey casey, i love how you worked your “resume” into the to-do list. i think that’s very creative. nice work on creating something that grab’s peoples’ attention. i mean… that’s the biggest step is getting them to remember you and actually GO to your website.
who cares how much time you spend on the website if no one ever goes there? great work.
i’m heading to your site now….
Hey Casey! Since you now have snatched up (understandably so) all of the assignments in the world with your amazing promo, can you kindly send me an empty lunch box so I can carry my bologna sammich to my studio?
Dynamite promo!
Wow! This has to be one of the best promos I have seen! The idea behind this was simply brilliant. Keep us posted.
As seen on SportsShooter.com
Alex
As someone about to graduate, and looking for innovative ideas in the photography field, this definitely caught my eye.
Congratulations on thinking outside of the box! Always nice to learn something new and see that others are taking steps to combat the receding industry.
are you friggin kidding me? in this day and age your wasting money on postage with a box full of promo materials? dude, wake the hell up…what a loser…these freaks are gonna take you up on the free shirts then throw your name and address in the trash can as they light up that sweet cigar and chase it with the Diet Coke. Give me a break…and while yer at it, give me one of them empty lunch boxes…
My man… What a well thought out promo piece. I’ve been trying to come up with some ideas of my own for a really big first impression, and now I’m going to have this competition with myself to try and do something better than you. It’s going to be really tough, but damnit, I’m going to try! Inspiring, Casey. Really.
[...] self promotion is an important thing to do and to pay a lot of attention to. I found the following self-promo by us-american photographer Casey Templeton and it shows very well that mailings still can work if [...]
Casey: I kid you not…from a fortune cookie from the “Happy Wok” in LaGrangeville, NY
_THE SECRET OF GETTING AHEAD…IS GETTING STARTED_
-on back-
_Lucy Numbers: 43,38,25,10,2_
During a conversation with a friend and Director of Photography yesterday the same statement was repeated. “Im looking for someone that knows how to work and has a strong dedication and passion.” My thermos cap is off to you!
Really love the self promo box – I recently did one myself (on a much smaller scale – a promo letter) while looking for assisting jobs in the Chicago area, consisting of a handmade notebook, and some photo cards I made that contained images of service and disservice while eating out at a restaurant. Its great fun and I would hope that the people receiving them enjoy them a lot as well. I really enjoyed your presentation on it. Great stuff!
[...] Templeton, I don’t know him, but I think he is pretty cool. Take a look at this awesome self-promo package He even included a self addressed post card in it and if the prospective client returns it they [...]