Stock Photography - Understanding the Client Needs

Stock Photography is one of the easiest ways to make passive income. There's dozen of website national and international where you can join, become a contributor and upload dozens of images from your archives. If you are a professional photographer and have hundreds of unused photos, then joining the stock photography platform is the best way to make extra income.

If you are working on a team, then you can even start a photography agency and turn your professional hobby into a full-time business.

However, it's not that easy as it may seem. If you need to succeed then you have to work hard on it. You have to define several things before you start. You have to check the market trends and you need to figure out what will sales and what will not.

Let's discuss each aspect of the client mindset one by one. If you can understand the client's needs then your one step ahead in the game.

Theme that works

Before you start deep in the stock photography market, you need to figure out the theme to work on. Let's recall all the moments you had with your camera and the time you decided to walk on this field. What was that genre or theme where you were comfortable working on? What was that interest which led you to the difficult path of this photography field and you succeeded in shooting the perfect image? What was that one thing for which you can wake up at 4 am and can wake up till 1 am?

Try to answer all these questions and start finalizing the themes that you can work best with. Once you're sure that this theme will work, it's now time to make a beautiful portfolio all based on that theme. If you're still not sure what theme to choose then try to discover the unexplored genre of stock photography. Try to explore the big companies and analyze their designs. Figure out what type of images they are using. For instance, Ncell uses still images of a model who are into mobile phones sharing happiness with their loved ones.

Coca-Cola uses the model and the moments shared with their coke. You can make a list of big companies, explore their creative images and figure out the theme that best suits you.

Type of industry and their specific niches

We did talk about figuring the theme that works. But trust me that's just the beginning. If you want to be the best seller in context to Nepal, then you need to dig out more about the industries and the businesses that rule that industry.

For instance, if you look at the IPS industries of Nepal, then few key players rule the internet market in Nepal. These handfuls of players control the IPS market in Nepal. Take this as a research project and try to dig out more information. Read articles, subscribe to their newsletter, and deeply understand their social presence. Understand what kind of images they use for their social presence. Look at their graphic designs, the text they used, and the theme they used to attract their potential customers.

Most of the big brands use a certain theme, if you can understand that theme and capture images based on their themes then there's a high chance of getting your images picked for their next project.

Follow the industry trends

Change is inevitable and so does the Industries and market trends. The marketing strategies that you used a year ago might not work at the moment. Just like the age of physical advertising is gone, the market and industry trends are always changing. So, if you want to be the bestselling stock photographer then you might have to change your approaches and stick with the changes.

It could be the colors, tools, locations, formats, or even the types of lights that you used to create appealing visual elements that your potential clients would happily buy it. Don't go for stage shots, authenticity is the biggest trends at the moment. Whether it's the location or the people, it should reflect the emotions and should connect with the customers directly. That's what the client wants from every stock photo. They want it to be real rather than staged shots.

Explore where your client goes for visual elements

If you run a business and looking for visual elements, where would you go in the first place? Now, that's my friend determines the number of sales and its market. If your business in Nepal and you want images all related to Nepal, then Neptos, Shutterstock, and Pixabay might be the first place that your client would like to visit.

So, if you want to get visible then you must have an active presence in these stock photography platforms. Make sure to make a strong and appealing portfolio and let the sales come in.

On the other hand, you should also think of the visual formats that they used for their business's needs. If they are looking for images for a run marketing campaign on Facebook, then they would eventually look for landscape images or portrait images. Likewise, if they are searching images for their website then they would look for horizontal images rather than vertical images. So, to be the best seller, you have to analyze all these things and act accordingly.

The final rule – Think like a client

To sum up, all the above points, think like a client before creating content on a stock photography platform. You should act as a client and find the images that best their businesses. Just imagine yourself as creative personnel working for big business houses and you're given a job to create visual elements for their marketing needs? Now, what kind of images you would go for and from where?

That's the most important thing in the stock photography platform. If you can get into the client's minds, then you won the game.