Listening to your customer: how National Geographic buys photography with Elizabeth Krist and Allen Murabayashi
Listening to your customers is important. For stock photography it is not always obvious since you are not necessarily in direct contact with your end customer. Especially if you work with stock agencies who are usually not very keen on letting you know who the end customer is. Understandably. Since there is then a risk for them of being cut out, if the photographer is not playing totally straight.
One of the world’s most influential magazines with very heavy photo use is National Geography. Who is not familiar with the yellow-edge magazine?
Elizabeth Krist is at National Geography since 1994 and is currently Senior Photo Editor at “Nat Geo”.
Photoshelter is an internet based company (and service) that allows photographers to create an online archive and even an e-commerce platform or e-shop to sell pictures. Photoshelter has thousands of photographer clients that use their services to create photography web sites, to showcase their photography on-line, to deliver photography to clients, and to sell or license photography. More on Photoshelter and its on-line photo management, presentation and sales platform here.
Photoshelter is also producing a whole set of extremely useful information on how better to market and sell the photography.
They also regularly do interviews with people in the photography industry. Allen Murabayashi, Photoshelter’s president and co-founder recently made an interview with Elizabet Krist and talked to her about how National Geography works with photographers and how they buy photography. It’s part of an interview series called “What Photo Buyers Want”.
Very interesting: