How Much is Enough – Managing Expectations

Tuesday, Jan 6th, 2009 in The IPWS Blog by Alan Murphy | Comment

Yesterday a Dublin photographer who has a listing with me emailed. He was writing to say he wasn’t sure if he wanted to continue his listing as the responses weren’t really coming in. I checked our stats (we are the only site I know that lets you see all your click throughs – LIVE) and in approximately a two and a half month period IPWS had delivered over 100 visitors to his website. Now I know that people will say not all of them were looking to hire a photographer but if only 10% were I personally would consider that excellent delivery. And this photographer hadn’t even optimised his listing with Google Maps and sample images.
In the motortrade the trick is to get the punter into the salesroom – after that the rest is up to the salesperson. Think of us in the same way – our job is to get people looking at your site – you need to convert them. And at what level – one percent, twenty percent. If it’s only one percent then even at this level my client is getting value for money. One job a year is all he needs to justify the spend – after all it includes VAT and is tax deductible.
But surely a photographer can convert more than one lead in a hundred – if he converts ten percent then the advertisement is a great investment.
A listing on IPWS has to be worked on and evaluated fairly – you won’t get thousands of enquiries but you will get a constant stream of visitors to your site which hopefully you can convert!
And make sure you use all you pay for by uploading maps, sample images and news stories!