How Long Before

[femsista]

I am loving my smugmug account so far despite my love hate relationship with customization, LOL.

Anyway, I was curious to hear from other muggers:

1. How long after joining Smugmug did it take to get your first sale?
2. Were your first sales random online customers (ie found you on Google) or were they sales from face to face customers (ie you recruited them in a non internet way) who you referred to the site for viewing and purchasing abilities?

[femsista]

anyone?

I am loving my smugmug account so far despite my love hate relationship with customization, LOL.

Anyway, I was curious to hear from other muggers:

1. How long after joining Smugmug did it take to get your first sale?
2. Were your first sales random online customers (ie found you on Google) or were they sales from face to face customers (ie you recruited them in a non internet way) who you referred to the site for viewing and purchasing abilities?

[R.Leonardo]

I think much of this is dependent on the marketing of the artist.
My first sales were pre-SmugMug!

[Kalrog]

I set up my smugmug account because I had just been asked to do my first professional gig and needed a way to do the sales. So I guess I recruited them off line - but that is the way all my sales have been.

[Cygnus Studios]

I think much of this is dependent on the marketing of the artist.

:agree 99.9% of my sales have nothing to do with Smugmug. What drew me to here was the ability to store and share photos, build a nice protected site, and the ability to streamline my services to my clients.
Since joining up with Smugmug I have gotten some random sales, and that is nice, but not anything that I personally count on.
Add that to the amazing customer service and the ever improving services offered.

[jonh68]

Before you signed up to smugmug, did you find any smugmug galleries while surfing the internet?

You market yourself and get people to go to smugmug.

[RubenZ]

I take sports pictures which can be seen in my valley sports pics link below. What I did is after every game I pass out business cards to the parents. I find that my sales don't come until 2 days after the game. The reason being is I try to Process and post up all my pics the next day before Noon. And typical of people that get flyers or business cards probably don't remember and see them later in the night when they empy pockets or change out clothes. Then they buy them the next day at work or some place where they have broadband. Kind of hard to go through the usual 200 pics i take at a game on dialup lol.

[femsista]

It is nice to read what brought people to smugmug.

I came because I needed a way to do an easy website that looked sharp and could offer galleries for clients.

I have sold on other sites before but they were more of online artist galleries.

But I like the freedom so much more on Smugmug! It makes me want to go out and bring people to my site because I am soooo proud of my site and my two week crash course in customization. :rofl

[catspaw]

A few weeks, but that's because I do event photography -- folks know about my site because of those events and because of those events, they buy the photos.

[cornerketch]

I have a market for all the pictures.
It still takes time and effort to develop a active market.
Pass out business cards and show people how to use an get their pictures..

But over the past 5 years , I have built up a small market for the pictures.

[cappi]

I've been here about 15 months and have had two pretty decent commercial download sales. The first one came about 11 months after I started here. I did the marketing myself to attract the client. I've had a few other inquires about buying photos for commercial use through random people that have found my port through searches. Wasn't able to agree on a price so that was that. I'm noticing that my port is coming up well on top pages through google searches in particular niche areas that I think I have a chance of competing in so I am optimistic that I will attract more buyers. I'm really looking forward to Smugmug stock. That should be interesting.