It Pays To Advertise

posted on 15th of march, 2011

We recently experienced a second devastating earthquake here in my home town of Christchurch, New Zealand. I have taken photos of the damage caused to houses, streets and buildings and uploaded these to Dreamstime as Editorial images.

I do not feel good about taking financial advantage from a bad situation however it is also important to share what has happened and to record the history of our city before all the historic buildings are demolished and gone for ever.

After I uploaded my first batch of photos I noticed that there were a low number of views and no downloads so I decided to advertise my Dreamstime Earthquake Collection via targeted emails. I sent an email to all major newspapers in New Zealand, neighbouring countries and the main daily papers in the U.S. and U.K.

The results were almost instantaneous and within just a few days I had more than doubled my revenue from any previous month.

Another interesting result was that the majority of these downloads were credit sales (as opposed to subscription sales) and therefore the revenue was 100% higher than my download average.

I would be very interested to learn about your advertising campaigns.

Tags: advertise download earthquake increase revenue

Comments (21)

	Posted by Uptall on March 22, 2011 read this again and maybe i can learn from your experience and try to advertise it also later
	Posted by Nigelspiers on March 18, 2011 Hi Adeliepenguin, Haslinda & Others, Thanks for your comments - in answer to your question: I simply searched for the web site for each of the major newspapers using Google. At the bottom of their home pages is typically a link called "Contact Us" or similar. I sent each one an email which explained the photos and a link to my Dreamstime collection.
	Posted by Adeliepenguin on March 18, 2011 Pictures like yours are so important. To get the story out, so that people are aware. It would be interesting now to continue your "story", and follow up with the rebuilding of your home town, and community involvement in the same? I have never tried an advertising campaign like yours. I am curious as to your research. Did you just look for the newspapers and magazines? Online or print? Thanks for sharing.
	Posted by Darwinsm81 on March 18, 2011 Great idea!!! thank you for sharing!!
	Posted by Haslinda on March 17, 2011 Hi, thanks for sharing your thoughts and images. Its through first hand images that we get to see the real story. I send you a note a while back. Hope things are progressing along. Been to New Zealand many times and I would like to be back.
	Posted by Yuritz on March 17, 2011 Never thought of it,but if it works I'll keep in mind for the next time. Thanks for sharing your idea. Best luck for the New Zealand,Japan and its people
	Posted by Tamarabauer on March 17, 2011 What a great idea, and excellent that you were rewarded for advertising!
	Posted by Uptall on March 17, 2011 nice pics
	Posted by Diavata on March 16, 2011 I can understand the double feeling you must have had, making money on other peoples misery. But without images, video's, etc, we would have no idea about the impact of the disaster. Besides... there's people that do this for a living, you know!? :) So... thanks for sharing and hope your advertising campain continues to work well for you! Good luck!
	Posted by Nigelspiers on March 16, 2011 Hi Folks - thanks for your positive replies regarding my "It Pays To Adertise" blog and your kind thoughts re the devastated city & people of Christchurch are much appreciated.
	Posted by BCritchley on March 16, 2011 Great idea and guess it works well putting all the images in a collection and sending the link to all the editors, hmmmmm got me thinking now :-)
	Posted by Virgilxxn on March 16, 2011 Smart thinking !
	Posted by 3000ad on March 16, 2011 Thanks for sharing - Best of luck to you and everyone there!
	Posted by Sobek85 on March 16, 2011 thats a very good idea nice article
	Posted by Subhra2jyoti on March 16, 2011 Thanks for sharing this great idea..keep it up..And all my condolences to your city for have lost so much heritage due natural calamity..
	Posted by Trottola on March 16, 2011 You had a great idea! Thank you for sharing!
	Posted by Mariaam on March 16, 2011 Thanks for sharing the idea!
	Posted by Anhong on March 16, 2011 Brave in the face of disaster! Thanks for sharing. Good luck! More sales.
	Posted by Joezachs on March 15, 2011 A good info about one of the avenues of advertising.
	Posted by Wisconsinart on March 15, 2011 Hey, great idea! But I know too how it is to profit from the misery of others. I photographed tornado damage and the images have been doing reasonably well. The hard reality is we're paid to bring bad news as well as good.
	Posted by Egomezta on March 15, 2011 I never have done that... It is good to know you did that and had good results. Thanks