by Leslie Burns-Dell'Acqua of Burns Auto Parts Consultants

In the past few years, email promos have become much more popular. Now they go hand in hand with print mailers as one of the most popular forms of active marketing for photographers. In fact, integrated with print promos and other efforts, e-promos can be one of your best marketing tools.

And yet, many photographers still aren!t using this tool. In a recent small survey I did of photographers, almost 20% were not sending e-promos as a part of their marketing plan. When I've spoken with photographers, the most popular reason I hear for not sending e-promos is, "Buyers hate them!" closely followed by, "They don!t work, anyway." There always seems to be some photographer on a photo forum who rails about how e-promos are terrible and a waste of time.

But the reality is that these statements are not factually accurate. In a recent anonymous survey of buyers (of all kinds--editorial, advertising, corporate), the rates of those who dislike epromos were significantly lower (24%) than they were in previous surveys (35-45%) and they're starting to approach the opinions on postcard mailers (upper teens). In fact, more and more buyers (75%) are now saying they have neutral or better feelings about them. That clearly means that they must be working, too.

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