Great Start to 2012

East Peoria, Illinois based photographer, Mike Boatman, has started 2012 with a bang:

• Back to back covers with At Home Tennessee, one cover photographed in Memphis, Tennessee and the other one in Florida

• An inside story with a Brazilian international fashion magazine, CPTREND
• Plus the cover of Dining & Food Magazine in Peoria, Illinois

This New Year has also seen the addition of three new clients:

• A start-up restaurant chain, Foozi, in Tennessee
• Gemma Renewable Power in Connecticut
• And a real estate staging company, Simply Organized & Staged, in Peoria, Illinois

And Mike still had time to do one fine art photo shoot to supplement one that was done 20 years ago, which placed 48th in the world for fine art by the Boston Academy of Fine Art.

One of the reasons for his success is the added value that Mike brings to his clients. Here is just one: as part of his advertising package, Mike allows PR distribution for editorial usage. When photographing an assignment, Mike is not only thinking about the immediate marketing needs, but also takes time to create editorial images as well. For Mike, nothing is better than having one of his editorial images picked up from an assignment. The benefit for his client is that it has the same brand look as his client’s ad, and the editorial is free publicity. It is a huge bang for the money. This is added value: images for advertising and marketing, with potential editorial coverage as a bonus. That is a win-win story for all involved.

Just the other day, a magazine called looking for images to illustrate design space. Mike was able to satisfy their need and secure free editorial exposure for three clients. Win-win.

Unfortunately, a lot of commercial clients overlook the PR editorial value. It is rated at eleven-to-one for paid advertising space. In simple math, if a full page of advertising costs $5,000, then a full page of editorial space is valued at $55,000. The reason for this is “third party accreditation”. Because editorial space is not for sale, the publication is accrediting the feature of the story. Mike has a high success rate for being published. This is just one of the ways Mike brings added value to every assignment.

Over the last few years, Mike has secured over 27 editorial covers. This is not new for Mike. Over his 33 year career, Mike is just short of 10,000 covers, either editorially or commercially, and well over 30,000 printed pages of images.

Mike says, “It’s all about being able to tell a story with pictures. Telling the correct story is also very important. Just taking a picture will tell a story or give an impression, but it needs to be the right impression. For me, now 33 years and still shooting, it’s not just about telling the client’s story. It’s about how can I tell it even better, stronger, with greater impact and have it still remain the client’s story?”

“I love what I do. Call me.”