If you haven’t already got a Linked In profile, get one today. This will be your main port of call when you’re doing research into the people you want to work for! To share some stats with you. 61 million LinkedIn users are senior level influencers and 40 million are in decision-making positions. LinkedIn is the #1 channel B2B marketers use to distribute content at 94%.

| https://www.omnicoreagency.com/linkedin-statistics/ |

In case you’ve never heard the term “B2B” before, this means “business to business.” So, businesses working for other businesses. If you’re a fashion photographer, you run a service which aids other business owners, therefore you work in business to business. “B2C” is “business to consumer” which means a business serving the general public, i.e. wedding photography. 

I’ve been on LinkedIn for a long time, but I didn’t know how useful it could be until I started on my pitching journey. Pretty much anyone who works for a company has a linkedin profile, which is incredible for us who need to pitch to them! 

An important note: LinkedIn will try to get you to pay for its premium service. You don't have to pay for it. You can get great use out of the free version, however eventually it will block you from doing unlimited research into people. This is because they know that they have a data base of pretty much everyone you could ever want to contact. That being said, I do choose to pay for it myself. The reason for that is I've paid for Directories and Databases (like Agency Access and Bikini Lists) in the past, and found that they weren't very useful. They were often out of date, and extremely expensive. LinkedIn isn't cheap, but I pay for mine on a monthly basis, which means that I can cancel it anytime. If I'm going through a quiet period (I'm writing this during the Coronavirus pandemic, so things are quiet right now!), and I decided to start paying for LinkedIn so that I could maximise my access to potential clients. When I do eventually get busy again, I will cancel it.

You can sign up for the free version of LinkedIn Premium to test it out for yourself. But know that you really don't need to pay for it if you don't want to, you can get incredible uses from it without needing to make the investment.

Rather than type out how to use LinkedIn, I’ve filmed a demo video for you to watch!

Something new that I discovered a few weeks ago is a Google Chrome Plug-In called "LeadLeaper." I've been impressed by it, and it can sometimes find you someone's email address with the click of a button.

It's worth installing, and might take out some of the guess work when finding people's email addresses.

Download it here:https://leadleaper.com/

Websites

You can also head to websites to find contact details. Most websites will have a “Contact Us” section on their website, or a “Press and Media” page on their site. It’s worth having a look there, as sometimes brands will list exactly who they want you to email depending on who you’re looking to speak to.

Don’t think that it will always be super difficult to get in touch with these brands. Sometimes the emails you want are sitting there in plain sight!

Public Relations

The bigger the brand, the more likely they are to be working with public relations teams. In case you don’t know what PRs do, they are companies which help brands to get press. Think TV coverage, newspaper coverage, blog coverage, etc. 

Sometimes PRs do have budget for photography, or are given some projects which require fresh images, so it’s worth reaching out to these companies too!

Look up PRs in your area, or do a quick Google search to see if you can find out which PR company is working for which brand. Most of the time, PR companies will list who they were for, because they hope that by listing the brands’ names, they’ll attract more companies to work with them. 

Social Media 

Don’t underestimate the power of social media for finding out contact details! The very first email address I got for a big brand was through the good old fashion Instagram Direct Message. 

While I always advocate trying to find other ways around it, if you really are struggling to find a contact detail for a particular brand, you can most definitely send the odd direct message (DM) to a brand’s Instagram/Facebook/Twitter page and request the email address.

You can say something along the lines of:

“Hello, I’m looking to get in touch with your marketing team. Please could you let me know which email I should use? Thank you!” 

Don’t go pitching to brands via Social Media though. This isn’t the place to do that, and you’ll just be wasting your time. 

Checking The Instagram/LinkedIn Accounts of Other Photographers

One really sneaky but easy way to find the "decision makers" of brands and magazines is to browse the Instagrams of other photographers. Chances are photographers, models, or anyone else in the industry that you follow will already be connected to people who you might want to contact as well. I often find by checking the comments sections of photographers' images/MUA's images/Stylists' images, you'll see that people who comment are other industry creatives. Again, sometimes its about luck, and sometimes you just need to go down a rabbit hole until you find people. You don't always know who you'll find, but sometimes it can be golden!

I also like to check the "connections" of people I'm connected with on LinkedIn. Once you're friends with someone, you can see who they're connected with too. You never know who might find!

Pick Up the Phone!

Who’d have thought that I’d advocate picking up the phone… but guess what. Sometimes just calling the customer service dept of a brand and ASKING FOR THE EMAIL ADDRESS really does work!!!

Whenever I need to get in touch with a new model agency, the first thing I do is call them and ask for an email address. I don’t email the “info@“ email address on the website, because honestly, it’ll take ages for them to reply to me (if they do at all). A phone call often takes less than a minute, and they’ll be happy to give it to you.

If you do call customer services and ask for an email address, ask for someone on the marketing team (ideally the head of marketing or a marketing assistant). If they ask what its abut, tell them that you’re a photographer that has an idea you’d like to send. Just be honest! Most of the time, the people behind the phone don’t really care why, they’re just asking cause they think they should. 9/10, you’ll get an email address given to you. Even if it is just the general “marketing@“ email, still use that.