Using Photography In Marketing
July 28, 2017
Have you ever flipped through the pages of a magazine or scrolled through your Facebook feed and instantly found yourself reading a post or article featuring attractive photography? Do you remember the last billboard you saw on your way to work? The brand, the design, and maybe even the location.
It’s no mistake that you found yourself reading that post or remembering that billboard. Believe it or not, 90% of information transmitted to the brain is from sight alone. Marketing and advertising agencies know this and carefully integrate different forms of photography into their advertisements to capture your attention.
So how do you use photography in marketing to help to drive awareness for your brand?
There’s no set formula for how to create an award winning content strategy to reach a broad range of customers. Some basic tips and tricks you should keep in mind touch on key areas such as awareness, brand management, and balancing your brand’s unique message across multiple mediums.
Creating Awareness For Your Brand
The goal of advertisers and marketers is to ultimately raise awareness for their brands which will hopefully translate to sales. The keyword here is awareness. Businesses use several tools as part of their content strategy to raise awareness for their products or services. Social media posts, blogs, and Price Per Click (PPC) campaigns are just a few.
Like many, you’ve probably used blogs to let your customers know about updates in your industry or relevant topics related to your product or service. One thing you may not have considered is how important photography can be for your blog. According to research, internet articles that feature photography or other images have 94% more total views than articles that don’t. Using professional photos of your products or services is a great way to cut through the clutter and make sure your message reaches the eyes of your customers.
SEO is a popular topic among marketing professionals and small business owners alike. PPC ads have become common tools companies us to raise awareness about their products or services. In a recent study, 60% of consumers were found to be more likely to contact a business if there was an image with a local search result. This means that the valuable money you are spending on a PPC campaign every month can easily be out clicked by a competitor’s ad featuring a strong photograph of their product or service.
Create & Maintain Your Reputation
Have you ever heard the timeless phrase “It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it”? The same principle can be applied to how you reach your target market. You may have an incredible product or service with an outstanding record in your field, but if you don’t portray your reputation well – you can still fail to reach key customers.
Photography is an important tool in building and maintaining your reputation. Think about all of the different promotional tools you use to get the word out about your business. Whether its social media, blogging, or something else, chances are there is an aesthetic aspect to what you’re using. If the material you’re sending out to your customers contains imagery that lacks professionalism and clarity, it may be hurting your reputation in the future.
Blurry photos on brochures, flyers, and blogs can send your customers the wrong image about your business. Photos with poor lighting and perspective can be just as bad. To successfully reach your target market and build a reputation of credibility in your industry. You need to make sure all your promotional materials showcase the very best of your brand.
Better Brand Management
Creating a clear and consistent marketing message across multiple communication channels can be challenging. Knowing how to portray your brand through social media, advertising, and print materials can be hard, especially when mediums update and change.
Photography and visual content is another area of brand management that many businesses fail to address in their content strategies. Having a clear plain for obtaining, updating, and changing images can help your business have a better idea of how to use photography as a tool in capturing customer value.
To tackle this challenge I would recommend sitting down with your management team and ask yourself these questions.
What photos do I use for Instagram?
What photos should I put in my brochure, catalogue, or online ad?
How do I edit my photos?
What photos would be best in showcasing my products or services?
Should I hire a photographer or use stock images?
These simple questions should be at the forefront of your thoughts when addressing how you should use photography in your content strategy. If done well, strong photography can help you easily get your message across to your audience as well as build awareness and customer loyalty. Over time it can translate to sales and maybe even referrals.
Take a look at some photography we’ve recently completed for some of our own clients marketing needs!
Bottom line? Photography is a powerful tool that brands use every day to get your attention. If you’re interested in driving sales for your business, maybe it’s time to build a better strategy for your photography.
Our team works with brands just like yours every day. For Creative Solutions, Real Results, Think VIG!