Judging a business by its cover

Let’s be real, everyone judges a book by its cover when it comes to business.

High quality imagery is important for your business.

Have you ever been on a website and it is just full of text with either no imagery, or maybe one obvious stock image? How long did you end up staying on that website? Probably not a very long time…

High quality imagery is so important for a business, especially if a lot of your custom is online. Your website, social media channels, blogs etc all need to have relevant, high quality images to help grab your audience's attention as well as giving them a reason to remember you.

With the quality of cameras on smartphones these days, you will find that you can take some really great quality, eye-catching shots yourself. However, this can sometimes be a bit more time consuming than you might expect as it is often a good idea to try and ‘stage’ shots a bit more, i.e., show your products in use.

Stock imagery v professional photography

Stock imagery

This can be a good place to start, as the images are quick and easy to access and quite often very cheap or free. We sometimes turn to stock imagery if there is something we need to get out on social media quickly and don’t have time to get a relevant photo or create a graphic ourselves.

Just ensure that the photos you are using are relevant, high quality and not massively overused. It may be a good idea to search through some stock image sites, such as Pexels and Unsplash, and create a bank of backup images you could use when you really need to.

Just remember that there are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of other businesses using the same pictures, and if a customer happened to have a bad experience with another business using the same photo, the association could be enough to influence them against using you. It is so important to stand out and be unique and stock images can sometimes prevent you from doing this.

Professional photography

This is of course the best way to go, as these photos will be authentic and original, personal to you and your business. Not only this but you can allow your business’ ethos to really shine through. Where appropriate, pictures of yourself and staff also help potential customers feel more trust towards your business.

A great advantage of having a professional photoshoot is the ability to brief your photographer. You can tell them where you are hoping to use the imagery so they can shoot in the right format, and make the images suitable for your use. The key here is that these images will fit your brand, rather than trying to fit your brand around images you may find on stock websites.

The one thing you may be thinking here is, ‘that sounds quite expensive’. But there really are so many options with photoshoots; simply doing a mini shoot of a selection of products, or a half day shoot including your staff and a few different set ups with your products. The excitement of receiving the final images for you to keep and use forever really is worth it.

Get in touch

Jo would love to help your business come to life through imagery. She will help you feel at ease and guide you with how best to portray your products. Each photography package is put together and curated especially for you and your business, so get in touch to see how we could help take your business to the next level.

Sunny wishes,

Jo & Vic