To create better communication and a stronger connection with your customers, you need the right photo marketing. It is all about inspiring action by making the right impression.
Since we take in a lot of our information as consumers visually, it is essential for you to have high-quality marketing photos to make a great first impression. With the right photo, you tell your story, solidifying your brand’s image to the world.
Especially in the age of social media, it is more important than ever to have good quality photos. When you scroll through your newsfeed on Facebook, you don’t stop to read every post. Instead, you skip along to the content that has some sort of visual element to it.
When you hold your images to a high standard, you project a professional image that builds trust so keep reading to find out what you should be looking for.
Finding the Right Photo for Your Campaign
To engage an audience you need to have beautiful promotional photos. They have a much bigger impact than creating text-only materials.
Photo marketing campaigns help you to promote your products by adding a visual that can be associated with your brand as a quick reference point. They help to establish an identity for your brand.
If done well, photo marketing will help you to establish and solidify your brand’s image in the eyes of potential customers. They can create a look for your website that is identical across all of your platforms including your website, your company’s blog, social media posts, and other promotional materials.
With a cohesive and recognizable design for your photos, your customers will be able to associate that quality with the quality of your product.
What to Discuss With Your Photographer
In order to have top-notch photos of your business’s products, you should hire a professional who is familiar with promotional photo marketing services.
Some of the questions to discuss with your photographer include:
- What message are you trying to send with your photos?
- What image are you trying to project?
- Is there a story the photos should tell?
- What mood are you aiming to set with them?
- How do you want your audience to feel when looking at your photos?
- What are the photos going to be used for?
- Will the photos be used on your website?
- Will you be printing the photos?
- Will the photos need to be resized for email marketing campaigns?
The photographer you choose should understand not only your business’s products but also what your goals are as a company and what your vision is for the future. They aren’t just creating the right lighting to capture your product, proper photo marketing is able to convey your brand’s message without a single word of text.
By taking the time to have an in-depth conversation with your photographer you will strengthen your brand and begin to inspire loyalty in your current customer base, as well as attract potential customers to take notice of you.
The Three Types of Photo Marketing
When your business is trying to send a message, photo marketing will play a huge role. Since our culture is such a visual one, choosing the right image has never been more important.
All marketing images will generally be able to fall into one of three categories – representative, conceptual, and aspirational. By choosing different types of images and applying them in an appropriate way, your designs will be more engaging and allow you to stand out from the crowd.
Representative
A representative image is used to send factual information with a clear message. It is the most direct way to market your products and involves creating the most accurate image possible.
Conceptual
A conceptual image is used to make a complex idea easier to understand. For example, if you were trying to illustrate the fact that eating an apple a day makes us smarter, you might choose to use an image of an apple sitting on top of a stack of books to illustrate the concept.
Aspirational
The best photo marketing image is one that is aspirational. It is meant to create demand by portraying your product in a nice way. They are meant to inspire desire and to communicate the availability of your product.
Creating Engaging Photo Marketing
Now that you know about the three options you have for presenting your product, it is time to decide which individual images to use. The right image will bring out strong emotions in us such as joy, compassion, anger, or sadness in order to inspire action.
Before you select a photo, you should think about what kind of emotion you hope to evoke in the viewer. Don’t simply represent your product, communicate with the customer how your product could make them feel.
Other aspects to keep in mind when selecting your photos include quality, memorability, functionality, and potential for engagement.
Quality
People who view your photos will associate the quality of your images with the quality of your products or services. Allow enough room in your budget to hire a professional photographer to create great-quality photos. Otherwise, you could be underselling yourself.
Memorability
Creating a memorable image can be done by using provocative cropping, unexpected elements, and experimental compositions. If you can surprise and delight a potential customer with your image, then they are more likely to remember your product when they go to buy something.
Functionality
Before you take a photo you need to consider the action that you hope to create using the photo. If you are trying to get website visitors to subscribe to your service, sign up for a newsletter, or buy your product, you need an image that presents your product in an active role. Demonstrate to your customer how your product could potentially change their life.
Potential for Engagement
If you want to connect strongly with your audience, you should use photo marketing that evokes emotions or brings back positive memories. This way your customer will feel like you know them and can anticipate their thoughts and needs making them more likely to do business with you.
Budgeting for Photography
There is no simple answer for how much it will cost you to secure quality photos of your products. There are a variety of factors involved – the biggest one being whether you go with an independent photography studio, or choose to spend the money to go to a full-service provider.
Independent Photography Studios
Most cities have hundreds of photographers who would jump at the opportunity to photograph your product. They will be able to negotiate a reasonable price with you and can be found fairly easily online.
Choosing an independent photography studio means that they will most likely be located in your community reducing shipping costs for getting your products to the studio.
Unfortunately, independent photography studios don’t always have the capacity to create images of the quality you are looking for. They may lack studio equipment for handling your project.
Full-Service Studios
When you go to a full-service studio for your photo marketing, you have access to a complete range of photography services including 360-degree options. They have the capacity and equipment to operate with large shipments, projects that are large-scale and nearly any product type you can imagine.
They also have software that helps them to meet deadlines and are used to working on a timetable. They can focus specifically on this kind of photography which allows them to charge lower rates per product that an independent contractor might.
Unfortunately, if the studio you choose is not in your local area, the shipping costs for getting your product to it will be much higher as well as the cost of site visits for you to monitor for progress.
Research the Cost
There are different ways that photography studios charge for their services. Based on the details of your project, one method may be more favorable for you than another.
By the Day
Some studios offer a flat rate option for you to be able to use the studio’s services for a predetermined amount of time. For people whose project requires specialized images, a pay-by-day rate is best because it can be difficult for the photo studio to estimate the daily production they are capable of.
Most people recommend avoiding daily rates because it can cause your project costs to balloon. It becomes impossible to have a ceiling on your budget. To avoid having to pay by the day, you should spend time beforehand refining what image requirements you have and defining your goals in detail. That way, your photographer will be able to give you a proper estimate of what you will be paying.
By the Product
One way to pay for photos is by setting a rate per product. This is a good option because it allows for many images of your product to be taken so that you have a lot to pick from when selecting the best one.
Most often when a studio is charging by the product, they will have a limit on the maximum number of images they will take and will charge you an additional fee for going above this number.
By the Image
This rate is similar to paying per product, it also charges you a price for every image taken. It is a great structure for payment because it matches the costs incurred by the photographer since the more images they take, the more of their time it will take up.
Analyzing Your Image Requirements
Before you hire a photographer, you need to categorize the products that you will be needing images for. This can be done by putting them into standard product categories or photography categories based on the size of the products.
Then you need to total how many photos you need in each category. That way you can determine the number of photos you require for each product. Once you have tallied all of that up, you will be ready to negotiate a package for your photo marketing.
Potential Budget Breakers
Since photo marketing is always different based on the product, you may have additional charges based on certain aspects of your project.
Product Weight
A weight surcharge can apply to heavier products that are difficult to handle. This is because they often require the photographer to have a helper to lift and position the product on the set.
Product Size
Beyond weight, products that are large in general are hard to handle and may require the help of a second person for positioning. Large products often require a larger set for the photography and may need a larger camera stand to get the proper angle on the product.
Product Prep
If your product doesn’t come assembled, your photographer will need to unpackage it and put it together prior to photography leading to an additional charge.
Product Styling
This charge applies mostly to products like clothes and food. If you sell clothing then your photography studio will need to iron it and pair it with other apparel to capture the image you desire.
When working with food products, styling is even more important than with clothing. These images need to captivate the senses and creating that effect can be challenging.
Product Layout
If your product comes disassembled and needs to be laid out in a pattern before it is photographed then this can lead to an additional fee because it is a time-consuming process.
Set Construction
Some products need a setting in order to make sense. To have effective photo marketing set construction has to take place and can be very expensive.
Photo Marketing Summarized
The cost of production for photos of your products will vary depending on what kind of studio you go with and the details of your project. That is why it is extremely important for you to create a specific plan for the photos you need so that you can avoid any surprises.
If you are trying to expand your brand and need more guidance contact us today.