How Use Photography to Sell More, Connect Better and Impress Your Clients
We are strong believers in looking at the whole picture when creating and maintaining your brand. The creation part is usually easy for you because it’s what’s commonly hired out for (to people like us!). I’m talking about your brand board, website, logo design, marketing materials, etc. The hard part for you comes in once all of those things are said and done - you are now in maintenance mode of your brand.
Since you can’t just let your website sit there expecting people to know how amazing you are, there are things you’re going to be doing to continue to get noticed. Maybe you’ll guest post for other bloggers, maybe you’ll share on Instagram and other social media, or maybe you’ll send out newsletters to your fans to connect with them. If you choose all or just one of these platforms there’s a super impactful way for you to showcase your brand to your clients - photography. I personally feel like there is a huge gap between what your main brand elements says about your business and what the images you share says about your business.
The reality is that every time you (as your business) shares an image (whether it be a bio picture for your guest posting or a coffee shot on Instagram) you are giving a peek into what your business and brand is like. The quality of the image and the story it tells can either give your clients an example of what it’s like to work with you (are you bright, cheerful and fun) or it can make them confused and leery about what you can do (or are you dark, grainy and messy).
Sometimes I think businesses forget the importance and impact that sharing quality images can have on their client connections, impressions and sales. Here are all the areas we focus on sharing and showcasing high quality, branded photography.
Newsletter header and footer
Instagram posts (every post)
Facebook page posts about blog or events
Facebook group posts
Website pages (every page has at least one image)
Pinterest pins
Guest post bios
Personal Facebook page (profile picture)
Landing pages for registrations or events
How Using High Quality Branded Images Can Change Your Business
CLIENT CONNECTION
One of the most frequent questions we get is how to speak to clients on a personal level, but still remain a level of professionalism. Our answer? Branded photography. When you take the effort to make sure what is shown in the image represents your brand (colors, mood, feel, etc) you begin to make a connection with your personal life and your business life. It gives you freedom to share personal touches, like Target finds or coffee trips, but in a way that stays true to your brand.
IMPRESSIONS
No matter what your business is (products or services) using photography to either showcase your actual products or vignettes that authenticate your services your customers and clients will come to know what to expect from you. How about asking past customers to snap a pic of them using your product and share your favorite (along with their nice words)? Or possibly a beautifully styled vignette to talk about how you love working with clients in your service. All of these help to continue your social proof of being amazing at what you do and make customers or clients comfortable with deciding to work with you.
SALES
What better way to make a sale than by showcasing what you do? Not a sales person? Good. Think about doing a highlight on a favorite product showcasing how to use or display it (include testimonies from past customers!). Or how about a snap of your busy calendar booked full of clients letting people know you only have a few spots open for your service? These come of as authentic (because they are!) and non-pushy if done right.
Nervous behind the camera?
Trust me - I’m not expecting you to be a total boss at your own business and be a total pro behind the camera! Here’s a quick example of a super easy setup I made for my home office to shoot small objects. The goal when creating something similar is to create as much diffused white light as you can. This type of light helps create the most even shadows and keeps as many details in your image. This particular shot was taken indoors, with only natural light streaming in from 3 windows, with an iPhone 6 and edited with our favorite app Pictapgo.
The "before" image is pulled back so you can see the sides of the "box". The diffused sides are made of tracing paper and held up with white duct tape. We keep it classy here, ya'll.
If you still don’t feel comfortable behind the camera no worries! That’s exactly why we’ve created some amazing packages and services for you to get top-notch photography of you, your team, your products, branded images or styled social media images.
