How the Quality of Your Photography Affects the Perception of Your Business

The shirt that I’m wearing right now, I bought on a whim.

I don’t like buying clothes, but scrolling through the photos on the new clothing company’s website, I could see that the products were high quality, and could meet my steep demands. I also felt, somewhere deep down, “that the company gets me.”

That’s what stunning visuals can do when they’re connected to your brand, and show off your products in the right light.

They give customers another chance to find your business, can convince them that your products are as high quality as your photos, and connects to the right customers on an emotional level.

Learn how to start using photographs to showcase your business online to the right audience.

Want to learn how to use visual marketing to get attention and customers? Check out our upcoming webinar.

Draw customers everywhere back to your website

Before customers can even get to your website, there’s a chance they’ve already made the decision to buy from you, or not. Social media channels, advertisements, product catalogues, and even content like short films or articles in related magazines, all shape how your audience sees your products. If the only business they’re seeing is a competitor, then you’re at a disadvantage to change their mind towards choosing your business.

This early decision making is a good thing. Harnessing the power of stunning photography can shape how customers perceive your business before they even get to your website. Take high quality photos, or hire a professional, of both your products, and your products in action. Create social media pages that feature a steady stream of these visuals, and feature them in your email marketing. Create a content marketing strategy that gets these images shared across the web, through your customers’ network, and also related media, like magazines and blogs.

Your photos convey the quality of your products

How are your customers supposed to know that your handmade wooden tables are pieces of art, unless your photos are pieces of art themselves? Low quality images can hide any product’s value, because details matter. Your potential customers are looking at your images to see if you care about all of the details of your business. If you don’t value the way your products look, how can they think you’ll care enough to deliver a valuable product?

Well-lit, well-focused images that correctly show the quality of your products can do more to convince customers to buy than any amount of text on your website. With just a glance customers can see all of the details of the products that you’re selling. This means no surprises if they decide to buy, which means their purchasing confidence is directly connected to the quality of your images.

Connect with your audience through emotion

I’ve realized that any clothing brand that stokes a fire of wonder for the outdoors with stunning, epic visuals, usually gets my money. A current hypothesis in the psychological world states that we decide with our hearts, and our brains justify that prior decision through reason. Photography helps convey these emotions better than words, because they work in every language, on any device, and convey their message in a single glance.

Talk to your best customers to find out why they chose to buy from your business. Look for the emotion that first sparked that decision. Remember that they may not realize the exact emotion, so you may have to read between the lines. Then source the right photography, either taking it yourself or hiring a professional, that speaks to that emotion.

Highlight the people behind the business

Customers may be buying from your business, but if they’re not connected on a deeper level, there’s nothing stopping them from trying your competitor. What can keep them coming back again and again is the person behind your business. You may think photography is a low priority, but if customers can see you and the passion you have for your business, they’re more likely to support you.

Stock photography can work well for a while, but when you have the chance to showcase real people from your business, take it. Not only do you run the risk of using a photograph that a competitor is using, but the clean, safe images may be giving the wrong message. If you’re an innovator, a take-no-prisoners cupcake baker, then you need images that have a little more edge. You need images that show you icing a cupcake that gets the right customers fired up to come into the store for a taste.

Show that you’re the right business for them

Not all decisions are made on a whim, but no matter how much we reason to ourselves about a decision, emotion is often still the deciding factor. That’s why people who hate buying clothes, like me, can own half a closet full of clothes from the same aspirational outdoor clothing company. Gets me everytime.

Give customers another chance to find your business by spreading your visuals across the internet, use images on your website and your email marketing to convince customers that your products are high quality, and make sure you’re connecting on that emotional level. The right images can help you find your own customers that buy from you again and again.