Essential product photography basics for online retail stores

Full post on dotmailer's blog

Your customers base a lot of their purchasing decisions based on visual stimuli.

Your images are what form their first impression as their attention gravitates first and foremost to the images that appear on your product pages, in your emails, and on your social media posts.

The quality of these images defines your customer interactions and dictates the perceived value of both your products and your brand’s image.

The importance of product photography

Your images can make or break your brand and are essential to the success of your store. Their importance lies in building relationships with your customers and turning them into loyal promoters for your brand. When your images are polished and professional, your site visitors are quicker to start trusting your brand and engage with your product page.

A full 67% of eCommerce consumers say that product image quality is very important when selecting and purchasing online.

They are also a key element to your visual marketing strategy that boosts your emails engagement and click-through rate. In your marketing emails and other content, images serve as ambassadors of your brand and nurture visitors closer to conversion.

Product photos enhance all buyer interactions and do a better job at that if they are of high quality. Visuals with colors, especially, boost the reader’s willingness to read by 80%. Your images help you build trust in your social posts, promotional emails, and product pages so keeping them polished and uniform is vital.

Let’s take a look at what kind of images to use and how to make them stand out from your rivals.

hat types of images to use across your marketing channels

The two main types of images that most brands use across their digital channels are

1. clean-cut product photos and
2. in-context or lifestyle photos.

On your product page and on channels closer to closing a purchase (like the checkout page), you should lead with clean-cut, uniform-looking images of your products on a white or light background.

On your product page, the feature image should show your product from the front at an eye-level angle. The rest of the images on the product page, on average a dozen, should showcase the product from all relevant perspectives. You can also include one or two in-context images to boost emotional engagement. Here you are aiming to provide solid visual proof that your product can meet your customer’s needs so they get closer to purchasing.

Your emails, social media, and blog posts are usually further up the marketing funnel. Here, static product images tend to wither. Instead, grab attention with more in-context and lifestyle shots that raise awareness and keep customers engaged. You can also mix in product-only images where appropriate as long as you have the more engaging photos as well.

In your emails and on other content channels, you can use images and videos of your product being used or in its intended environment to engage the user. Use your images to answer questions, explain features, and educate your customers so they are more likely to follow through and land on your product page.

How to take great photos

Organizing a successful photo shoot can be challenging the first time around, but you can quickly streamline it if you follow these simple steps. The three most important elements of a photoshoot are having the right equipment, choosing your background (white or light colored), and using the right lighting.

Let’s take a look at what you’ll need.

Camera

Almost any DSLR will do as long as you have a good lighting setup and background. And with the advance of smartphones, you can even use your iPhone or Samsung device to get professional-quality results.

Tripod

If you’re taking photos of multiple products on a regular basis, it is best to have your camera fixed on a tripod to ensure consistency and avoid blurry images.

Background

The background is one of the key elements when you are shooting product images for your product page. It is vital to shoot on a white or light background that you can later remove in post-processing for a polished and professional look. With in-context images, however, you do have more freedom, and the background becomes one of your creative elements.

Lighting

If there is one key defining factor in photography, that is lighting. If you get your lighting right, all the other steps will be easier. Use natural light, if possible, because it is easier to manipulate. Studio lights need a little more getting used to, but with two or three softboxes you can get good results. If you get your lighting right, you will save a lot of time during post-processing. 

How to retouch your images to drive engagement

Retouching is essential to create a uniform look across your store and create professional, polished images that engage visitors. Post-processing can include background removal, color correction, mannequin removal, and shadow addition.

Thankfully, there is a world of software solutions for editing images, but if you are working in bulk and time is an issue, you can use an editing service like Pixc. With Pixc, you can create a template and get all your images edited to your specification and returned to you within 24 hours. You can give it a test drive with a free trial here.

Create an email template that converts

Your images are the windows of your email campaigns. Their visual appeal engages your customers more than anything else in your newsletters. In fact, eye-tracking studies have confirmed time and time again that viewers are first engaged by these visual elements. And their type and quality are the deciding factors in making those visitors further engaged with the content.

Emails are one of your most important sales tools. They have the task of both delighting your customers and make them come back to actually read more or complete a purchase. Viewers start at the images and, when convinced, use the other elements of your email template to fortify their decision.

Know your audience, and include visuals in your emails that resonate with them. Segment your buyers, and send emails with different images based on previous purchases or other store data.

But before you send an email out to your entire list, A/B test your images with a smaller segment to see what works best. Experiment with image types as well as size and placement within the email to find the formula that leads to the highest click-through rate for you.

Conclusion

We are wired to process images faster than anything else, and that fact holds strong when making buying decisions. Empower your email campaigns, social posts, and content with quality images to boost your conversion rate and, ultimately, your customers’ lifetime value.

In an ever more crowded ecommerce space, where online retailers compete to get the attention of consumers with decreasing attention spans, the quality of your images is becoming more and more important.