How Marketeers Use Photographs

As a photographer of businesses, I found I got to grips with the question of how marketeers use photography early on in my career. It’s all a bit of a juggle, but marketeers use photos in conjunction with tone of voice (words) and graphics (logos/colour palette/design) to enhance the reading of a brand’s identity, however, it goes further than this. Marketing professionals that I speak to believe that bespoke photography makes a business’s websites, social media and other communications stand out from the crowd. They establish how photos will support their marketing objectives as well as the brand positioning and messages.

So the question gets asked: what are the photos required to do (marketing objective)? This question is important because there will be different photography needs depending on the marketing job.

Building Brand Credibility through photography

Building or maintaining a credible brand is one of the key facets where photography can impact. For service led businesses this may be in the form of the people in the business being more visible, showing employees in action, or showing the location. It is all about visually illustrating the customer journey so that every touch point is seen. This makes potential clients feel more comfortable with the business they are going to interact with.

Brand photography for service companies helps to build on moving prospects further down the line of ‘know, like and trust’. It backs up messaging and gives authenticity to the company and brand showing real people, rather than stock images of models…which is always obvious!

For product based businesses photos might show the products in use, the materials or ingredients, the manufacture or production, the craftsman at work or the source of materials.

Social proof, in the form of customers engaging with the business, is always a useful visual to have. It helps the customer move along the marketing funnel.

Creating Awareness with photos

It may be that some photos are required to build awareness. In different media channels, especially on line, there is a lot of ‘noise’ which makes it difficult for brands to be seen. Therefore ‘different’ or unique visuals help a business stand out, to raise profile and be seen.

Photography can also help the right customer/client – the target market – feel a connection with the brand. They should feel that the service or product is for ‘people like them’, their tribe. When they associate with the images they become interested and consider contacting/buying, whatever the call to action is.

Different uses for photography in business

Marketeers will have defined the media channels: where the messages are going out and in what form to reach the target market.

This may be in the form of advertising (print or on line) where the longevity and format of the photos is important. PR requires a strong photo to make it more attractive or to stand out as editors/journalists often chose press releases with images that best tell a story.

Social media soaks up photography as content and storytelling is key here too. Posts need to have photos that are eye catching, tell stories, are aligned with the brand identity and consistent. And website photography tells that important customer journey, enhances the brand identity, telling the brand story so that the target market connect and take action. Images break up text and the right ones enhance the visual appeal of the brand.

The Photography Brief

That may all sound complicated – it’s definitely not simple! But usually marketing professionals will develop a communications brief that enables the photographer to understand the target market, the brand identity and the comms objectives as well as the channels…which all enables the photographer to create images that will work well for that particular business’s marketing objectives.

As I always say, I don’t simply take photos or create pretty pictures. I work with a lot of marketing professionals (both in house and consultants), and it is having this understanding of how they use photography that enables me to do my job well.

Here is a testimonial from a marketing consultant I have worked with over the last few years with different clients of theirs: “Once again I wholeheartedly recommend you to anyone requiring personal branding photography / team photography / corporate photography - that's fitting to reflect modern business and supports business and marketing objectives” YUnique marketing

Is a picture worth a thousand words?

Clear and simple imagery, so particularly photography, is much more immediate in terms of delivering a message, as compared to a sentence or two trying to explain a product, service, or process. So I believe that a photo is worth a thousand words, but don’t take my word for it, research also backs this up – my two favourites are:

·???????? The human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text

·???????? Most people only read 28% of the words on a web page

Whether you have a clear direction and use of photography or you want to investigate how professional photos can be an asset to your marketing plan, I'd love to have a chat.

About the author

Jo Scott is a Professional Corporate Photographer with a background in Fine Art Photography. Based near Windsor in Berkshire, she primarily works in London and the adjacent Home Counties including Surrey and Hampshire with businesses, creating photos for all their marketing needs.

More information about Jo Scott can be found on her website Jo Scott Images

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