Which branding photos you actually need in your business
Picture this; you’re scrolling through the internet looking for a new jacket and you come across this website. It’s clunky, whiffs a bit of the noughties but has exactly what you are looking for right there. It’s perfect, the ultimate hen-do party piece, but the photo is dull, the jacket is shoved in the corner of a room and quickly snapped on a phone.
The price is perfect, the site claims it can do free next day delivery too(!) it all sounds great. So you gave it the benefit of the doubt and dig a little deeper. There are no photos of the jacket other than this sad, dark iPhone shot. You can’t find any information about a person running the company or the company at all. There’s no trace of personality anywhere on the site and it’s very dry, generic and uninspiring. You think the collection of jackets might be alright but you can’t really tell.
So you move on.
In reality, that jacket was handmade by an incredible artisan designer with a background in creating outfits for drag queens that specialises in sequinned jackets. A more perfect jacket for you doesn’t exist. But you don’t know that. To be honest, you think you’d probably get scammed if you bought it from that site.
The same happened when you looked for a cat sitter. You jumped online, scrolled through social media and came across website after website of drab, emotionless drivel. No photos of these people that claim to be trustworthy and reliable - the perfect people to keep your home and cat safe. But it’s faceless. Without photos it’s just an empty promise. You just don’t feel like you can trust them.
So let’s skip to another day when you had more luck:
Another beautiful sequin jacket pops up online. You click the link and head into the online world of Sparkle and Sass and it’s like virtually stepping foot into a high end department store. Across the home page beautifully shot photos of the collection scroll across in front of your eyes, you scroll down and watch a short film of the jacket being hand made in a home studio in Hackney. Then you’re introduced to the maker herself: Marianna Lawrence. A woman that fell head over heels in love with her sewing machine at school, that studied in Paris then made a name for herself in the theatre industry making costumes for drag shows. After winning a costume award for her latest production she decided to put some sparkle back into the lives of women everywhere and created a range of one-of-a-kind jackets to empower women to feel fabulous.
You’re in. Her story, the process, everything about it makes you feel safe, invited, excited. No whiff of scam here. You want to be part of her story and you want to own that jacket. The higher price tag is irrelevant now. You trust her.
Why?
Because she showed you her whole world on one homepage.
The same happened with your cat sitter. You were considering hiring Enid because you liked what she had to say, but you were on the fence about it because it was just words on a screen. Then you came across Milly.
Milly lives and breathes cats. She takes crazy cat lady to a cool, parachute-pant wearing place. You land on her homepage and the first sight that greets you is a woman, hanging out on a sofa, knitting, surrounded by 3 kittens playing in the wool. Cosy, wholesome and real. You scroll down and see testimonials from past clients telling you about how trustworthy and wonderful Milly was, all alongside snaps of the pets that she was looking after. Then you find a video of Milly volunteering with a rescue centre, chatting to the local vet and hanging out at home with her cats Kimi and Fernando. If you head to the about page you’ll find out all about not only Milly but her pets too. It’s a family run business but the cats don’t help much with the tax return!
Sold. Milly is hired.
What’s the link here? Branding visuals.
Both people that got the job/sold the product had websites that accurately told their story, showed their process and had portraits of themselves as real humans. Showing their faces built the trust, removed the risk of scam and actually sowed the seed for brand loyalty. Then showing the process and the films of them doing the job (creating the product, hanging out with cats) is what sealed the deal. They know what they are doing so much that they had a film made about it? That shows absolute commitment to the brand.
These days people won’t shop small because they don’t feel like they can trust an unfamiliar website enough. But you can convince them. You simply have to show them you are a human.
So here’s a list of the branding visuals you need to convert more people to buying what you are selling:
A few great portraits.
People want to see your face to understand your story. These typically populate your about page, or the snippet about you on your homepage so they can put a name to your face. Then when they hop onto your socials if you are talking on video or reintroducing yourself they already recognise who you are, so when you pop up they feel like they know you. This takes away scam fear and familiarity builds trust making them more likely to buy.
A few shots of the thing that you do.
If you are a cat sitter then you hanging out with cats makes a lot of sense. If people can see you doing it, they’ll trust that you can do what you say you can. If you make baby sweaters, then photos of you knitting them, your workspace, the materials you use. All of these things help you paint a picture of your business so that people understand and trust you.
If you want to level up, a beautiful brand film or personality video can really help to show people what you do, how you do it and what your approach is without them having to read through a load of text. The easier you make it for people to understand, the more likely people will buy from you.
For product based businesses - really great product photos.
You’ll want both options if it’s clothing - on a body and the item alone. But this could be photos of your customers wearing it! You’ll also want to style it in a lifestyle setting. People don’t necessarily want to see the item as it would sit in their current lifestyle. They want to see the item in the lifestyle that they wished they had.
For example, I have just started gardening and there is a brand that keeps showing me images of these cute old man camping jumpers on women in the woods. I want to garden in this cute outdoorsy jumper because the person in their photos looks like she lives a beautiful life entirely outside. Great photos do half of the marketing heavy lifting for you!
For service based businesses (mostly but product businesses could definitely use these too!) Photos of you living your life like a normal human.
They want to see your life outside of work. They want to get to a place where they want to hang out with you. Because for a lot of service providers, spending some sort of time with your client is part of the process. So they have to like you. Also if they see that you have similar hobbies to them, then it gives you easy talking points to really create a relationship with them. The stronger the relationship, the more likely they are to buy from you, or recommend you to someone else looking for your service!
Personalised stock images
Stock imagery is generally stuff that doesn’t have a face in it that you can use as backgrounds for social media content or emails or where you want to break up some text. These are handy to have so it’s not all face/product all the time and the website doesn’t feel too intense. For example if you are an upholsterer, its pictures of the tools, fabrics, workplace etc. For cat sitting it may be the animals, the bags of treats, the cat toys. You can get creative with these and collect them over time as they generally never go out of date.
So that’s your ideal branding photography hit list. Once you have all those things you have the visual tools to really create a website that sings your praises at the top of it’s voice and really convert those clients. No 00s websites here please.
If you are ready to get those customers converting then lets have a chat.
I provide branding photography (and films!) that get you all of these things in one day. Once you enquire and tell me what it is you are looking for I will recommend the right package for you. Then once you are booked we can dive into a planning call and work out the logistics to get shots of you teaching yoga as well as making your morning coffee and capturing your portrait. Working with me is a collaboration and I can provide split packages so that we can make sure we really capture all the parts of you as a human and your business in a fun, personality-filled way.
If this sounds like exactly what you need, check out my packages here or contact me to get started.
