A picture is worth 1000 words – especially in Marketing.
An image is worth a thousand words. Surely, you’ve heard that one before. It’s true in general, but when thinking about marketing your business, it takes on even greater importance – especially in today’s society when our collective train of thought has been reduced to 140-280 characters. Choose images wisely because they should speak to your customers and help tell your story.
Images Tell the Story Too
The images on your website, in your advertising, across your social media channels, and in blog posts or articles help to tell your story. Strategically placed images can support the overall themes or specific points within your story. It’s self-evident if you sell clothes – you want to show people wearing your clothes and looking great. But what if you’re a service provider or you sell software? The text and imagery on your collateral play off of each other.
Align your images by choosing images of people that are happy where your copy talks about the benefits of using your products. Conversely, when you talk about your customers’ problems, show frustrated customers. The visual example of their frustration will resonate and generate an emotional reaction that they will remember if you deliver on your promise to solve their problem. As a refresher, this article discusses how your messaging should focus on your customers.
Brand Builders
In addition to supporting your messaging, imagery plays a big role in your brand identity. As part of your brand-building activities, determine the types of images that you as a company are willing to use and those that could be harmful to your brand – and stick to it. This includes anything from the content of the images to the resolution, style, colors, etc. Offensive images or images that don’t align with the products you’re selling can give your brand a bad reputation. Choose images wisely.
To Stock or not to Stock
When choosing images, there are a few different ways of going about it. Sure, it would be best if we all had our own in-house photographers that can take high-quality photos of exactly what we need at the drop of a hat. In reality, that’s not feasible for most of us. There are times when hiring a photographer makes sense:
- Feature images on your website
- If your business is personal to people, or if your leadership team is well known and the ‘face’ of the organization, spend the money to get ‘action’ shots of your leaders and team members for your website. You’ll be glad you did.
- Product shots
- If you’re selling products such as clothes or gadgets, showing happy customers with your products is a must. And they must be authentic
- Employee headshots
- It’s a good idea to coordinate headshots on your website, but not a must. Some individuality can be shown through headshots, but in some cases, it’s better to show uniformity. It depends on your organizational culture.
Quality is King
No matter what photos you choose, they must be high quality and render appropriately on all screens and print materials. This is where a knowledgeable team like ours at Acorn+Arrow, or a great photographer, or an awesome print shop can help you. Imagery comes with nuances like resolution, dpi, pixels, vector, jpeg, transparency, and on and on. This is an instance where it’s better to ask for help if you’re not certain.
Don’t Just Download from Google
Conservatively, there are millions of images out on Google and it can be used as a space for inspiration, but don’t go out to Google and download any image you see. Images are copyrighted and you can get in trouble for using them without permission. There are options within the Google image search to display images that are free to use, but this significantly limits the number of available images for your search. If you need stock images, the best bet is to purchase a subscription – for quality images, but also to protect yourself from legal issues.
It may seem like a minor piece of the overall marketing puzzle, but images are very important and you should choose images wisely. They should support your message and play a part in showing your customers what they’ll be getting by purchasing your product, or what they’re missing out on by not.
There’s a lot that goes into your marketing – and if you need help sorting it all out, we’d love to work with you. Contact Acorn+Arrow today to see how we can help drive your growth.
