Your website is a representation of your brand—often your first chance at making the right impression—and your site’s use of custom professional photography elevates your position as an established, trustworthy organization. There’s a place for quality stock photos, but commissioned images featuring your personnel, your brand, your products, and your projects lend authenticity to your marketing strategy, especially when they’re created by a professional.
Why Hire a Professional Photographer?
Few companies can afford to keep a qualified commercial photographer on staff. If you have an employee who dabbles in photography, here’s why she isn’t the right choice for the job. If she has all the current equipment and skills—an enormous investment—why isn’t she out pursuing photography clients full time? Is she letting your company down by spending too much time honing her expertise? The equipment and training required to produce professionally-composed, color-balanced, and retouched images are beyond the scope of what most amateurs can obtain.
Architectural photographers
They use specialized cameras and lenses to preserve the correct scale, depth-of-field, and visual perspective. For interior shots, they’re equipped to balance multiple lighting sources (and fill in dark areas with off-camera strobes) to produce true-to-life colors.
Architectural photography isn’t just about buildings. Large-scale imagery is necessary to accurately photograph manufacturing plants, landscapes, fleets, and other subjects and scenes subject to perspective shifts and distorted horizons.
Your audience wants to see where you work. If your company has outgrown your partner’s garage or your local industrial park, show off your building exteriors and interiors to convey a sense of stability. Architectural photography is, of course, essential for companies dealing in real estate, development, civil engineering, and materials.
Headshot photographers
They know how to correctly light different face shapes and skin tones. They know which poses, backgrounds, and lighting schemes are appropriate for each shoot, and they can subtly and skillfully retouch the final images. Best of all, they know how to relax their subjects to produce the most authentic, confident smiles.
Product photographers
These people use lighting techniques and high-grade lenses to create sharp photos with the correct depth-of-field and color balance. They’ll work with your creative director to select the right backgrounds, props, and models. An image is everything; you’ve come a long way to research and produce your product. Why risk all that effort and expense with cut-rate photography?
You’ll want to select a photographer appropriate to your product. Are you unveiling a car or large piece of equipment? Does your business involve perishable foods? You’ll want to find a professional photographer with experience in your specific industry. We can help.
Editorial photographers
They aren’t just for magazines. They’re frequently hired to photograph subjects in action, or for directed “casual” portraits. The latter is important for organizations tapping into the Millennial demographic, which favors genuine connections over traditional portraiture. Editorial-style photography helps instill an interactive connection between your audience and your brand, especially if you want to see your product or service in action.
Most commercial photographers are specialists and often network with others who understand the value of visual continuity. Others have extensive training in all the disciplines necessary to produce complete client portfolios. Accomplish can recommend the right photographer for your website, and for all your branding needs.
Drone operators
Aerial photography is more accessible than it used to be, but it still requires operators with optimal imaging experience and the right licenses to operate in most airspaces. For dynamic birds-eye images, don’t trust your project to an off-the-shelf drone.
ROI on Professional Photography
When you bring aboard a professional photographer for a photo shoot, they’re contracting on a “work for hire” basis. This means that the resulting images and their copyrights belong to you to use as you see fit. You can use your custom images in any number of ways, with the bonus of establishing continuity throughout your marketing campaigns.
Website images
You clicked on this post because the headline indicated the importance of professional website photographs. Now’s the time to remind you just how effective images are when integrated into inbound marketing campaigns.
As we previously stated, your website is your opportunity to create a positive first impression. When your website content contains engaging, relatable images, your audience is more likely to spend more time on your site, following the funnel as they learn more about what you’re offering. The more they’re exposed to your brand—and to images that reinforce your authority—the more likely they are to convert.
Press kits
Online and print publication decisionmakers understand the impact of graphics, especially professional photography. The editors of your target publication “target” list receive hundreds of press releases each week. The first to be weeded from the queue are those unaccompanied by crisp, attention-grabbing images. These should preferably be delivered in the appropriate resolution and file format. Eye-catching images attract readers for them, thereby attracting attention to your organization.
Annual reports and stockholder’s meetings
If you have professional photographs of your last product unveiling, showcase, or groundbreaking, your stockholders and future investors will stand up and take notice. You’re letting them know that you’re serious about brand awareness and that you’re confident in presenting your business operations from the top down. Professional photography establishes credibility among your audience and your backers.
Social media
Your chances of social media click-throughs greatly increase when you include a captivating image in your post. When your audience’s newsfeed is overflowing with stories, or they’ve become desensitized to ads, strategically use visual content to draw their attention. Especially if the photo’s subject is relatable to the viewer. You can expand your digital marketing strategy with a wide selection of digital images. Make sure to appeal to the right audience at the right time.
Packaging and collateral
Continuity nurtures a consumer’s sense of trust in a company. If your photography maintains a visual aesthetic—tone, colors, styling, and subject matter—the result is a cohesive theme that triggers recognition and a feeling of confidence in your customers and business prospects.
Custom Professional Photography: Establishing Trust, Connections, and Recognition
Your online marketing campaign is, in essence, a promise to your target market that you’re an industry thought leader, an innovative company, and a respectable, reliable organization. When you include professional photographs on your website, you’re showing your audience what you do, who you are, and what they can expect when they click that “contact” button. Don’t sell yourself short with poor-quality digital images. Let us know how we can help you choose the right photographer for your website, and for the rest of your marketing needs.