The business side of photography
It takes us only a moment to form our first opinion of someone. This first impression will tell us whether that person might be friendly, smart, honest, kind, trustworthy … or not.
Judging a person by their appearance may not always be the best thing to do but it’s something that we’ve been trained to do by our parents, the media and many thousands of years of evolution.
Pop quiz: which of the following people would you trust enough to do business with:
I was reading an article offering marketing advice for 2014. The piece included tips and predictions for the upcoming year from 14 “marketing experts.”
Of these 14 people featured in the article, only six seem to have professionally produced business portraits. But only two of these photos are of good quality and only one looks recent.
The majority of these “marketing experts” are represented either by a poorly exposed, poorly focused snapshot of themselves or by a picture of a picture of themselves (which suggests that they don’t even have a headshot).
With such a disregard for their own business image and apparently no knowledge of the marketing value of photography, how much credibility would you extend to these “marketing experts”?
A marketing expert who doesn’t have a professional business headshot is like a plumber who doesn’t own a wrench, a chef who doesn’t have a knife or a photographer who doesn’t have a tripod.
A professional business portrait is the simplest, most common and most effective marketing tool for making a positive first impression, creating trust and building credibility.
Here’s a fantastic example of a company using editorial content on its corporate site. Alfred Dunhill, a British company that sells menswear worldwide has a number of very compelling videos on its web site. Some of these videos are related to its products and some seem to have no connection whatsoever.
Does editorial content help sell product?
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While shopping for a pair of winter shoes recently, the ones that I liked most ranged from $99 to $199. All of these shoes looked good and all were comfortable. Which one to choose?
Most of these shoes had only a simple price tag attached. But one pair had a twelve-page booklet attached which described how the shoes were made. These were the shoes I bought (for $179).
When a customer asks something like, “What’s your price to do four business headshots?”, this is a good indication that the customer is shopping price. This is not the time for a photographer to act like a price tag. Instead the photographer should be a booklet of information.
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When a customer directly or indirectly tells a photographer that their price is too high, the photographer has to understand why the customer is saying this.
Sometimes a customer will say that the photographer’s price is too high when, in reality, the customer is undecided or confused about the offer. It’s easier to say, “it’s too expensive” than “I’m not sure how I can benefit from your photography.”
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Charles Mortimer was the CEO of the former General Foods from 1954 to 1965. During this time he doubled the company’s sales and tripled its earnings. Mortimer’s background was in marketing. He was once quoted as saying:
The surest way to over-spend on advertising is not to spend enough to do a job properly. It’s like buying a ticket three-quarters of the way to Europe; you have spent some money, but you do not arrive.
If you replace the word “advertising” with “professional photography”, the saying would still hold true.
When a company seeks the lowest-cost corporate photography, that company is shooting itself in the foot, or more accurately, in the wallet. When spending on photography for business marketing, it’s not what you pay that’s important but rather it’s what you get.
Cutting corners and paying just enough to get ineffective or low quality business photography is a form of overspending because you’ve bought a ticket to nowhere.
If a job is worth doing then get someone to do it properly. – anonymous
Pictures interest people more than text.
People get information faster from pictures than text.
People can get more information from pictures than text.
People understand pictures better than text.
Pictures have greater emotional impact than text.
People trust pictures more than text.
Pictures have more credibility than text.
Emotional impact + trust + credibility => pictures influence people more than text.
People remember pictures more than text.
So what should your company use for your marketing, more pictures or more text?
