marketing

Expert Impression

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I was just reading an online 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.

 

Are you just a price tag?

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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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Being too expensive is really an opportunity

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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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Underspending is overspending

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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

 

Picture Perfect

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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?

 

More memorable corporate photography

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Everyone wants to save money. Presumably that’s why some companies use cheap stock pictures on their web sites. But using such pictures is counter-productive. Cheap stock pictures actually push customers away.

By design, cheap stock pictures target the lowest common denominator. This means the pictures are bland, generic and very simple to understand, just like the pictures in a children’s book.

A 1988 University of Texas study, “Effects of Color and Complexity in Still Photographs on Mental Effort and Memory”, showed that: (i) viewers pay more attention to complex photos; (ii) complex images are processed by the viewer just as easily as simple ones; and (iii) viewers remember complex pictures more than simple pictures.

This means that using cheap stock pictures serves no purpose other than to save money. But spending any money for something that delivers nothing is actually a waste of money.
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