Between Instagram and SnapChat, everyone is a photographer. And while filters and hashtags have given everyone the confidence to post their photography on a regular basis, not everyone knows how to make engaging pictures in their marketing.
Using pictures in marketing isn’t new. The power of pictures when it comes to engaging your target market is amazing. In fact, content with pictures gets 94% more views than content without pictures, making it the most popular means of marketing next to video. Visual content is also the king of social media, as it’s 40 times more likely to get shared than any other type of content.
The best part about pictures in marketing is that you don’t need to be a professional to get results. Today’s new and innovative technology make it very easy to create fun and interesting images.
Try these steps to creating engaging pictures that will help your sales go through the roof.
Choose A Story to Tell
Every product solves a specific problem, even if that problem is boredom. Some products make you happy, while others just make you sad. Your product pictures need to tell the story of what your product is going to do for your customer.
Yes, that is a lot to ask from one picture. So set a goal, define the mood, or choose an emotion. Keep it simple and straightforward, and don’t try to overwhelm your viewer. You’ll have a better chance of capturing and conveying one core message than trying to shove too much into the picture.
Use What You Have
You may believe that a fancy, high-tech digital camera is necessary for quality images. And, while you do need a powerful digital camera for some types of pictures, like low-light pics or sunny shots outside, they are not necessary for everything. After all, National Geographic contributing photographer Cotton Coulson now uses his iPhone camera in his photography.
Coulson says “I always felt that if I took the creative effort to produce a beautiful photo, the quality should be good enough to sell to the top photo agencies, like Geographic’s Image Collection,” says Coulson. “Today, we’re getting much closer to having camera phones that allow us to achieve this benchmark.”
Customize and Enhance
You won’t use the same pictures for all your marketing, and it’s extremely easy to tailor your pictures to match the platform. For example, you may want a simple shot on a white background on your sales page. But if you want something more engaging for ads and social media, you need to branch out from that model. That’s where photography software come into play.
Gimp is a free, open-source image editor. There is a learning curve, and there is a ton of helpful how-to videos for support. There are also some amazing apps you can use including Snapseed and VSCO. You can even create social media images, customized with your logo or slogan using Canva. It’s easy to use and you can add whatever enhancements you need using their templates.
Keep it Interesting
It can be incredibly boring to look at a static picture, even if it’s a great product. The key to engaging customers is spicing up the static pictures they are used to. Take a look at these two images and guess which one is more interesting:
Clearly, the one on the right, correct? Sometimes you want a simple pictures, but sometimes you need something that will grab your customer’s attention. Something that will make them see themselves using your product.
One way to showcase your products in an interesting way is to share multiple images of the same item. You could do a series of shots for your social media campaign using different angles or highlighting different features.
Utilizing Technology
Technology is moving at light speed these days, and pictures are not immune to these changes. Not only can we take pictures anywhere using a simple smartphone, but we can also edit, embellish and showcase our images in new and exciting ways.
The right picture can lead customers straight to the checkout page. If you want to increase sales this year, take a second look at your pictures and see how you can use today’s newest technology to engage your customers through images.
Photo: Nadia Felsch