What Are the Most Important Images to Promote your Business? We asked Businesses

Written by Robert Lowdon

Robert Lowdon is an internationally published commercial photographer based out of Toronto, Canada. He spends his time photographing architecture and industrial projects for the most part.

Published September 21, 2022

When it comes to marketing your business, you can never be too careful. You want to make sure that you are using the right tools and techniques to reach your target audience. And one of the most important tools at your disposal is imagery.

In this blog post, we will be asking experts what the best images are to promote your business. We will also be discussing how businesses can use these images to their advantage. Stay tuned for more!

Images are Very Important for Businesses

There are many businesses that overlook the importance of images. But they shouldn’t, because images are a huge factor in the success of a business. They can help you reach a wider audience and promote your brand in a more effective way.

But, what are the most important images? And where should you start?

So instead of me just waxing on about how you should hire a photographer, I thought it would be a good idea to reach out to business people.

So let’s see what they have to say:

Customer Experience Images

One of the most impactful marketing tactics is to involve existing customers to create a story around customer experience, and the best stories to put out there are through images showing customers using your products and services. This helps audiences make a connection they relate with while showing them you have real people buying from your brand. Most importantly, it enables potential customers to imagine themselves using your offerings. These images can be shared on social media, your email marketing campaigns, and all other online and offline campaigns. The only thing to remember is to obtain the prior permission of the customers showcased in these images.

Riley Beam, Douglas R. Beam, P.A.

A business must have a memorable logo. Even if the logo is simply the company’s name, it must have a distinct font, color, and background color. This logo should be on the website, all social media accounts, and even in social media posts, if possible. Displaying this logo makes the brand much easier to recognize, increasing brand loyalty.

Nick Shackelford, Structured Agency

What are the most important images to promote your business? We asked business owners
Real images of leaders and staff

Real Photos of Leaders and Staff in Their Work Environment

The biggest mistake most businesses make when choosing images to market themselves is using too much stock photography. Generic photos of teams hovering over a conference room table, happy clients shaking hands, and perfect office architecture and design don’t actually connect with potential clients or customers because they know that’s not you. Use real photos of you and your staff, your work environment, and what you do if you really want to make a visual, emotional connection that sways people.

Vincent Chan, Christina

Content Engagement Graphics or Pictorials

Have a clear, unique vision represented by a brand look. In order to engage an audience, content must stand out and be instantly recognizable as a brand. Knowing what your brand represents and boiling it down to a striking image can specifically target the audience most likely to engage with it. By having a clear and recognizable brand, you can better engage with your audience.

Brett Estep, Insured Nomads

Product images are very important for a business
Product images in use

High-Resolution Niche-Related Images

Your business niche determines the most critical images/photos you should use for a business. For example, if you’re an internet store, you’ll undoubtedly need a massive bank of product images, whereas a service provider probably won’t. Whatever your brand, you’ll need a diverse range of picture styles to guarantee that all marketing areas are covered. Images that are of poor quality appear unprofessional. High-resolution photographs generate more traffic to your website, increase social sharing and brand involvement, and eventually help you reach your business objectives.

Muskan Rai, WebHostingAdvices

Picture of Your Team at Work or Happy Clients

Every business should have a particular set of photographs in its marketing collection. You can utilize marketing photos in print advertisements, social media posts, and on your website. The best marketing images a business can use are just a few. A picture of your product or service, the team at work, happy clients, the business location, the business owner, or the executive team are all marketing images for a business.

Salvador Ordorica, The Spanish Group

User-Generated Product Images

UGC plays a significant role in your audience’s willingness to take a chance on your product. With the rise of more authentic ways of marketing, and given the economic downturn since the pandemic, consumers are triple-checking to make sure your product is worth their hard-earned money. User-generated content helps your target consumer see themselves in your product by humanizing it.

Cesar Cruz, Sebastian Cruz Couture

Behind the Scenes Shots

Photos of a business at work, or ‘behind the scenes’ shots are vital for any business marketing itself. Showing consumers how a company works, what goes into the product each day, etc. builds trust and brand authority. Curiosity into how a business works is a major draw to every company website. It is how potential customers decide they can trust a business in the modern marketplace.

Kevin Callahan, Flatline Van Co.

Authentic images of staff members
Authentic images of staff members

Picture of Company Staff

One of the most important images/photos for a business to market itself is a picture of its staff. When you think about it, the people who work for your company are the ones who make it what it is. They’re the ones who interact with customers, they’re the ones who answer phones, and they’re the ones who put together products and services. Without them, there would be no business! So when you’re trying to market yourself as a company, it’s important that clients know that they’re dealing with real human beings—people who care about what they do and want to help others feel good about themselves. That’s why we always try to use photos of our employees whenever we have an opportunity: because we want our clients to know that they aren’t just buying from us—they’re buying from people they can trust and relate with on a personal level.

Ishu Singh, Starting to know

Product Images

Consumers need to know what they are buying. Without quality product images, your leads most likely won’t take a chance on your product, no matter how much they like your invention. Product images utilized for marketing purposes should be high resolution, centered correctly using the rule of thirds, include exciting colors if applicable, and have a clean background.

Patricio Paucar, Navi

Images to Show Market Stability

One of the most important images for a business to market on its own is stability. People want to know if the shop they do business with will be around next year if they have a problem. You market stability by getting out in the public and meeting potential customers. Go to chamber events, fundraisers, and other public events. Sometimes, you should even sponsor something like a school baseball team or a fundraiser for the homeless shelter.

Over time, this shows your roots in the community and that indicates to people your business is stable. To them, this indicates it will be around for a long time.

Fadi Swaida, Halton Village Dental

Photos of Influencers Showing off Your Product and Style

When a customer visits your landing page, what are the images that give the best first impression about your product? It doesn’t have to be one image, but a collage of several that altogether welcome the customer while also pumping them up to be there. Think about your social media marketing and advertising in general. All that effort and resources are devoted to getting that customer to click through to your landing page. Most people decide within the first ten seconds whether to keep exploring the page or leave. The images you choose should give them a clarity to your brand while also building excitement for what you’re selling. For our tattoo skin care products, customers see our logo and a collage of tattoo influencers, showing off our credibility and style.

Oliver Zak, Mad Rabbit

Final Thoughts

As you can see, there are a variety of different images that both small business owners and corporations can use to market themselves. It all depends on what type of business you have and what message you want to communicate.

Visual marketing is now more important than it ever has been. So of course, poor-quality photos can be harmful to your branding efforts whereas high-quality images can be like adding gasoline to a fire.

If you sell products or provide services your marketing materials could really benefit from the right photos. Good visual content for your social media, like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, is extremely valuable.

Great photos will help you reach new customers and boost sales. Even booths at trade shows with high-quality imagery will outperform ones that don’t have good visuals.

While stock photo sites have their benefits in a pinch, the best photos for your business will be authentic pictures of your own staff. Be sure to post photos on your site that connect with the viewer. Using recognizable locations as a backdrop when taking photos will increase engagement and increase consumer buy-in.

I hope you have found this content useful. Let us know in the comments what you think.

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