Photographs can be so impactful for small businesses. They show who we are, what we offer, who our services are for, and can help us stand out from the crowd. We process images sixty thousand times quicker than text, so by sharing images you’re making the job of understanding your business easier for audience. It makes it easier for your audience to create connection, trust and build a relationship with your business which is what leads to loyal customers.
So let’s chat about three types of photographs your small business needs…
Photographs that tell the story of your business
Your business and your brand is so much more than just your services. Your brand is your whole story, your values, and you. You audience want to get to know you because they want to create a connection and the easiest way to do that is by sharing photographs.
Behind the scenes or branding photographs are a great way to tell your story. Not only do they show who you are and your brand values, but they also give insight into where and how you work. It gives you the opportunity to educate your audience through your visuals as your images can help set expectations, boundaries and show your expertise. Seeing the time, care, and effort that goes into creating your services subconsciously reinforces within your audience your worth and shows the skills that set you and your business apart from everyone else.
Photographs that show your client experience
When you don’t sell a physical product, you might feel like your options of what photographs to share can be limited. But there’s still a wide range of images you can use. Photographs that show your client experience can help your audience to understand how to work with you, how to contact you and what they can expect. They help to tell the story of your brand and show if your service is right for your audience.
Photographs that create trust
If your audience doesn’t trust you, then they are never going to convert into customers. Trust forms the basis of your customer relationships and helps you to create reputation, and while it might seem that photographs don’t effect that, they can actually play a huge part in evoking those first feelings of trust.
You can create trust by showing photographs of who you are. A lot of people choose to shop with small businesses because they want to buy from ‘a real person’, rather than a corporate company. Showing who you are within your images helps your audience to create connection, relate to you and reinforces that feeling of buying from and supporting a person. This is especially important for service based businesses when clients will be working with you one-to-one, your audience need to be able to be comfortable and create trust when working with you closely.
Like showing your face, hands can also evoke the same feelings of trust. Hands bring in that personal and real life element to you photographs and including them in images can be an easy option if you’re not quite confident enough yet to show your face.
Whatever photographs you share within your business, whether they’re professional, snaps you’ve taken yourself or customer images, you should always make sure they are high quality (well lit, not distorted, in focus, show the correct colours and scale, and in line with your brand style) so that your images aren’t catching peoples eye for the wrong reasons.
If you'd like to know more about how photography can help your product-based business follow me on Instagram or book a call and let's chat.