We live in a visual culture. We scan rather than read, glance rather than look. Your customers are making decisions even faster than they realize. Within a few tenths of a second a customer looking at an image of your business has roughly sorted it into "like" or "don't like." This is great news if you've invested in working with a commercial photographer to craft images that tell customers what your business is really about. Your customers will be walking through the door with a generally positive impression of your business. If you've cut corners on photography, they won't notice your painstaking and expensive marketing efforts. Do you have the most inviting space? Is your selection head-and-shoulders above your competitors? Are your offices a reflection of the commitment to quality that exemplifies your brand? Show your customers.
Reason 2: Be prepared.
In a multimedia world, things happen fast. Really fast. In the same campaign your needing to meet the needs of bloggers, magazines, television, online video, customer review sites, the list is never ending. By having a variety of materials on hand in an online press pack, with a click of the mouse you can supply any outlet with everything they need, anywhere in the world. This turns your online buzz into a powerful, low cost and most importantly visual marketing tool.
Reason 3: Create your own stopping power.
Countless advertising and media studies have shown conclusively that viewers spend 50-75% more time viewing ads that are at least 66% image. This coupled with a sharp decline in print advertising pages leaves the ad market more competitive than ever. Now, rather than competing with other business to have customers understand you're ad content, your fighting to get them to stop in the first place. If you need 2/3rds of your ad to be image, are you comfortable with just any image? Are you willing to spend thousands of dollars on an ad by people won't even stop to look at? Use photography to capture viewers attention or your expensive ad is just wasted real estate.
Reason 4: Because in most cases stock photography is just that: stock.
"100 images for 100 bucks?! Where do I enter my credit card?" So called "Microstock" sites abound these days. The images are plentiful and best of all, cheap. However, if you scratch past the surface, Microstock sites aren't really a deal. How much time, effort and money did you pour into making your business stand out from the rest? How much energy have you spent informing your customers why your business is a better than the hundreds or even thousands of your competitors? Chances are, if you're taking the time to read this it's quite a bit. Microstock sites, through sheer numbers of contributors willing to sell images for 12-15 cents, have good images for cheap. The problem is you are not buying exclusive rights. Any of your competitors can license that same image and capitalize on your hard work. If you think about it, if you'd be happy with a run-of-the-mill image for your painstakingly crafted brand, you probably wouldn't be reading this in the first place!
Reason 5: Because You're not Buying Pixels, You're Buying Experience.
As professional photographers we often hear "You probably have a nicer camera than me." Well, yes. The technical ability to make images is not hard to learn. So much light for so many seconds hitting a sensor and you have a picture. When you hire a commercial photographer you're not buying technical ability, your buying years of experience using visual symbols to clearly communicate your message to your customers. Our camera's are nicer than yours to be sure, but is that what supports your brand? Maybe your brand does need the crystal clarity of 50 megapixel high-end camera. On the other hand, does the warm, soft, quirky images produced with a $20 toy Holga camera make more sense? As with most things it's the why of the image rather than the how that makes all the difference. A professional photographer can help you clearly realize the all important why. Technology will never be a replacement for the training and wisdom that comes from a love of making images.
Taken from HubPages.com because we could not have said it better ourselves...
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