Words and captions are great no doubt, but how often do your eyes go to words at first glance? Not much. Pictures on the other hand are the first things we see. Pictures are excellent attention grabbers, making them ideal for the brand story.
In a survey, marketers attested to the importance of illustrations, videos, and images to customer engagement. Yet, research done by the CMO Council revealed that many marketers do not take advantage of visual media to tell their brand story.
Brands can tell their story through pictures. They can engage their customers, express their uniqueness, and interact with them through images. But how do you tell your business story through images? That’s what we will discover in this article. So, join me as we begin, shall we?
Importance of Photography in Brand Communication
In an era where everyone has a handy camera, business owners are turning to DIYs and selfies for cost and convenience. However, these low-cost options are not top-notch, do not project professionalism, and struggle to illustrate or tell a brand’s story. Investing in photography is a given if you want to be taken seriously in your industry.
Investing in brand photography comes with several perks, including:
- Connects you with your customers: Storytelling pictures breathe life and personality into a business. When you tell your stories through pictures, your clients start to learn about the business and form a deeper connection with your brand in a more meaningful way.
- Makes your Brand Stand Out: Customers are constantly bombarded with messages, videos, and captions from other brands and can easily get distracted through this. However, professional photography helps you grab your customer’s attention and ensure they always remember your brand.
- Communicate your Depth: Professional photography can help you share other aspects of your business or brand that needs to be communicated. With pictures, you can share your personality, processes, and the type of customer experience your clients can expect. This will help you build a brand with more purpose and depth. Besides, the shift can also enable you to attract the type of clients you desire and inspire them to be loyal to your brand.
- Elevate your Status: Professional photography distinguishes rookies from leaders. Excellent photography will position you as a thought leader in your industry, attract the right customers and help them see you as an expert.
Strategies for Making Photography a Part of your Brand Narrative
Here are ways to incorporate photography in your brand storytelling:
Evoke Emotions through Images
Business storytelling is all about using pictures to tell stories of your business. Doing this lets you create a deep connection with your audience. When shooting an image, consider the saturation and the amount of light, as this can affect how the brand story is interpreted.
If your aim is for your customers to see your brand as cheerful, then take picture choices that reflect these emotions. This rule is the same for brands that want to appear playful, serene, or wholesome.
Create Value
Brand storytelling can serve different purposes, from creating brand awareness and website traffic to building brand loyalty. Regardless of your business’s objective, pictures can help you demonstrate value, especially values inspired by customers. Consider ways your customers use your product and let that inform your visual content decisions.
For instance, if your customers use a newly launched yogurt flavor for their kid’s smoothies, you can use that information to create a visual story that reflects your brand’s range of use. Or if a new headphone inspires people to work out more, then use the information to tell a visual story.
This approach is great for creating social media content, where pictures can go alongside captions. A survey reveals that Twitter posts with pictures have an average of 35% more retweets than those without pictures. That’s tells you about the power of images.
Be Creative
Taking headshots of your products or of yourself is great and relevant, but more needs to be done to tell your brand story and establish a deeper connection with your customers. Like all stories, business stories have beginnings, middle, and ending. Remember this when making picture decisions; this will help you when you are out of ideas.
Take pictures of small details such as:
- The lingerie on the bed.
- Champaign chilling in an ice bucket.
Take Behind the Scenes Pictures
Everyone is intrigued by what goes on behind the scenes. Every brand has a bit of mystery, and when they offer a glimpse of what makes them tick, customers are usually intrigued. Thus, aim to display aspects of your brand they rarely see to excite your customers and capture their attention.
For a food store, this could mean showcasing a meal-making process. Accompany these pictures with a blog post or an Instagram update where further details are provided; this way, you can communicate a story your clients have to hear. This creates the potential for the post to be liked, shared, and remembered.
Natural Light and Photography
In telling your brand story through photography, natural or artificial light is one feature you cannot do without. While artificial light can be controlled, natural light can be your best friend if you use it right. Here is how to make portrait photos with natural light:
- Know when to shoot: Shooting at the blue hour (20 minutes before or after sunset), the golden hour (the last hour before sunset and the first hour after sunrise), and midday can make all the difference.
- Know how to shoot: when shooting with natural lighting, your shooting angle can make or mar the result. Use strategic directions such as side, front, and backlighting. These directions often come out great.
Other tips include:
- Avoid direct sunlight for portrait photos.
- Shoot with the right lighting condition.
- Find the right white light balance.
- Find the best angle.
- Take advantage of the weather.
Final Thought
Photography is one of the best storytelling tools and most impactful. From boosting engagement and growing your list to elevating website traffic and creating brand awareness, the ripple effect of photography is quite powerful. Thus, use pictures to tell stories of your brand and watch your business boom.
Product work has its own rules — how to photograph jewellery is a worked example.
