Once upon a time there was a world without colour.

This world, which we will call Blanc Noir only had black and white.
The population saw everything in black and white and hence everything they had was either black or white (pretty obvious, really what sort of story is this anyway??).

One day a visitor from another world called Couleur (I’ve a bit of a soft spot for French) came along and wore clothes that were red and yellow. 

The visitor couldn’t understand why the inhabitants of Blanc Noir didn’t wear anything but black and white when all about them was colour.

The trees the sky, grass, only man made objects were in black and white.

The inhabitants on the other hand saw his clothes as black (red) and White (yellow).

One day something strange happened this stranger had a camera that took pictures in colour. 

As he took more pictures and showed everyone what he took in the rear screen of the camera, they noticed that there was something strange going on, everything in the camera was in colour!

As they looked around they realised that in fact that all natural world was in colour, it was only themselves and the buildings and vehicles that were in black and white.

Imagine seeing this for the first time how did you think they reacted?

How would you react?

Of course they immediately took steps to colourise everything.

Which was great for all the business’s on Couleur as they had plenty of colour products. 

But not so good for the business’s on Blanc Noir as everything they had was black and white.

This year 2016 has been the start of something special. It’s been a year when some clever small businesses like the businesses on Couleur have realised that their strongest ally in their marketing is images and video.

Our world is changing and the growth of technology to help create visual content is now easier than ever and will continue to get even easier for the foreseeable future.

Of course those that don’t take steps to take advantage of this will be like those businesses on Blanc Noir.

The world of visual content is about to take over from world of words.

Why is this?

Well for one thing our lives are so busy that we only give marketing material a nano-second to get our attention and images are our first impression of the message.

If we like it, we will hang around and read the written content and even look to buy the product or service.

Or, if we don’t like it then we move on.

That’s why Facebook has been ramping up its image and video posting platform, why Instagram and Snapchat are so popular and why Twitter has also beefed up its image posting platform. 

They all realise that if content is king then it’s visuals are all powerful.

You know, it’s no wonder that this has happened.
Our TV screens have become bigger. I bought one a few months ago which is 60”! 60” is huge! The TV we had before was 42” and probably the one before that was 30”.

Movie screen sizes have increased almost to the point that we have to exercise our peripheral vision to see the whole screen.

Our mobile phones have got bigger, so much so that they’ve almost taken over from tablets.

We have screens on cameras, watches, fridges, printers, security equipment, automobiles, cooking appliances and much more.

Giant LED screens in public places assault our visual senses.

So visual content is everywhere and that’s what we as consumers look for.

Now, don’t get me wrong here! Written content is still important.
As the saying goes a picture may paint a thousand words but you may need another thousand words to tell the whole story.

Today visual content is a no-brainer for any business looking to market their product or service.

Not just visual content but good visual content.

So what about your experience with visual content?

What’s the number one obstacle stopping you from creating images or video for your marketing?

I’d really like to know. So please leave your answers in the comments below. 

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As a photographer and someone who has been involved in sales and marketing as a profession, I shake my head at the way some business’s view the use of images in marketing.

Because image is everything!!

I’ll say that again; “image is everything!!”

It’s no longer about what your product is, it’s now about what the product looks like and represents, and that means image.

To be fair I have seen some amazing imagery from some companies but in there are a lot that are pretty average.

Let’s take the wine industry (I’m a pretty sad wine enthusiast)
An out of focus, dimly lit picture of a bottle plonked on a dining table is just not going to encourage anyone to buy.
With some care given to background, lighting and props, the final image can reflect a sense of place, lifestyle and even culture and give a much needed professional feel to a website, for example, which all helps to sell wine.

Recently I attended a wine tasting that had little or no imagery available for the wines on tasting. The tasting was at a liquor store and was run by a distributor and the winemaker for this particular winery, yet amazingly the bottles were only seen when poured from.
Nowhere on the literature were there photographs of the winery, wines or anything else that may leave a lasting impression.
Unless I have my tasting notes or price list with me I wouldn’t recognise these wines were I to go into any other liquor store today.

Sadly, I find that this is the norm

There are 4 reasons why a business doesn’t invest in their marketing images

1. Cost
2. Time
3. Lack of knowledge.
4. Attitude that it ‘doesn’t matter’.

The first two, cost and time are understandable but lack of knowledge, with some motivation, is easily remedied.
There are plenty of resources both online and off line that can help the budget conscious business learn how to take good photographs.

However for anyone who thinks it doesn’t matter then think again!
Images are the new language. As at May 2014 (the last accurate report) 1.8 billion images were uploaded every day which is 30% higher than 2013!
It is now estimated that we will have exceeded the 2 billion per day by the beginning of this year.
In fact some estimators are saying that the number of images uploaded this year alone is more than the total of all previous years.

No longer are purchasing decisions based on sales copy alone.

Images are attracting attention and it’s never going to change back.

So you’ve got to get your potential customers attention and that’s where striking images that grab comes in.

What you shouldn’t do

If I produced wine, (I did think about it once but it seemed much less enjoyable than drinking it) I would want to control the image of all facets of my operation from the product to the winery to the location.
I hear of wineries having competitions to find the best image, usually on Facebook or Flickr, so that they can use it for marketing. Some may say that is a certain degree of control.
However I would challenge that view as the vast majority of photos generated won’t provide the image that is best suited to that particular winery, even if it’s a good image.
When you consider the effort and time to organise the competition and the cost of providing the prize, usually a case of wine, surely that energy would be better spent producing an image that conveys what the winery would like to show the world, rather settle for possibly the best of a bad bunch!

Celebrities now days are going to great lengths to protect and control their image, some of it a bit too zealously see An Open Response to Taylor Swift’s Rant Against Apple. They understand the power that the image now has and its potential to affect either positively or negatively their business and consequently their earnings.

What you should you do

Well in the above wine tasting example, some great images of the winery and its location.
At the beginning of the tasting they showed a YouTube video of the winemaker being interviewed and part of the footage was some amazing scenery next to the winery.
Images of that scenery (a desert landscape next to the Pyrenees in Spain) could have been on a cover for the tasting notes or large prints on pull up banners or posters could have been placed or hung around the room.
Then they could also have had some inventive and colourful images of the bottle and its label on the tasting notes.
And that’s just to start with.

Here’s 5 things to look for in your marketing images right now

1. The biggest one is do they represent how you think your business should appear to others.
2. Are they sharp i.e. no sign of unintended blurriness?
3. Do they blow up to a reasonable size?
4. Does it have impact?
5. Is it memorable?
6. Is your product clear and concise?

Conclusion

It’s your business and your product that are being represented.

No amount of text will compensate for a poor first impression

So just start by critiquing your images regardless of who created them.

So if I could leave you one simple message it’s this:

“A photograph shouldn’t be just a picture, it should be a philosophy”

So what do you think? Anything I’ve missed?

Please leave your comments below

Why You Need a Professional Selfie.

We all know that a picture paints a thousand words.
And we know that images are important to our marketing, particularly our online presence.

Why is it then that often the one image that we should have, is missing or at best average?

Which image is that? The SELFIE or as it used to be known as, the self-portrait.

So why do you need a professional Selfie?

When I visit a website I usually go straight to the about or start here page.
It often surprises me how many about pages make no mention of the people behind them.
For whatever reason they have no human images.

In my many years of sales and marking there has been one truism: “People buy from People”.
Usually people they like but most certainly people they trust and know something about.

The human face

There has been a lot of testing and research that confirms a human face on about page increases trust.

When you have trust, the more likely visitors are to stick around and consume your content and/or buy your stuff!

The about (or start here) and contact pages are the usually the most visited pages on a website.

So if you don’t have a picture and some sort of bio you are telling visitors to your site that you are anonymous.

We as human beings tend not trust anonymous.

Sure sites like Amazon or Microsoft are anonymous but they have multimillion marketing budgets that go a long way to overcoming their anonymous disadvantage.

So make sure you have a professional selfie of yourself and your key personnel on your website.

So the first 2 steps to think when taking a professional selfie are:

1. What sort of self-portrait do you think represents your brand?

A financial adviser or lawyer may want a more conservative head shot. Or they may want a full length portrait with business like clothes like a jacket and trousers.

A social media site may wish to convey a trendy relaxed image.
So it may decide that, rather than have a headshot, an image of its employees being active may be better.

A tradesperson my want to have an image of themselves in working gear with a tool as a prop.

Real estate agents tend to want half body (torso and head) shots.

Maybe you want black and white or sepia (a reddish brown hue that resembles the effect of aging in old photographs, the photograph not the subject!) as a point of difference.

2. What are you using it for?

Well as I said earlier the priority should be the about page of your website.
If you have a team then make sure they too are on that page which could easily be a separate page underneath the main about page.

Social media profiles are also pretty important. They show the human touch and are more likely to attract engagement

You may also wish to use it for some printed marketing material like flyers and business cards.

If you have been featured in publications, then a great head shot.
Most publications, primarily due to the cost, are moving away from using a photographer.
So having your own portfolio of self-portraits can be very useful

Maybe you’re thinking really big and looking to get your face on a billboard.

Whatever you are using it for make sure you take plenty of images, trying different poses and maybe different locations.

And by the way, there’s no rule that says you have to use the same images across the all platforms and marketing material.
You may want to convey a different image on your social media accounts than say, your business card.

Why you are at, why not stick a ‘selfie’ on your contact page. It makes it feel more personal.

So you can’t really take too many!

Summary for why you need a professional selfie

People buy from people, so make sure your brand shows you and/or your people.

Take plenty of different professional selfie’s.

Use them for not only your website but for other publications and social media.

Check out some portraits in this gallery

So what do you have? Do you have good ‘selfies’?

Where have you posted and used them?

Please leave the answers in the comments below

While you are at it why not subscribe and get a free e-book to help you take better photos.
The principles in this e-book apply not only to travel photography but to all types of photography. 

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