Five Benefits of Using Professional Product Photographs

So you've taken the plunge and started your own business selling stuff. In the good old days you would have opened a shop on your local high street but you realise that today that is way too expensive and too high a risk (trust me - I know from experience). And no one can be bothered to go shopping anymore; it's not the great day out it used to be. They would rather lie in the bath with a glass of wine or a beer and cruise the internet with their bank card at the ready.

So it's online selling for you. After all, it's not that difficult these days. You can use one of the e-commerce sites like Amazon or Etsy, or you could set up your own website - guys like Squarespace or GoDaddy do all the heavy lifting for you. You could even use eBay if you're only selling in small quantities. Just take a few photos of your stuff, write some descriptions, decide on a price, post it to your site and wait for the orders to roll in. Easy.

But you quickly discover that it's not that easy. It's hard work, it's difficult to take good photos of your stuff, and it's frustrating when customers don't visit your site. So how can you do better?

Well, you can start by using the best imagery possible on your site. After all, without a physical shop your images are the only way a potential customer can get a feel for what you want them to buy. Of course you can take you own photos but that's just one of the many things you would have to learn and do if you want your business to be successful because you also need to be a sales person, a marketeer, an accountant, a buyer, a maker, the IT guy, HR, a cleaner… the list is endless. Maybe a better way would be to use a professional product photographer. Here are five great benefits using a pro can give you.

Benefit 1… Stand out from the crowd to attract more customers

Your first challenge is to get the customer through the door. You may think you are unique and the best in the market - and maybe you are - but in reality there are a hundred other companies all offering something similar in your space. So how do you get the customer to notice you?

Customers today shop with their eyes and with their thumbs. A search for a product will present them with a seemingly endless stream of options to scroll through, yours included, and their attention span is short and getting shorter so you literally have a fraction of a second to grab their attention and make them pause to look at you. The first thing they will see will be the image of your product and within a heartbeat they will have decided if it is what they want, and they will have formed an impression of how good your product is and how trustworthy your company might be. All from a glance at a single image. So if your image doesn't make the right first impression they'll move on and the sale is lost.

It's well known that a professional looking image is far more likely than a poor image to catch a customer's attention and make them want to know more; and companies that use professional imagery are more likely to attract customers than those who don't. Investing in professional imagery will make your products stand out from the crowd and can help drive more customers to your site, putting you and your company in the mix with the better internet sellers.

However, this doesn't mean that you have to have expensive, ultra-fancy high-end advertising shots like the big brands. A simple image if properly photographed and edited can be just as effective as the fancy stuff at getting your customer's attention and persuading them to click through.

Benefit 2… Convert views into sales

The customer is through the door, so now what? Remember, the customer can't touch and feel and smell and play with the product in the same way that they could in a shop, so you have to create an experience that emulates physical shopping but in a virtual world; an experience that generates enough of the same feelings and emotions about your product as shopping would to make them want to buy.

A professional product photographer will be able to advise you on what images will show your product in the best light and may have other ideas that you haven't thought of. General shots of the product from different angles, close-up views showing details of particular interest or highlighting the quality of the product, or lifestyle shots showing the product in context all provide a great way for the customer to explore and experience your product. Your photographer may even have ideas on some of those fancier shots which are designed to evoke an emotional response from the customer used by the big brands. The benefit of this is to not only show what great products you are offering but also drive higher conversion rates by making customers want to click that button and buy.

Benefit 3… Promote your brand

It's also true that the quality of your photos says a lot about your brand. Poor quality images suggest a low quality product. High quality images suggest that they would be dealing with a professional organisation and buying into a quality brand. You might argue that these perceptions are not necessarily true: a brand may still produce high quality products or provide a great service regardless of the imagery on their site, and in some cases you might be right. But in the digital world where the customer does not have any direct interaction with either the product or the seller before they buy, their perceptions - whether right or wrong - are everything.

Good product images enhance a customer's perception of your brand and promote brand recognition. Many of the big brands shoot their products in their own particular style so that customers subconsciously recognise the brand even before they have seen a logo or brand name. This sounds difficult and expensive but it doesn't have to be. A professional product photographer can achieve this simply and inexpensively just by shooting your products in a consistent way, perhaps using background colours which reflect your branding, or using styles or settings which reflect your brand ethos or the type of product you are selling.

Think about your brand and what you want it to represent, and talk to your photographer about it. Maybe it's high tech or low tech. Perhaps it's healthy, homely or back to nature. Your brand could be premium and expensive, or it might be no-nonsense and budget friendly. Or perhaps sustainability and environmental responsibility are important to you. Whatever it is, a professional product photographer can help you make the most of your branding and style.

Benefit 4… Let the pro take the strain

Of course, professional grade product photos take a modicum of knowledge and skill to create, not to mention the time, equipment and space required. You're a busy business owner working hard to run and grow your business. Do you really have the time to develop the skills you would need, or the budget to invest in the equipment you would need to buy in order to create professional quality photographs?

A professional product photographer takes all of this worry off your shoulders. They will have the knowledge and skills to work with you to create the best possible images to promote your products, quickly and without fuss. They will have invested their own time and money in all the right equipment, software,  resources and training needed to do the job and often have studio space in which to work. This means that you don't have to spend your limited budget on equipment and space which will sit idle most of the time, or on acquiring skills you may never use.

One thing to keep in mind though is that photography is a very broad church and most professional photographers specialise in only one or two areas. A wedding and portrait photographer is probably not the best pick to shoot your products - unless you work in the wedding industry - as weddings require quite a different mindset, skills and setup compared to product photography. And the same is true of other types of photography such as landscape, street, documentary, events, wildlife or sports. Look for a product or commercial photographer. They are used to working with businesses and know how to shoot product. Some even specialise in particular types of product such as food and drink, or beauty products, or cars. I even know of one who specialises in photographing watches - very niche and harder than you might think. These specialists may be more expensive and usually work with the bigger brands with bigger budgets, but a good generalist product photographer will more than meet the needs of most growing businesses.

Benefit 5… Increased sales grow your business

OK. Professional product photos will cost you money and if you're new to running a business professional photography may seem a little expensive, but so are many other things you will have to pay for even though they won't add a penny to your sales or profit in the way that good photographs will. The old adage that to make money you have to spend money certainly applies here, and while it's true that you are paying someone else for your images, you are also reducing your overheads and your workload by not having to invest in equipment and time to do it yourself. If you shop around you're bound to find a good fit and a good deal that makes sense for your business.

Remember that in the modern online world your images sell your products. Apparently 90% of online shoppers say that image quality is the most important part of making a buying decision, and 22% of returns are because the actual product does not look like it did on the website. So it makes sense to invest in good images for your site. Good images increase site traffic which in turn leads to more sales. And good images are more likely to be shared across social media which in turn increases site traffic which leads to more sales, and so on…

So the benefit of using a professional to create you product imagery is that it helps sustain your business and helps your business grow. It's one thing that you can do that could make a world of difference.

If you would like to know more about professional product photography please get in touch and we can show you how, here at Kevin Parkes Photography, we can create great images of your products and help your business grow.