What was the problem then? Mostly likely their brand image, which includes all of their graphics and photography from product shots to blog post photos, was either inconsistent, dated, devoid of emotion, or just plain unappealing visually. I even see brands using severely outdated photos to sell things. I was looking at a winery website recently showing a gorgeous vineyard along with their B&B property where you could book a vacation or even a wedding but the photos looked like they were last taken in 2003 when Under The Tuscan Sun was all the rage and ugh, lots of flash photography. When I looked at their Instagram, I saw even more filtered images, over-saturated, with an ochre tinge. And they wondered why they were beaten out by their competitors who had similar properties but their property photos were shot in natural daylight with lovely lifestyle images conveying real emotion – happy people sharing delicious food and wine, their magical candlelight gatherings tugging at your heart…
But what about followers and likes, you ask? Don’t brands sink because they don’t have a massive online following or enough likes? Let me tell you a story…
I have a friend who earns around half a million a year and do you know how large her audience is? She has under 10,000 people on her email list and around 3,000 on Instagram. In other words, she has a small following if you compare her numbers to most of the big earners and brands out there. Yet, she’s still pulling in 500k a year selling her online classes. How is that possible? Sure, she’s a great teacher with a good topic but there are many teachers out there who teach the same thing, so why is she killing the competition? Her brand message is clear – her images and message are always consistent. Her Instagram, website, class site, Facebook – they are all the same – consistent. She doesn’t mix in cat photos or pictures of her hobbies or favorite foods. Her competitors do this, and they earn less than half of what she does, or even less than that. They take nice photos but they aren’t consistent. They bring in a lot of other things which waters down their message. So it’s not just about great photos but it’s about consistent photos that share your brand values and messages.
If her photos were rubbish, or good but all over the place, she’d be calling it quits online and heading back to her office job, trust me. She knows her photos matter which is why she spends thousands on professional photographers to shoot everything for her because she lacks time and interest in learning herself.
Okay so that works for her, but what about if you don’t have thousands in your annual business budget to hire photographers to shoot? Can’t you just use free stock images or buy a membership to a stock photo website? You can, but it’s always obvious when photos are stock because 1/ They don’t tell YOUR story and 2/ They won’t have either YOU or YOUR products in them. And nowadays, brands have to sell through emotion and personal storytelling so stock photos may be fine for some of your content, but if you could quickly and easily learn how to take beautiful photos, isn’t that the best option? Because then you can really tell the story of you and/or your business in a personal way.
