This Friday’s B2B Tip regarding photography usage in your business is the importance of quality imagery.

As I’ve mentioned in a different blog post regarding “quality” and the perception of quality photos should be read and understood before proceeding to understand the following information.

Branding

Branding should be very important to all businesses, even small local brick and motor shops/restaurants. Granted, local brick and motor shops rely more on the customer relationships and as long you provide a great service and customer satisfaction you will generate repeat business, but acquiring new business, besides from word of mouth and traditional advertising, you will need great branding. Part of today’s world more and more people are connecting with businesses online and on social media. Some social media platforms may be better for you and your market than another platform. Such as for photographers it is instagram than twitter.

The Stats

Not all businesses have demographics that use a computer, or even social media on their computer. Here are some stats shows 88% of the U.S. are on the internet. And other stats showing the obvious prominent percentage of users are younger where 97% of ages 18-29 use the internet, 93% of ages 30-49 use the internet, 88% of ages 50-64 use the internet, and 57% of ages 65+ uses the internet. And here are social media stats. After reviewing the stats on the social media granted Facebook is obviously more popular. Depending on your budget it’s obvious there is more reach on facebook than all other social media platforms but it’ll cost your customer acquisition vs. the platforms simply costing you the time and effort to post up.

New Customer Acquisition via Instagram

So if you’re looking to build new customer acquisition with minimal budget to getting that acquisition I’d highly recommend Instagram, especially if you’re looking for younger audiences. Given you’d need a professional photographer or an ad. agency to work with you on these images for your instagram campaign or your regular branding on instagram. “A picture is worth a thousand words.” The famous saying goes on with so much truth with the right photographer and advertiser/art director working together perfectly in sync. On instagram it’ll do so much wonders to help your campaign and branding to flourish.

Quality

Why hire a professional photographer or ad. agency?

I know the vast majority of small businesses lack the trained eye in quality imagery, especially in the suburban and rural areas where it’s very rare to see the same quality imagery as in major cities like New York City, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, etc. Here are some great options to improve your public image when using quality imagery where budget allows.

Work with an agency. Such as advertising, public relations, or creative agency.
Hire or partner up directly with a professional photographer.

Some may have a trained eye but can’t afford a professional photographer or agency (or assume they cannot afford one at times) that can provide high quality imagery to best send their branding and campaign message, which is very understandable.

The pitfalls to avoid in this situation where you may lack any budget for creating imagery based branding/campaigns.

Working with a student photographer.
Working with an amateur photographer.
Doing it yourself.

Reasons why these are pitfalls…

Inconsistencies: Amateur, student and doing it yourself photos will generally cause massive issues to inconsistencies which can cause many issues to your branding and campaigns. Inconsistencies can easily cause market confusion and in hence become much less effective return on investment.
Knowledge: Most people whom are not photographers for a living or are advanced hobbyists will lack those knowledge and skills which in hence will cause those inconsistencies.
Gear: Gear isn’t generally the most important but lacking certain gear will restrain your abilities and skills as a photographer trying to achieve a vision. Sometimes this restrain can stop your vision in its tracks!
Insurance/Business: When working a pro photographer they would generally have contracts guaranteeing such services and terms you’ve discussed and with general deadlines provided.

You want and need to work with a professional photographer (or with an agency) to provide the best branding and advertising campaigns…

You now should understand the importance and value of either a pro photographer and an agency can provide. Now find one either to hire on regular basis or specific campaigns, can’t afford one negotiate and discuss partnerships and cross promotional opportunities. You have no idea how many jobs I did not get purely because the other side decided to simply price shop instead of negotiate with me purely out of being easier to look at other candidates’ bids than negotiating.

Next post in this blog series 10/16/15: Hiring the Right Photographer to the Job.

Future Topics on the series.

Legal Notes
Teaming up with a Photographer
Choosing a type of photography to help tell your branding story and sending your campaign message concisely.