Why Professional Photos are Crucial for Your Brand

Anna Pick

Product descriptions and prices play a large role in online shopping behavior, but the
quality of your product photography may be the difference between someone
clicking or scrolling past to view a competitor. In fact, 93% of consumers consider
visual content to be the key deciding factor in a purchasing decision. High quality
visuals of your brand are imperative, but can be expensive. We’re here to tell you why
professional photography is worth the investment:

Establishes validity + trust

High end imagery promotes quality, and consumers want to buy from a brand that
is reputable. When you hire a professional photographer to shoot your product
photography, your customers develop respect and trust for your brand, leading to
greater potential sales. Although it has higher initial costs than downloading stock
photos or taking them yourself, it saves you time in the long run. Professional
photography differentiates your company from competitors and increases brand
loyalty.

(photo of probulin professional pictures)

An example of a brand doing this successfully is Probulin, one of our clients. Probulin
has integrated a plethora of professional photos in its digital presence. These photos
help Probulin to show it’s a reputable brand to buy from. If Probulin’s photos were
dark, not great quality, and clearly self-taken, this could lead to skeptical consumers,
steering them away from making a purchase.

Creates desirability

If the objective is to make the consumer want to purchase the product, professional
photographers understand the recipe for composition, lighting, and editing that
significantly increases desirability. With professional photography, your images will
look highly attractive and your product will stand out to your intended audience.
Customers easily notice the difference between good and bad photography, which is
one of the many reasons hiring a professional is worth the investment.
In Cornell researchers’ paper, Understanding Image Quality and Trust in Peer-to-Peer
Marketplaces, it shows this theory put to test. The researchers had the test subjects
put images into three different categories (bad, neutral, and good). The photos that
were usually in the “bad” category had a higher foreground to background ratio. This
indicated that products need to be properly composed, rather than filling the frame.
How do you ensure your product photos have an effective foreground to
background ratio to convey desirability to your consumers? Use professional
photography. Are you on board yet?

Offers product clarity

If images are blurry, lighting is bad, an unflattering angle is shown, there’s not
enough detail, or there’s a distracting background, the chances that a customer will
buy drops significantly. According to a Big Commerce study, 78% of online shoppers
want a brand’s photographs to bring products to life. You have to step back and ask
yourself, is doing my own photography promoting product clarity? In most cases, the
answer is no.

Just in this picture above, you can see the difference the clarity of professional
pictures can make. (Picture from Tinuiti.com)

Not only can a clear picture bring a product to life, but it also shows the consumer a
more flattering angle of the product, enticing them to buy it even more. 90% of
online buyers say that photo quality is the most important factor in an online sale.
Therefore, with ecommerce continually gaining more popularity, and the number of
digital buyers being at 2.14 billion, it’s imperative to have clear photos of your brand’s
products online.

Promotes authenticity

If you own a restaurant, you can use a beautiful stock image of a delicious meal to
appeal to consumers, but it wouldn’t be authentic to the meals on your menu. It’s
important to promote exactly what you offer. Simply put, people pay attention to
pictures that are “more real” rather than stock photos, according to an eye-tracking
study. Get rid of the stock photo of spaghetti on your digital channels and book a
professional photographer to capture the unique essence of your restaurant's
spaghetti. This effectively shows your authenticity and entices consumers.

Final Takeaways

Although product and price descriptions play a critical role in your brand’s selling
and marketing processes, brand photography is just as, if not more important.
Consumers, in most cases, solely rely on imagery to make their decision rather than
seeing it in person. Your brand will establish trust, create desirability, offer product
clarity, and promote authenticity when it starts to use professional photography.
Need help? We’ve got you covered. Reach out to us today to get started on your
professional photography needs.