Business branding photos are an important part of any business. Whether you’re trying to attract more local customers to your brick-and-mortar shop or you’re an eCommerce brand marketing to the world – photography can help you build a loyal support base and increase your profit.
In the post, I’ll provide a comprehensive overview of business branding photos. Continue reading to learn what business branding photos are, why they’re important, and how to incorporate them into your business.
What Are Business Branding Photos?
Business branding photos are visual assets that encapsulate your brand. While anybody can use their iPhone camera to take photos, business branding photography requires a thorough knowledge of visual branding. To effectively capture a brand in an image, photographers make specific creative decisions.
Several different types of photos are captured during a business branding photoshoot including:
- Portraits and headshots of staff that can be used for employee profiles and staff directories.
- Candid commercial lifestyle shots that depict office interactions, customer engagement, or a demonstration of the product/service in action.
- Product and advertising photos that capture the specific features and quality of products or depict the positive impact of the product/service/business solving a problem for the customer.
- Corporate imagery that offers insight into the professionalism of a corporate office or highlights the facilities.
Why Are Business Branding Photos Important?
Business owners are quick to question if professional photography is a worthwhile investment. Often their mindset positions photography as an additional expense. Brand imagery is such a valuable asset to your visual marketing strategy and an important part of your branding efforts.
Finding the right photographer for your business and project is an essential step. For best results, look for a commercial photographer with experience in corporate branding.
Reasons To Invest In Business Branding Photos
As long as you make an informed decision as to your photographer, here are a few key reasons why business branding photos are important to your company’s success:
- Establish a brand for your business: If you’re just starting out or never put effort into building a brand for your business, photos are an important piece of the puzzle. Photos that incorporate your purpose, personality, and tone resonate with the visually dominant consumers in today’s market.
- Rebrand your existing business: Maybe you struggled to find consistency in your initial branding efforts or never took into consideration the importance of visual branding. Whatever reason your business needs a rebrand, a fresh library of visual assets can help transform your brand image in the eyes of the consumer.
- Replace outdated content: If your current website imagery is lacking in quality or looks like it was taken a decade ago, fresh business branding photos can help update your website visually and refresh your online marketing presence.
- Launch a new product line or brand extension: Within your overall business brand, you may also brand your specific product or service lines. If you’re launching a new product line under a separate brand name, fresh product photos and a separate advertising photo shoot provide enough material to implant this name in the consumer’s mind.
- Connect with your target audience: Images that your target audience connects with emotionally are the most valuable asset for your visual brand. Something as simple as using your actual employees in photos can lead consumers to relate to your business.
Different Ways To Incorporate Brand Photos Into Your Business
You can’t hire a corporate photographer and expect all of your problems to disappear. Part of the burden is on you to understand how to use images to enhance your branding efforts and increase profits.
In the sections below, I’ll highlight some of the most common ways that you can use photos from a business branding session to further your business goals.
Business Website Imagery
A key component of a modern, professional website is high-quality images. Your business website is your brand’s home base. It’s where you send any lead looking for more information about what you do. If you’re an eCommerce business, it’s where you conduct your entire transaction with the customer.
There are several ways to use photos to build a new website or update an existing, outdated one.
- About us page: Use candid commercial lifestyle images that portray employees at work, interactions with customers, or other real-world scenarios that relate to your business. Incorporate portraits of your team and key leaders.
- Staff directory or employee page: Add headshots of individual employees to a staff directory or employee page so the consumer can put faces to the name of your brand. Offer small bios of each staff member to provide an additional layer of personality and create a positive employer brand that empowers team members.
- Services pages: On service pages, commercial lifestyle images of employees interacting with clients or providing services in real-time offer a positive representation to the consumer about what supporting your brand may look like.
- Blog posts: A variety of photos can be used throughout blog posts to help your business assert itself as an authority in the field, update customers on important current events, and more.
- Office imagery: Throughout the website, you can use corporate landscape images to showcase your office space and facilities. A pharmaceutical company may highlight its labs and technology using high-quality images.
Print Advertisements and Online Marketing
Print advertisements and online marketing – paid and organic – are the two primary forms of promoting your business. Many times, your promotional material leads consumers to your website that we were just talking about.
Branding is about consistency. If the images on your promotional materials match the aesthetic of the visuals on your website, you’re doing something right.
Depending on the strategy behind a specific ad or piece of marketing content, your branding photo shoot may vary. Specific reasons to acquire new branding photos include a new product launch, brand extension, or a specific marketing campaign that requires tailor-made content.
Social Media Posts
Social media marketing is right up there with print ads and online marketing as an essential form of promoting your brand. Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and TikTok are all visually dominant platforms that are in the top ten most popular social media sites and apps.
You can use commercial lifestyle images, product photos, production stills, and other branding photos to create a steady flow of social media posts. Social media is also a great way to interact with your target audience. High-quality, branded imagery can lead to engagement, emotional connection, and brand loyalty from your support base.
E-Commerce Product Listings
If you are an eCommerce business that sells products online, branded product photos are a must. When consumers aren’t able to physically see, feel, and test the quality of your products, it makes it harder for them to commit to a purchase.
The more photos you have of every product, and the greater detail you can provide on each, makes it more likely that website visitors will convert and make a purchase. Highlight essential features, luxurious add-ons, durability, and more.
Recruitment Marketing Materials
You’re not always marketing to the consumer. To attract high-quality talent to your team, you have to spend some time establishing your employer brand and producing recruitment marketing materials.
Branded images are critical to your recruiting efforts. You can use commercial lifestyle images of employees on the job or headshots of current employees on your careers site to showcase that your company is a positive workplace and somewhere prospective applicants can expect to build their careers.
Annual Reports
A more official, buttoned-up use for branded photos is annual reports and other corporate materials. To create a professional corporate brand, images can be used to emphasize important information or provide a breather from a text-heavy document.
Corporate photography gives you a wide range of images to work with – from candid images of meetings and facilities to more personalized portraits of important stakeholders on the team.
Business Branding Photos From Casey Templeton Photography
Now that you have a better idea of how business branding photos can be used, I hope you find the value of investing in them. To keep up to speed in modern visual marketing and reach audiences far and wide, brand photos are an important part of your overall business goals.
Casey Templeton Photography offers professional commercial photography services in Nashville, TN, and the surrounding areas. Casey has years of technical experience behind the lens and a sound knowledge of branding in various industries and business sizes. To learn more about business branding photos or to get the ball rolling on a project, fill out a contact form.