How Branding Photography Helps Build Your Business

So, you just started a business, snapped some crisp shots of your products with a clean white background and tossed them up on your product pages and social accounts. Day after day starts to pass and you don’t receive any sales. Your product shots are all high quality. You even hired a professional product photographer to take the photos. What gives?

Believe it or not, a lot of customers don’t purchase from companies based on their products or services alone. When we see successful companies, it can be easy to assume that everyone loves those companies because of the products they put out, but it’s actually the brand that people vibe with. Think about it. Are there certain brands that you’re loyal to? If so, I doubt it’s solely because of the products they sell.

To grow a business, no matter the industry or niche, developing a strong brand is essential. Sure, you can start to build your brand by writing incredible, compelling copy on your website, social media channels and advertisements. But, in today’s digital world, strong brand imagery to go alongside that copy really helps bring your brand to the next level. And, if your branding photography is unique to your business, your imagery alone can provide the same level of brand recognition as a logo. Sounds pretty sweet, right? Here’s how branding photography helps build your business and create a recognizable brand:

Showcases Your Story

Branding photography isn’t just about creating aesthetic images for your brand; it’s about showcasing the story behind you, your business and your products.

It may sound counterintuitive, but customers don’t actually purchase from brands because of their products and services alone. Oftentimes, customers first connect with a brand’s story, and then make a purchase. Why? Because everyone has a story, interests and beliefs. When we see other people and / or brands that share the same interests and beliefs, we feel more connected with them.

Because of this, a lot of brands don’t even show their products when telling their stories online. They simply create imagery that shares their story and draws in like-minded individuals to create a community. To give you an example, a hypothetical outdoor clothing brand sells technical apparel that keeps you warm when hiking in the snow. The brand could create high quality product shots showcasing their apparel on a white background for their social media and advertisements, or they could create lifestyle and environmental portraits of people wearing their apparel out hiking and climbing in the mountains. If you were an avid winter adventurer (which is this hypothetical company’s target customer), which images would you connect with more?

It may seem counterintuitive, but taking more of a storytelling approach versus a selling approach actually resonates with customers better. Why? Because, let’s face it, no one likes being sold to constantly. But people do connect with the stories and ideas they like, so make sure your branding photography helps you show your story as clearly as possible.

Builds Your Community

Paying customers alone won’t guarantee that your company will grow for the long run. Sure, it’s great to sell some products right away when you start up your business, but, to achieve long term success, you really need to build a customer base that keeps coming back for more. These customers become more than just customers - they become community members.

A strong brand community ties directly to your brand story. As mentioned above, your brand story should really try and attract customers that align with your story, interests and beliefs. Because of this connection, those customers don’t simply become one time purchasers of your products; they also tend to become advocates for your brand, increasing the likelihood that they’ll continue to buy more and more of your products over time.

Building a strong community, however, is based on trust. To build trust with your community and increase the amount of members, you need to keep showing what your company is all about, rather than constantly selling products. As you keep showcasing strong brand photography that aligns with your story and the interests of your target customers, more and more of those people will start to see you as the go-to brand in that particular niche, increasing the likelihood that they’ll actually hit the follow or subscribe button, and then ultimately make a purchase.

Helps Customers Understand Your Why

As mentioned above, customers don’t typically start their journey with a brand through their products or services; they connect with the brand’s story and what they stand for. Put simply, your focus when creating branding photography should be on showing the why behind your company, rather than the how.

Drawing back to the winter technical apparel company example above, showcasing imagery of people wearing their apparel out in the snow goes a long way towards sharing their story. But if the company’s why is to help adventurers achieve greatness in their winter sports even in the harshest conditions, it isn’t enough to just simply show people wearing their apparel in the snow. The brand photography needs to really draw out the why within the overall story.

So, how could this technical apparel company show their why through branding photography? They could show people wearing their apparel actually achieving greatness in the snow. This could be imagery of people scaling mountains, cross country skiing or trekking through dense snow. That kind of imagery shows that the company makes technical apparel because they believe, with a bit of assistance from their clothing, that athletes can achieve greatness even when it gets super cold. That’s their (hypothetical) why.

So, as you start to plan the branding photography for your brand, whether its your personal brand or a business, try and think about why you do what you do rather than what you do. If you can determine a strong why, you can then create branding photography that helps you tell your story, connect with your target customers and build a strong community who will keep buying your products and / or services for years to come.

Conclusion

When starting a business, it can be tempting to snap simple product shots, share them with the world and hope that you’ll start making sales. Customers, however, generally connect more with a brands story, interests and beliefs rather than your products. Strong branding photography helps you connect with your customers, as it allows you to showcase your story, rather than just your products. As you continue to share your story through your imagery, potential customers with the same interests will start to align with you, creating a community around your brand. Finally, strong brand photography can help you display the why behind your business, creating more meaning behind your brand story and giving your community members something they can truly stand behind.