Humans rely heavily on their sense of sight to collect information about the world around them. Historically, this has helped us to navigate a dangerous world and avoid a wide variety of life-threatening perils. As a species that is largely devoid of personal protections (save our intellect), our ability to process visual information and make decisions based on it is crucial to survival.
Of course, we no longer have to hunt with our bare hands and rudimentary weapons for survival or tell the difference between the red berries that are poisonous and the ones that are edible. In this day and age, our sight serves a different purpose – it helps us to find the products that will best serve our needs and make our lives better.
In a brick-and-mortar setting, we can use smell, touch, and even taste to supplement what we see, but when it comes to modern, online purchasing, we rely almost entirely on visual clues to make purchasing decisions. In other words, product photography is among the most important factors in online sales, if not the most important, which is why you and your Asheville branding and marketing partner should make it a primary focus of online efforts.
Compensate for an In-Person Experience
Even consumers that appreciate the convenience of shopping online want to know as much about products as possible before they buy. In lieu of the ability to touch, smell, taste, hear, and otherwise sense a tangible product, you can offer images and descriptions. Good photography and copy can act as stand-ins for missing senses, helping customers understand what they’re buying even though they can’t pick it up, touch it, and interact with it.
Why is this so important for you and your Asheville branding and marketing team? For one thing, it helps to convince customers that your product is the one they want to purchase. Even more importantly, it increases satisfaction when the product actually arrives, which should help to curb returns, reducing wasted time and expense, as well as consumer frustrations.
Enhance Marketing Copy and Product Descriptions
Writing copy to describe a product can quickly turn tedious, not only for employees tasked with creating complete, yet concise descriptors, but also for the audience reading them. Pictures, on the other hand, are worth a thousand words, and multiple images, close-ups, and/or 360-degree views are worth significantly more.
Images and copy can work hand-in-hand to provide a comprehensive product overview that doesn’t bore your audience to tears. Whenever possible, you should include images as part of your e-commerce branding and marketing strategy to enhance your efforts.
Make Products Look More Attractive
So far, we’ve discussed the benefits of adding images in general to your e-commerce efforts, but the key thing to remember is that you and your branding services agency need “good” photography. What does this mean? It means you need high-resolution, color photos, including close-up images and multiple angles, that give the viewer enough visual information to make up for an inability to touch the product.
You and your marketing partner need to use professional quality photographs with lighting that not only shows true color, but makes the product look as attractive as possible to entice viewers to make a purchase. You should consider shooting products in two ways. Start with a clean, simple backdrop (white background, for example) that won’t distract from the product. Then place the product in an ideal-use setting to create a sense of the lifestyle you’re marketing along with the products itself.
Support Branding and Increase Authority
The amount, type, and quality of images you and your branding services agency use for e-commerce can not only help to support ongoing branding efforts by informing viewers about how they should see your company, but also increase your authority as a retailer by enhancing the perceived value of products. If you are competing with another company to sell the same products, providing a higher quality of information through images and descriptions can make your version of the product more appealing, boosting purchases and brand patronage.
Make the Most of Your Marketing Strategies
Quality e-commerce photos do more than just sell products and represent your brand. They can help to expand your reach and bring in new audiences. For starters, photos can be used across platforms, creating consistent messaging on your website, in advertising, and on social media accounts.
In addition, breathtaking and/or compelling images beg to be shared, which gives you the opportunity to reach new consumers organically, boosting brand awareness, organic traffic, sales, and ongoing patronage in the process. Good photos can increase engagement and sharing, essentially crowdsourcing your marketing efforts. This level of audience participation can expand your reach without any additional effort or expense on your part.
If you need help with your brand strategy and visual design efforts, contact the qualified professionals at Storypowered today at 828-450-2551 or online to learn more and get started.