Incorporate These Ten Photography Types to Keep Your Audience Engaged
93% of consumers consider visual content to be the key deciding factor in a purchasing decision when buying online.
Keeping photography content fresh and exciting over time can be a challenge for any brand with the ongoing demands of social media content, new product launches and seasonal refreshes.
When we guide our clients to plan their shot lists, we always suggest a variety of content types from styled laydown shots to images on models to ensure their visuals offer an exciting and dynamic peek into the world of their brand. The below list includes a range of content ideas you can mix into your feed to keep your audience engaged and intrigued.
Classic Product Photography
Often the first priority when investing in professional images, product photos are a must and can be used on product pages, wholesale retailers or seller marketplaces and can also incorporated into graphics or collages using a transparent background.
Creative/Editorial Shots
Creative product photography combines special lighting techniques, setting, colors and props to embody a specific mood or spirit. This is a great way to express your brand identity by allowing your images to tell the story.
Wide Banner Images
Wide banner images are a very important type of content to include in your mix since they are often the first impression your audience will see of your brand. Why? Because they are usually located at the top of your website's homepage (they can also be used as header images on social or marketing emails). The wide format also allows room to show off your entire product line and space for your logo, tagline and other text.
Texture Shots
In lieu of being able to touch, feel or actually sample your product, offering your audience a visual of your product's texture is the next best thing, not only for cosmetics, but for many wellness products.
Seasonal Images
Seasonal updates are a great way to show your products in new contexts throughout the year. Is your body lotion soothing to the skin after a day at the beach? Why not show your audience how it relates to their own summertime lifestyle? Whether it's weather related (hello summer), holiday-related (Christmas) or occasion related (wedding), seasonal updates are a wonderful way to keep your feed fresh and current.
Images with a Human Element
Images with people help your audience to connect on an emotional level. The more they feel like they can relate to (or aspire to be like) the image, the stronger the connection that is formed (shown here: Omni-biotic).
"An A/B test on Medalia.net, an online art shop, which presented paintings from artists on their homepage, and during testing, they swapped out the photos of the paintings with photos of the artists. KISSmetrics said, “Making this small but relevant change sent their conversion rate through the roof – their site experienced a whopping 95% increase in conversions!.” (source:KISSmetrics.com)
Images with Text or Graphic Elements
Adding important product information or a witty tagline using text or graphic overlays can be the attention-getting element your photos needed, especially for use in ad campaigns. This is also a way to add new information to existing images or repurpose them for new use cases.
Motion Content
GIF, stop motion animation or video content are an exciting and useful scroll-stopping component in your content mix, and are becoming increasingly important (shown here: Bing Bang).
Research by Wyzowl shows that people watch an average of 16 hours of online video per week. And, 84% of people say they’ve been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video.
Lifestyle Images
Lifestyle images show the context of a place or environment, which allows your customer to visualize themselves using it. According to a study conducted by Big Commerce, 78% of online shoppers want photographs to bring products to life - they want to see the product as if it’s part of their own daily lives.
Behind the Scenes
When you reveal the inner workings of your brand, you bond with your audience by showing them a more personal, in depth picture of who you are. On a personal note, no matter how many shoots I've been on, I still love to see how shoots are made!