Digital marketing requires a combination of good design work and strong copy to turn casual visitors into paying customers. No matter your field of business, it is the combination of type, style, colors, photography and copy that bring a website to life. The images you choose for your site, including stock photos of products, people and offices, need to be of the highest quality and efficacy to deliver results.
Certain images are more effective on the web than others. Perhaps the most basic criterion is for imagery that is high resolution and clearly visible. Low-resolution pictures look grainy and cheap. Similarly, images that are of the wrong dimensions can easily look stretched and distorted, which cheapens the whole design in an instant. Only images that are of a sufficient quality in the first instance should be deployed in your digital marketing, in order to present the right impression of your business and your offering.
Beyond the actual finish of the images and photographs you use, you should take care to analyze the subject and composition of each image. A blue guitar on a red music site might not work as well as a red guitar – it is details like finding complementary colors and tones that set great design apart from the rest. Look for photographs that have matching colors, and a general matching feel to the rest of your marketing campaign and design elements. This means being more selective in the imagery and stock photography you choose, but the payoff in the form of a more successful marketing campaign makes it worthwhile.
A tip often cited for improving the effectiveness of photography in digital marketing is to focus on pictures of people. People tend to be drawn to people, and the same is true on the web. In a toss up between a picture of an inanimate object and a picture of a face, it is generally the face that will lead to more clicks, and more conversion actions on the website concerned. You can often see even better results if you can get a picture where the person in the photograph is looking toward the action you want them to take.
Of course, this won’t always be an appropriate choice, but where possible this can lead to increased engagement and interaction with the site. Try to choose pictures of faces or people where you want to encourage particular actions – this can put a more personal face on your marketing, which can lead to better results.
Finding clear and strong images that tie in with your marketing messages is key to ensuring effectiveness. The strength of your campaign results may depend more closely than you’d think on the quality of its presentation. Images and photographs play a crucial role in this, and can make the difference in your results. Whether you are relying on high quality stock photography or images of your own making, there are benefits to be had in being picky over pictures.
2 Comments