Marketing Using Product Photography

By Harry Armeli

So, you've finally taken your bricks and mortar business into the new millennium and have created a website. It's a sure bet that making your products available on the web will increase your sales, but there is more to business online than just building a website and hanging an "Open for Business" sign on the front page. Your clients need to see your products in order to decide what they want. This is where a product photographer will become invaluable.

It doesn't matter if you are a private seller on eBay or you are the owner of a multi-million dollar company, if you want customers to buy your stuff, you have to show it to them. The best way to do that is with product photography, which is, of course, images of your products. This is how you attract customers and reel them in.

Product photography can be also extremely useful in cookbooks, catalogues, menus, magazines, brochures, advertisements and sales flyers. Each time you open a catalogue from your favourite computer store or variety store and you look at all of those product pictures, you're viewing the handiwork of a product photographer. And it isn't as basic as it seems to be.

When creating sales flyers, you often use stock pictures. Stock photos are images that are specially made for general commercial use. In other words, they're not specific or specialised for the sales flyer. However, product photography is extremely specialised. The photographer will shoot your own products. It is specifically customised to your needs and your requirements.

This type of customised service placed in your marketing brochures makes a strong statement. Clients can see precisely what they are getting. They don't see a generic product, but instead see the exact product that you are selling. It creates credibility and strength in your advertising material.

The most outstanding factor here is the quality. If you want pictures of your products to appear on your website but you have only a camera phone, you ought to consider hiring a professional or experienced product photographer. Even though you might have a state of the art camera that has all the whistles and bells, if you have no experience in photographing the various products you want to take shots, your pictures will in most cases not turn out right.

Product photography can be difficult at the best of times. It's not like shooting people where you can ask the subject to move into a certain position. You must manually move the products, keeping in mind lighting and reflections and angles. Either you have to move the product, or you have to have someone else move if for you. Add to that the challenge of shooting small objects and you may realise that product photography is usually best left to the pros.

Find a fantastic product photographer who'll be able to give you crisp, clear photos of your products so that you can put them in your sales material, in your catalogue or on your website. Marketing is highly visual and the more imagery you can use to tempt your customers, the better off you'll be. Add some clear, detailed images to your next catalogue and watch your products fly off the shelves. - 30452

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