Stock images aren’t always best

Wondering why stock images aren’t always best? Imagine the following scenario;

You and your marketing team have spent weeks working on the latest campaign for your business. You’ve committed to a budget and you have all the right tools in place to measure the return on investment.

On the day of the launch you hover around Twitter, wait for the telephone to ring and keep refreshing emails waiting for the orders to start flooding in.

By lunchtime there’s nothing, nada, nil. You can’t understand it. The marketing team are at a loss and can’t provide you with answers. Frustrated you take a look back through EVERYTHING. Eventually you realise that actually, this product doesn’t even look like YOUR product. In order to save cost and stay within the budget the team have used stock images. Generic images that can be bought from Shutterstock, Getty Images and so on. They say nothing about your brand, your business, your culture or it’s personality.

Sure, stock images are a cheap way to add dynamic imagery to your brand presentation but simply by it’s mass market appeal, your unique selling point won’t shine through.

Commissioning a commercial photographer can often be a better bet, and even if you are working to a budget, it needn’t cost more!

Depending on the rights of use when you buy stock images, you could be looking at relatively big chunk of the budget. And the rights to that image may mean you can probably only use these online. If you are planning on printing a brochure or flyer the cost can be even higher. By hiring a photographer you have much more control over the finished image. It looks like your product because IT IS your product! You’re able to add personality, whether that’s on the set up, the background you use, colours that match your brand. It all stays consistent with your visual identity.

Now imagine you’re running that marketing campaign again only this time you’ve used a photographer that has spent time with you creating bespoke images.

The response will be very different! You will have beautiful, creative images that will make your competitors want to pack up and go home. Your marketing will have connected with potential customers on an emotional level. They should be able to picture how your product will enhance their lives, how it makes it easier, how they simply cannot live any longer without it.

Would you rather your team spent hours downloading, editing and uploading stock images or would you rather pass on all your photography headaches to a professional who can get it done 10 times better and in a quarter of the time?

Ready to start creating an outstanding visual identity that will explode your marketing campaigns? Contact us TODAY for a no obligation consultation on 0113 882 3100 or use the contact form to email us.