Using a photograph to brand your business

Use a single photograph to differentiate your business from your competition

Use a single, frequently-repeated, story-telling photo as the basis for your firm's unique visual identity.

A signature photo, a single visual representation of you, your staff, your customers or your facilities, can play a major role in your marketing success. The right photograph can last for years, providing strong visual identification..

Benefits

• Build a strong visual identity. People look closely at pictures and remember them. Each time prospects and customers encounter your picture, it reinforces your store's identity. 

• Create familiarity and comfort. People would rather deal with a friend than a stranger. Customers like knowing with whom they're doing business, what the voice on the other hand of the telephone looks like. 

• Reflect pride. If your competence and professionalism are an important part of what you sell, prove your ownership and pride in your store by including your face and your personal guarantee in your ads. 

• Unify print and on-line communications. A single photograph can relate ads, brochures, and newsletters to your web site and-even-your e-mail. 

• Write as you speak. Photographs permit your ads to be written like conversations or one-to-one interviews, avoiding an impersonal, "third-person" tone. 

• Project an emotional image.  A photograph, like a bride putting on her final touches in front of a mirror or a young couple taking the keys to their new car, can symbolize your business for years.

Applications

Here are some of the ways you can use a single photograph in your marketing:

• Newsletter. Use a photograph in the title, or nameplate, or use it to "sign" your key articles and editorials.  

• Point of sale. place a "customer delivery" or "product being enjoyed" photograph on the cover of your presentation folders, brochures, and proposal forms.

• Web site. Use "head shots" to personalize your web site and introduce your staff, so prospects will feel comfortable talking to your staff from the start. 

• Testimonials. Include photographs of customers with their  quotes and letters. 

• Bulletin board. Photographs of employees, such as skiers or kayakers in remote destinations, communicate staff expertise and faith in your products. .

Ideal characteristics

• Work at all sizes. Eliminate unnecessary detail from your photograph so it will work well at both small and large sizes. 

• Design flexibility. Optimize photo files for both color and black and white. 

• Backgrounds. Offer versions of your photographs with both light and dark backgrounds for even more design flexibility.

Hints

• Plan ahead. Give yourself and your employees plenty of time to prepare, i.e., get haircuts, suits pressed, and etc. 

• Avoid meals. Photographs should be taken before, not after, meals. 

• Provide clothing guidelines. Follow your photographer's recommendations and warnings about clothing colors, patterns, textures and jewelry. 

• Avoid group shots. Take five individual photos rather than one group photograph of five people. Group shots can become useless if an employee leaves. 

• Consistent backgrounds. When taking individual head shots, shoot all photos against the same white, gray, or black background so photographs taken at a later date can match the originals. 

• Signed releases. Always obtain signed releases from customers and employees before using their photographs, even if you've been friends for years!

Options

There are many ways you can format your photograph. As always, however, once you choose an option, use it consistently!

• Silhouette. instead of a rectangular or square image, create an irregularly-shaped photograph by eliminating the background and allowing text to wrap tightly around the photograph. 

• Vignette. Instead of a sharp border, allow the borders of the photograph to fade to nothing. 

• Collage. Create a poster by grouping photos of different sizes together, often accompanied by illustrations and text. 

• Posterize. Add drama by cutting gray tones, leaving just blacks and whites. 

• Frames. Experiment with boxed frames, double lines, or other effects.

For more information...

A signature photograph is just one of the many tools you can use to differentiate your firm and your message from your competition. 

For more ideas, e-mail roger@designtosellonline.com to find out how I can help you create a platform to consistently promote yourself and your business.