We all like to talk about how we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover and that we should dive deeper into something if we truly want to understand it, right?
But do you want to know a little secret? We all do it anyways. Consciously or subconsciously. And that’s not a bad thing... unless you’re doing that to a person. Then, that's a strict no-no and prolly a topic for a whole other blog post...I digress.
Anyways, my point is that we humans react instantly to sights, sounds, tastes or anything that engages our senses. I mean, I literally become like a kid in a candy store when I see something in pink or gold and if it glitters, consider it sold!!
Our sensory perception has a lot of influence on the way we think and feel. So, naturally, when it comes to a product, we instantly form a perception about it, based on how it is presented.
Pretty insightful, right?
That is why marketers go to such great lengths to ensure that their businesses or brands are as aesthetically appealing as possible to their audiences.
This is where styled stock images come into play. They can play a vital role in enhancing the visual elements of your brand or business and can literally be the difference between your audience becoming interested in you and your offers or simply ignoring them.
When you are spreading your word, your message about you, about your business and brand, about your offerings, whether it be on social media or through emails, you need something that is instantly able to grab the attention of your ideal audience.
These days, especially online, the attention span of people is really short and the only thing that can have the most impact in the shortest duration is a highly impactful image and styled stock images can be exactly that.
After all, a picture is worth a thousand words!
Also, you need to be consistent in your visual content creation and that means a lot of pictures. I mean, a lot, a lot!
Unfortunately, most people don’t have the necessary skills, props, time, money or the energy to do so themselves and this is where these collections of styled stock images become really useful. Using them makes the lives of business owners like you so much easier.
There are so many benefits to them that they are a no-brainer for any business. Just take a look at some of these benefits!
1] Styled Stock Images Can Benefit Your Business By Saving You Valuable Time
So, this one is pretty obvious, right? When you need to post consistently across various channels, you need a lot of visual content. But as a business owner, you already have so much to do! You need to work on your products, your courses or service offerings, keep up to date with your financials and bookkeeping, network with people, posting and engaging online, developing your offers, and staying connected to your customers... the list of all the hats you need to wear as a business owner is endless. Am I right? The switching between all these hats is the tricky part and I get you! Basically, you are spreading yourself thin. All. The. Time.
In addition to all of that, when you need to carefully plan and take tons of photos that are just perfect for your business and its marketing, you might actually go crazy! If you have ever tried to take your own styled stock images for your biz you may have an idea of how much time really goes into it all but if you haven't I can easily tell you that it is a lot? Like, a lot a lot!
It takes time to plan for the shoot itself. There are decisions to be made about the colours, style, overall vibe, theme and more. It takes time to figure out where you will get all the perfect props from, then to style them, shoot them, and finally edit them on a computer so they look just the way you had intended them to.
If all of that felt like running a whole other business, it is exactly that. It takes a lot of time and effort to consistently come up with stock images that you can use for your business. And frankly, that is not the best use of your time. As an entrepreneur, your time is best spent on the core aspects of your business.
Let’s face it, you have limited time and limited energy and there are certain things that only you can do and certain things you can definitely outsource from early on to keep you in your zone of genius and working on the parts of your biz that you love!
2] Styled Stock Images Can Benefit Your Business By Saving You Money
On the list of limited resources, money somehow always finds its way. The irony is that money is the fuel that keeps the engines of your business running and somehow it may feel as though it is in short supply. So, the more you save, the more you have to invest back into your venture and the more potential returns you can reap in the future. That’s business 101, peeps!
When you hire a professional photographer to photograph a collection for you, you will absolutely love the results but it will cost you more, a lot more. If you are a service provider with no actual physical products that you need photos of and you yourself are the face of your brand a personal brand shoot can and should be on the list of images to invest in at some stage but in the initial phases, I highly recommend using styled stock images.
In other words, branded product shoots can definitely be something to work towards in the long run but styled stock images can serve as the bridge till you get there.
This will give you a better idea of how images can be leveraged for the good of your business and enhance your skill of using the right images with the right message to connect with your audience.
Even if you do start using images from branded and personalised shoots, you can also use styled images as fillers in between these images as styled stock images are easy to access, as and when you need them.
3] Styled Stock Images Can Benefit Your Business By Enhancing The Perception Of Your Brand
As I mentioned above, people perceive and judge your brand or business by the way it is presented. Everything that your business and its products stand for is summed up behind your brand image. Consumers may not initially care about the nitty-gritty details of your product that make them as valuable as they are. They are more so taken over by how they look and how they resonate with the overall look and feel of your brand.
It's all in the eye of the beholder.
Seeing is believing, folks, and you too must understand this. It’s psychology 101. If you want to build a solid brand image, your visual content game needs to be on par with your vision. Constantly!
Styled stock images are tailored for exactly that purpose. When you use these images in your marketing, they instantly create a professional perception of your products and offerings. After all, professional brands use professional imagery, don’t they?
Just this one simple thing can increase the perceived value of your business in the eyes of your audience. And we all know that people flock to wherever they think is most valuable to them and once you have those eyes focused your way you can wow them with your quality products and services.
Don’t let the products and services you have worked so hard on fall flat because of the inadequate images and visual content you are using to promote them.
What you want and need is visual content that matches the quality of your service or products with the perceived value of them and this is where styled stock images can really step in and create that connection for you. They will increase your service and products perceived value by the way you deliver your offers as well as increase your brands' perceived value to where you want it to be.
Maintaining a healthy brand image is vital for the long term sustainability of the business. Thankfully, stock images provide a very easy way to help in that regard.
4] Styled Stock Images Can Benefit Your Business By Increasing Your Sales
This is kind of an extension of the previous point. Revenues and profits are the lifeblood of any business. Without them, no business can be run. When you invest an initial amount of capital, you have to keep growing that capital and the only way to do so is by making profits. Also, when you put invaluable time and effort into your business, you would like for it to thrive so that you can build the business of your dreams and make yourself and your family proud, right?
Using styled and professional-looking images, you can create something called a reality distortion field, which Steve Jobs was popular for. Basically, it means creating the exact perception in the mind of the audience that you want to create. It sounds all magical and stuff and to some extent it is, but it basically entails understanding human psychology and taking action accordingly.
So, using these images in your promotion and marketing activities, you can influence people and attract them to your business. Your promotional material will literally become head-turning and that will result in increased sales. At the end of the day, it is all about the numbers. More the sales, more the revenues, more the revenues, more the profits. Pretty simple, right?
5] Styled Stock Images Can Benefit Your Business By Creating A Cohesive Presence
One very important thing that you as an entrepreneur needs to do, is to make sure that you maintain consistency while presenting your brand through different channels. Of course, it means that the brand colours, fonts, sizes and everything else need to be exactly the same no matter where you are showcasing them. But there is a lot more where that comes from. You also need to make sure that your messaging, it’s language and tone is consistent too. The same goes for imagery. Whether you’re posting on Instagram and writing awesome captions to match or you’re uploading blogs on your website or creating pins on Pinterest or even sending emails out to your subscribers, you need to make sure that there is consistency in your visual content.
They all need to be speaking the same language - the language of your brand. This creates a cohesive presence of your brand through and through and it is very important that you do this.
I know, this can all get really tough, especially for creative people and business owners because there is already so much to focus on. Marketing is its own beast and you might not have time to do all of that. But it is necessary. Thankfully, stock photos can help ease a lot of that work. I really and truly do believe that any business could take advantage of styled stock images that can benefit them by saving them time and money as well as increasing the perceived value of their products and services all while creating a gorgeously cohesive brand presence along the way This is one of the main reasons why I create large collections with such a variety of images in them. Once you find a collection that you love, you'll easily be able to keep coming back to it and find new ones to use so that you can keep that consistent look and feel of your brand. And, when you find images from different collections, that you love, you'll easily be able to use them with one another as there is already an overall consistent way the collections are styled and edited. This is purposefully done on my end, with the very reason of consistency in mind.
All you have to do is drop them into your various channels and voila, you are, consistently, done! I for one cannot wait to see how you use styled stock imagery in your business to benefit not only you but your brand as well! With Love Monique xxx P.S. If you would like to give it a go and start to benefit from any of the reasons mentioned above join the CLUB and get a monthly code that gives you access to choose the very styled stock image you want...for free! I'd love to know if you have used styled stock images before and how you have found them beneficial for you and your biz?