Your marketing and branding should be more than just a message to your clients and audience, it should involve emotions, needs and wants. For most of us it’s a challenge to invoke strong reactions and feelings from our audience but there are ways to do it. One of those ways is through images.

Images have a tremendous impact on your branding, they’re sending your message faster and better than anything else. We live in a very fast paced world, with millions of consumers and we only have a few seconds to impress them and capture their attention. Written text can take minutes to be processed but images can make an impact within a couple of seconds. Are you prepared to capture your audience?

There are different types of images that can be used in marketing: stock photography, branded images, custom graphics, infographics and gifs. They are all great visual stimulants and can add great value to your branding and marketing efforts. Some of them can be more elaborate than others and costs can definitely vary significantly based on your company’s resources. In this article I want to focus more on photography.

One challenge we all have is getting the kind of photography that gives you that wow factor, those strong emotions and feelings that leave you wanting for more. There is a ton of stock photography available, free or fairly inexpensive but it’s hard to find the right one for your unique business or product or service. They are generic, they limit your graphics and design, and they resemble spam. Or, maybe you find one, two images but then you are stuck when you need more of the same kind to be consistent with your brand. Worse yet, you may find others have purchased and used the same photos.

There are multiple studies out there about the impact of photography. People connect with people, and it’s that simple. Having your own photos, genuine and candid can create more of a human to human connection. Why is Facebook so popular and successful? It connects people! Scrolling and looking at other people’s photos is addicting and most people love it. I believe we need to apply the same concept to branding. Think about feeding your audience, your customers with your unique and authentic image instead of generic, stock photography. People will be more engaged, there will be more connection and more emotion in your branding.

Put your brand and you in front of the camera. It’s definitely an effort: for some it’s an emotional effort, for others a financial effort but it’s totally worth it. Next time you want to buy stock photography, stop and think how you could use your own photography, how you can customize your brand. Through real and unfiltered images you can create a strong connection with your audience: be vulnerable, be authentic, be you.