Product Photography: How To Produce Images That Will Entice Customers

Source: Ashley Piszek on Unsplash

It takes less than a second to build a good impression.

Visuals matter, especially when it comes to attracting customers for your business. In Strategic Management, business people are introduced to the concept of Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC). This essentially is the cost of transforming a potential customer to a paying customer—a new person to buy your product. CAC is actually used by many companies that have accepted digital commerce. Businesses engage in targeted marketing campaigns despite the cost in order to garner loyal customers.

Some examples of customer acquisition costs are advertising, marketing, sales, and distribution costs. Influencing the purchase of people who are scrolling through social media is a bit of a challenge without compelling visuals. 

There are a myriad of businesses out there that could be selling the same product as yours. Set yourself apart by having photos that are impossible to resist. Let other people know why it can only be your product for them. Let them know through your images — images that tell more than their caption.

Spending on these facets for your business is not cheap, hence why it is best to maximize every penny spent per customer. 

Here is how you can get the most out of your product photoshoots.

5 Best Practices in  Product Photography

Stay True to Your Brand

Be uniform with your photos. If the colour theme is bright and vibrant, stay consistent. Customers come back to the same profiles because they know what to expect. Needless to say, they want to see what they expect. 

The same can be said with the background you choose for your product shoots. If you opt for clean, solid backgrounds with simple colours or even just a white background to highlight your product, try to maintain the same colour palette for the rest of your featured images. 

Show People Their Options

The boat is sinking, now group yourselves—is one way of putting it. Try not to fall into the trap of thinking that you can only feature a single product at a time. A lot of consumers actually like seeing variety. People prefer knowing that there is an array which they can choose from. 

You can try categorizing your products and taking pictures of each of those bundles. For example, if you are selling a plethora of poutine, you can line up all your variants that have bacon in them: maple bacon poutine, cheesy avocado bacon poutine, and even bacon sweet potato poutine. Sounds incredibly appetizing. There is a good chance that people who see a photo of all three end up wanting to try more than one kind.

Consider Purchasing a Camera

If you are in your business for the long haul, product development is not too far off. In order to keep up with changing demands and new trends, as a business owner, you will have to keep creating and innovating your products. 

For instance, if  Churro Caramel Dessert Poutine is the thing of today, Cheesecakes on Sticks are the talk of the past, perhaps Brown Sugar Boba Scones could be the next big hit tomorrow? Anything is possible. Entrepreneurs are always at the forefront of trying new things and introducing them to the market.

Having said that, your drive to make your business succeed can lead you to manufacture your own innovative product—again and again. Wouldn’t it be a practical idea to start practicing product photography on your own? It would definitely be a cheap alternative to constantly be hiring photographers to do the job. 

There are cameras in the market which are being sold for both amateurs and professionals. These 4K Ultra HD action cameras have exposure control, time-lapse, white balance control, sensor motion detection recording, photo bursts ) in 3 fps, 5 fps, and 10 fps), digital image stabilizer, face tracking, and smile detectors. Action cameras are also the best choice for high caliber videos.

Get Resourceful

Having the right gear is important in product photography. However, it can get expensive. Some tools that you may need include:

• Studio lights
• Tripod
• Shooting table
• Light tent

The goal is to achieve more or less the same outcome from completely different materials. This is where resourcefulness becomes a dealbreaker. Time to put on your thinking cap and search for common household items that are available to you which you think can carry out the job. 

Here are two examples: 

For studio lights, a good dupe could be to use a lamp. Although, it does not end there. Extra measures such as putting a white cloth or white plasterboard over the light itself are needed to ensure better diffusion of light and softer shadows.

Tripods, on the other hand, are considerably easier to replace. You can make your way to a bookshelf, take a few intimidatingly thick novels or textbooks, and stack them. Once the height you had in mind is achieved, you can proceed to simply place your camera on top. 

Provide Accurate Representation

Sometimes the virtue of honesty gets overlooked. Choose to make the right decision by foregoing deceptive tactics. No one likes to see one thing and receive another thing altogether. Providing an accurate, if not exact, representation of the product is imperative to retain customers. 

You have to remember that one of the characteristics of digital commerce is the free and widespread capacity of customers to post reviews about your product. From a buyer’s point of view, making a complaint is not a difficult agenda.  In the blink of an eye, they could use social media platforms to share a side-by-side of your actual product against its advertised photo.

By all means, be creative. Bring your photos to life and have your product become the star, but always make sure that the smallest details of your advertised product are consistent with what you really sell. 

Making your product appear desirable is just as important as its functionality. It is crucial to understand the basics of product photography in order to improve the quality of your images. Once you have incorporated these practices into your product photoshoots, you are sure to attract more customers.