When you invest in a professional branding photoshoot, you want to squeeze every last drop out of your investment! You want every pillar of your social media covered. Every image you could possibly need for your website sorted. And your whole brand story told in a series of quality images. And above all, you want them to connect with your customers on a real, personal level. I know, it’s a lot to do in a day.
But victory loves preparation, and going in with a solid plan will set you up for success. Have a chat with your branding photographer about what you want to achieve and come up with a shot list together. And once you’ve got your list, make sure you get them all! There’s nothing worse than coming home from the shops and realising you’ve forgotten something.
OK, so what branding photos do you actually need?! To help you plan a game-changing professional branding photoshoot, here’s 7 branding photos that’ll help build your brand and connect with your customers.
Professional headshots will give your company a likeable, recognisable, trustworthy face. It’s important for customers to see that there’s a person behind the brand. And while the rest of the branding shots will paint a fuller picture of you and your brand as a whole, headshots are a must-have staple for any professional branding photoshoot.
The main use for these is for your social media business profiles (and maybe your website depending on the aesthetic). So you want to look presentable, friendly and professional, with a nice light, clear background so it’s uncluttered and easy to see in a smaller size on phones.
As well as the more formal headshots, you’ll also need a few more relaxed, lifestyle shots to show that there’s an actual person behind the smiling face! The backgrounds can be a lot more colourful and interesting with these as they’re generally used in a bigger format (social media posts, websites etc.).
You want these to build an instant connection, to be friendly, and welcoming. So have fun with them! Laugh, smile, be yourself. These are your chance to build an immediate personal connection with whoever sees them, to show them you’re someone they’d like if they met you in person.
Branding photos that show you interacting with happy clients are a great form of social proof. And social proof is marketing gold (we all check restaurant reviews before we make a reservation, right?) Client interaction shots are the visual equivalent of a good review.
They show prespective clients that you’ve already got happy customers, that you run a thriving business. And since you’ve already earned the trust of other customers, you’re worthy of theirs too. They also help customers picture themselves enjoying your services. They see other people happy and they want that same positive experience for themselves.
From a practical perspective, obviously real customers are best. But if you’re just starting out, there’s no shame in roping a few friends in to help!
It may seem obvious, but if you’re going to sell something to someone, you need to show them what you’re selling.
If you sell physical products, this is an essential part of any professional branding photoshoot. Whether you’ll be using them on the sales page of your website, or to advertise them on social media, you need photos that make your products look professional, expensive and desirable. Whether it’s focusing on details that make the products unique, or showing people using them and enjoying them, you want to paint your products in their best possible light.
If you’re selling a service, the aim is to get customers to imagine themselves experiencing it. ‘An image speaks a thousand words’ is never truer than with photos of a service. You can show the atmosphere, the experience, the process, all with just a few photos.
With some services and digital products, this can be a tricky one to pin down. If you book your professional branding photoshoot with me, we’ll have a discovery call together before the shoot. If it’s not immediately obvious how we can capture this aspect of your business, we can chat through it together and come up with a plan.
A lot of love and hard work goes into doing what you do. Whether it’s lovingly making your products yourself, working late nights at your desk, talking to suppliers or making endless phone calls, the final product or service is just the tip of the iceberg.
By showing how much hard work goes into what you sell, you’ll make potential customers value and appreciate it so much more. And the photos don’t even have to be glamorous or exciting! It could be just you writing notes.
But these photos give people a glimpse behind the curtain. They show them that behind the brand is a real person or team working hard to deliver. And this helps build that all-important ‘know like and trust’ factor for your brand.
There’s a whole world behind your brand that people want to see. Maybe it’s a buzzing workplace with a hundred employees, or just little old you in your home office. However big or small your operation, you should have branding photos that welcome people into it.
Show them your office, introduce your team, show them where and how you work. All this helps paint a picture of your brand in people’s minds that they can recognise and relate to. And if they feel like they know you and your brand, they’ll want to do business with you.
And these photos help build a strong personal relationship with your existing customers. It’s not just an email from a company, it’s an email from the guys in the office. When they get your product in the post, they’ve seen where it was made. If customers will be visiting your office in person, they’ll feel like they’ve been there before. And this feeling of instant familiarity and comfort will transform the way customers think about your business.
One of the most underrated aspects of a professional branding photoshoot is the opportunity to create a strong, recognisable visual brand.
Branding photos don’t always have to be ‘on-the-nose’ obvious. They can be close-up shots of certain details of your products. They could be photos of your tools, fingers on a keyboard. You want them to all be of a similar style, in a colour palette cohesive with your overall branding. And when used effectively across your social media and website, they’ll set a mood, and give your brand a defined ‘look and feel’.
Whether your brand is luxury, fun, high-end or relatable, these subtle background shots can work wonders towards creating the atmosphere around your brand. If you dedicate some of the time for your branding shoot on this type of shot, you’ll have a bank of quality images you can delve into time and time again. Honestly, you’ll be surprised at how often you use them!
As a professional branding photographer in Edinburgh, I love that I get to work closely with so many local brands. I always get to know my clients really well throughout the process. So by the time I deliver their final images, I’m completely invested in their success! And getting to help them take their business forward to the next level with my work is always such a joy.
My branding shoots are designed to be an enjoyable, empowering experience. We’ll meet up for a coffee, have a chat all about your business and get to the heart of what makes your brand unique. Then we’ll head out to your workplace, and work together to tell the story of your brand in a way your customers can connect with. I really want you to succeed, and I want to be the one to help.
If you’d like to book yourself in for a professional branding photoshoot with me, I’d love to hear from you. Please get in touch today and let’s have a non-salesy chat and get to know each other.