Posts Tagged ‘advertise’
Losing track of why we market!
Monday, July 5th, 2010
My partner and I frequently hear, “Professional photography is not in the budget.” Or, “We have no budget for photography in our marketing.” But the issue that keeps cropping up for me is that I think these companies lose sight of what is really important.
First, if a company is marketing itself, how many of them think that prospective clients really have time to read a lot of text about their company? Since most marketers know that time is of the essence, photographs say a lot more than words do in a short period of time. If the company markets itself with substandard images, e.g. underexposed, blurry, or just plain amateurish shots, what does the prospective client think? The client subconsciously thinks that what this company does is shoddy work and it is mirrored in the substandard images! The real problem is that the selling company sees gre at photography in the light of what it costs as an expense instead of what it costs for the bottom line. Why do you think Target spends so much money and time on those TV ads? Great photography translates to a fatter bottom line for Target.
The other day, I received a brochure in the mail from a local hospital. It had a number of what I would say are stock shots: happy, smiling people dealing with the hospital as patients or employees. To the untrained eye, this was acceptable. However, the only image of the hospital exterior itself was taken by someone who could best be described as a novice amateur. While the image appeared sharp, it appeared severely underexposed under the awning in the area of the front door. It looked for all the world like someone ran outside with their point-and-shoot camera and got an image to be used in the brochure. It was free, a no-cost shot. But, was it really? The people who took this shot were either unwilling or unable to get something better. As a pro, I would have taken several exposures of the entrance, at different exposure settings. This would have allowed me to cut the contrast and make the entranceway almost as light as the building by combining the shots to make a good one, either by HDR or masking techniques. The resultant image would have made the doorway a much more inviting look. Do you want to walk into a doorway in darkness? Hospitals are scary enough, without making the image appear foreboding. How many patients won’t contact this hospital, just because this image puts them off psychologically? If they lose just one, it will cost them more than hiring a good pro photographer, considering what healthcare costs these days. And I’ll wager they’ ve lost more than one client.
So, the end result is that while the hospital saved on not hiring a pro photographer, it cost them much more out of their bottom line. All because they forgot one thing. Good marketing isn’t about how much you spend on it, it’s about how much you get back from its execution.
If you are going to spend money on any marketing pieces, make it count. Go for the best paper, printing, graphics, and text. But above all, don’t stint on the photography. It can make or break the rest of what you are trying to do.
-Gary Silverstein
