20 Important Benefits of Product Photography

If you’re not a graphic designer, there’s a good chance your company relies heavily on photos to sell its products online. But what if the images are of poor quality? You may be losing customers every day because of bad pictures!

Product photography plays a tremendous role in influencing consumer behavior and sales. Regardless of the size or scope of your business, if you sell something with a solid visual component, a targeted photography campaign will make your business seem more established.

In addition, you get to exhibit your products and services in a way that rivals your competitors’ offerings. 

Here are the 20 important benefits of product photography:

1. Encourages sales.
2. Is informative.
3. A must for selling online.
4. Boosts social media presence.
5. Bolsters SEO.
6. Highlights your company’s value.
7. Influences consumer behavior.
8. An indicator of quality.
9. Heightens product appeal.
10. Illustrates company persona.
11. Jazzes up your site.
12. Enhances your business image.
13. Narrows down choices.
14. Reduces the need for ad copy.
15. Drives traffic.
16. Fosters credibility and trust.
17. Can be used as guides.
18. Gives you an advantage over competitors.
19. Serves mobile users.
20. Boosts visibility.

This article discusses the benefits of skillful product photography. Learn how to take advantage of it to make your business prosper.

What Is Product Photography?

Product photography is the art of capturing a product or service in its best light. It’s an essential part of marketing a business and can be used for everything from showing off your products to building trust with potential customers.

Product photography is also called “commercial” photography because it’s often used by large companies to market their goods and services.

It is a branch of photography that showcases a product in the most irresistible way by emphasizing its most prominent features using the following:

• Flattering lighting
• Purposeful camera angles
• An appropriate background
• Various elements to frame the product attractively

Your fundamental goal as a seller is to entice shoppers to buy products. You achieve this by presenting them with tantalizing photos of your products you shoot yourself or taken by a professional product photographer. 

Product descriptions and reviews supplement these images for use in posters, billboards, print adverts, TV commercials, online ads, brochures, catalogs, websites, and social media platforms.

E-commerce websites, manufacturers, retailers, wholesalers, and brands use product photography as a fundamental advertising method in direct-to-consumer sales to implant their products in customers’ minds.

It is also a brilliant way to convey a brand’s identity, quality, values, and services. The more extraordinary the aesthetics, the stronger the impact.

But even if you’re just starting out, you should still take the time to invest in quality product images that will help boost your brand recognition.

Why Is Product Photography Important?

Good product photography is the cornerstone of both traditional businesses and e-commerce. It is a powerful publicity tool that can make or break your success.

Investing in it is a boon to sales, especially online stores. Online customers rely on photos highlighting the benefits of products because they cannot physically try on or examine these before checkout.

These are the statistical reasons for its importance:

• Statistics have proven that product descriptions with accompanying photographs (especially multiple ones taken at different angles) yield higher sales.
• Online shopping website Shopify’s 2016 study showed that around 33% of their clients used pictures to decide what to buy.
• A separate study showed 78% of the same customer base did not buy products without accompanying images or those with photos but not detailed ones.
• According to NeoMam Studios, people recall “10% of what they hear, 20% of what they read, and 80% of what they see” and act on.
• Approximately 67% of consumers consider image quality essential in online purchases.
• Visual content is 40 times more expected to be shared on social media.

The above figures explain why visuals are crucial in sales and marketing. The higher-grade the pictures, the more conversions and sales increase. In fact, higher quality visuals may even be needed in order to support products at higher price points.

A single targeted image has the potential to be a potent marketing weapon for toppling the competition. One magnificent product photo can sell millions of units.

Business owners should not underestimate the potency of an image. If they’re not using product photography, they’re missing out on considerable sales.

So investing in high-resolution photography is vital for brands and businesses looking to stake their niche in a saturated marketplace.

Here are 20 reasons why professional-quality product photography is so important for any business that sells its goods online.

1. Product Photography Encourages Sales

The primary reason for product photography is to encourage customers to make purchases and drive sales.

By using images to highlight the prime features of your products and make them look better than the competition, you can convince customers that your product is the best choice without every saying a word.

If a brand’s visuals are sub-par, converting potential customers to paying ones will be difficult.

2. Product Photography Is Informative

To be effective publicity devices, product photos must be informative to make it easier for potential buyers to choose. Images give clients a better understanding of what they’re buying by explaining through visuals a product’s variants, designs, styles, colors, and dimensions.

Good product photography is also used for the comparative analysis of products, which enables customers to make wiser and more informed choices when shopping online.

For example, product photos give consumers a closer look at details like finishes and stitches. Having this detail information increases the likelihood of sales conversion.

3. Product Photography Is a Must for Selling Online

Given that many online customers purchase products based on visuals alone, making them as appealing as possible is a must for brands publishing their items online to increase sales.

Superior product photos are crucial for e-commerce sellers to garner sales and minimize returns. Enrich your client’s online shopping experience by integrating product photos beyond checkout.

Use shipping software like ShipStation to promote your brand and embed product photos in extra places like packing slips, shipping confirmation notifications, and branded tracking pages.

4. Product Photography Boosts Social Media Presence

The popularity of social media platforms is growing astronomically, with more than 3.6 billion users worldwide spending almost 1.8 hours daily on social networking sites as of 2016. According to Social Media Examiner, visual content attracts 94% more views and receives three times more engagement than text-based posts.

Visual content is an influential marketing instrument for various platforms, mainly social media if your target audience is younger and technologically inclined. It reaches a global audience and multiplies page views.

5. Product Photography Bolsters SEO

Product pictures enhance your search engine optimization (SEO)—the process of maximizing visitors to a website by ranking it high on the list of results a search engine generates.

High-quality, stand-out, relevant, and detailed photographs help search engines find your online store and reserve a top spot for your site.

6. Product Photography Highlights Your Company’s Value

Quality photography is a vital component in fostering long-term relationships with customers. Outstanding product photos reflect your company’s worth, innovativeness, and professionalism.

People often determine the perceived value of a design, brand, or product based on presentation. Thus, they also evaluate the credibility of your business and the merits of your products according to the quality of your photography.

7. Product Photography Influences Consumer Behavior

Manufacturers and brands impose moods and lifestyle preferences on their audience using product photos.

For instance, if you’re selling organic produce, present a layout with an idyllic farm backdrop to express an eco-friendly vibe.

Using quality images, convey the feeling you want your customers to experience to show them your product is the definitive solution to their problems. 

8. Product Photography Is an Indicator of Quality

Imagine going to Nike’s website for a pair of $200 shoes and all of their visual content was blurry smartphone pictures. Would you trust this brand?

Your site’s product photography is a reflection of your wares or services. It determines whether visitors leave or make a purchase.

Readymade photos are acceptable, but bespoke images are more impressive to first-time visitors. Hire an experienced product photographer to set your business apart from the competition.

9. Product Photography Heightens Product Appeal

Many online shoppers often aren’t sure what they want until they find it. Take advantage of this by attracting them to your product lineup. If they like your photos and descriptions, they will stay longer on-site, view your other content, and buy something.

Potential buyers get a much better perspective of the product when they view it from all angles. One dimension to product photography is 360° photography—a simulator for the in-person shopping experience. Site visitors go on a “virtual tour” of your online store, allowing a multi-angle view of your products. Online maternity retailer Due Maternity swears this technology increased their conversion rate by 27%.

10. Product Photography Illustrates Company Persona

Stock images tell your customers how you want to be distinguished, but presenting authentic products, services, and people reflects your company’s personality. Genuine photos connect customers to your business and improve their perception of your trustworthiness.

11. Product Photography Jazzes Up Your Site

In e-commerce, content is king, but don’t inundate visitors with endless text (like this blog post). Instead, use informative and captivating images to break up text and describe products. Images have been shown to increase traffic to websites, visit time, and conversions.

12. Product Photography Enhances Your Business Image

A recent visual gimmick marketers use to attract attention is the cinemagraph, a looping video similar to an animated gif that complements standard images. It sets your brand apart, entertains, and inspires site visitors. It became popular when Instagram and Facebook announced auto-play videos. 

Adage reported that cinemagraphs have more viral power, with 71% higher organic influence than still pictures.

13. Product Photography Narrows Down Choices

Product photos help customers choose from the dizzying array of similar products, especially on Amazon listings and other online shopping sites. If you want to wrestle successfully in this vicious arena, use good product photography to divert customer attention to your products and away from the competition. Poor quality photos of a product can be perceived as counterfeit when compared to listings with high quality visuals.

14. Product Photography Reduces the Need for Ad Copy

Advertising copy (including product descriptions) is critical in sales. Done properly, it can solidify a company’s marketing effectiveness. But it is expensive, and editing and formatting add to production time.

Not only that, most online shoppers will only skim product descriptions as they rely on visuals such as infographics instead. Expert product photography reduces the need for marketing copy.

15. Product Photography Drives Traffic

When other websites share your product pictures and link to your site, additional multiple sites share and use them too, particularly when they are very good.

When your product pages get lots of shares and likes, they reach new customers, direct more traffic to your site, and broadens the scope of your business.

16. Product Photography Fosters Credibility and Trust

Offering your customers a precise description of what they’re about to buy builds credibility and trust. It leads customers to believe you have exerted an effort to consider their needs.

Product images play a crucial role in the purchasing process. If your photos aren’t detailed or are missing vital information, such as what type of USB port is needed to charge the product, you can lose client confidence.

17. Product Photography Can Be Used As Guides

Product pictures also make terrific user manuals. Use models in your photos to demonstrate how to use/wear your products or set them up. If yours is a fashion site, shoot clothing by itself and worn by a model.

If you’re selling cosmetics, present the packaging in addition to the makeup.

18. Product Photography Gives You an Advantage Over Competitors

Selling a top-notch product isn’t enough to be an e-commerce leader. You may think your product is one-of-a-kind, but many products worldwide may have comparable features.

Remedy this by using high-quality images to make your products look better than the competition (even if they aren’t).

19. Product Photography Serves Mobile Users

Nowadays, more people access online sites using mobile devices. So online sellers should cater to this on-the-go demographic.

Mobile customers have limited time and attention spans, so they need quick and easy-to-understand data. Let your superlative product photos “talk” to them in the ways that they expect.

20. Product Photography Boosts Visibility

Putting your brand out there is key to generating awareness, visibility, and sales. Achieve this by incorporating striking product images into your marketing campaigns. Product shots on social media channels attract a new audience, expand your online presence, grow your enterprise, and amplify sales.

Final Thoughts

If you want to succeed in the eCommerce world, it’s time for a change. You can no longer rely on advertising copy alone to sell your products online.

In this age of endless social media content, a company’s product photos are almost as important as the products themselves.

So if you need to stand out in a saturated market and actually sell the products you’re advertising, contact us today for your next project!