What's wrong with stock photography?

A large part of our target market is made up of independent and small business owners who may think that buying stock photography is a good option for them.  After all, it's cheap, widely available and easy to purchase. Part of our sales pitch is trying to educate these clients on why buying stock photography is the wrong option for them.  It goes something like this...

Branding is all-important these days and should be one of the first thing you define when starting a new business.  Your brand is what sets you apart from your competition and gives your customers something to identify with. Your brand is not your logo, your name or your color palette - your brand is the feeling your customers have about you.  Potential customers want to know that you're the right "fit" for them and they make these judgements extremely quickly which is why it's so important to maintain your brand consistently throughout your marketing channels. There are a whole host of tools you can use to create this feeling such as the tone of your messaging, the design of your marketing and advertising collateral, and especially your social networking.  One of the biggest tools you can use to express your brand is photography!  We are visual creatures and you can communicate an entire story in one image.  Remember the adage - "one picture is worth a thousand words."  So when it comes to creating a feeling and desire in the minds of your customers for your products or services, there's no better way to do it than with pictures.

Now the important question becomes...WHICH pictures?  How do you find photography that expresses exactly what you want to communicate about your brand to your customers?  This is where it's tempting to resort to stock.  It's easy to just load up a stock agency on your browser, sign up for an account, add a credit card and browse away.  But when you look closely at the content of stock photography you'll notice how generic it is.  Photographers who shoot stock are taking a "shot gun" approach to subject matter and hoping they shoot an image that you'll buy.  Don't get me wrong, there are some very talented stock photographers who shoot images that could be described as art - but they haven't had a conversation with you about your specific needs or tried to understand what your message is.  To me, stock photography is the McDonalds of the photography world.  It's cheap, easy to find, but completely lacks substance and leaves you feeling like crap after you eat it.

If you have a well-crafted brand and care about communicating the subtly of that brand to your customers to evoke a real emotion or feeling - you should really commission an experienced photographer to help you.  We love working with independent and small business owners to help express and define their brand to create a real desire for your products or services.   We're like the Whole Foods of the photography world.  You may pay a little more but you enjoy the experience, you get exactly what you want, and you feel great about your purchase!