“Successful branding and marketing reinforces business perception and can help increase sales.”

For all the buzz about “branding,” there is a lot of confusion about what a brand actually is. In general, your brand is everything you do to establish an image of your company in your customers’ minds (and hearts). This can range from your logo design to how you show up on the web and in social media to how your staff interacts with customers. Your brand encompasses everything your customers think about and associate with your business.

“Your brand is the single most important investment you can make in your business” – Steve Forbes

All businesses – large and small – should spend some time thinking about how they want their customers to perceive them and work to establish a solid brand strategy because:

• Branding protects your bottom line. Branding is directly tied to profitability, and studies have shown that organizations that invest in branding are more successful over longer periods of time than those who don’t.
• Branding improves marketing results. It takes about 20 exposures for a person to form a conscious impression of a brand. If your brand is inconsistent, that number goes up to 30, 40 or higher, and the impression that consumers eventually form of you is more likely to be negative. Inconsistency feels unprofessional, sometimes even untrustworthy. That means that a company with an undefined brand spends more on marketing and gets fewer results.
• Good branding creates value. Well-planned and consistent branding efforts can help businesses close sales faster, command premium pricing, attract their ideal customers more easily, create loyal fans and drive referrals.

Having a strong brand is a foundational step in enhancing the overall value of your business, supporting all your efforts to provide better products and/or services. Good branding means having a better reputation among customers, wider recognition, the ability to command better prices and more.

Defining a brand that excites your customers and serves your business for the long term can be a challenging and, sometimes, daunting task. But the resulting value is multiplied over every marketing action that you take for years to come, in both the short term (the immediate impact) and the long term (repeat business, referrals, increased prices). It becomes the obvious choice and the only one that makes sense.

Why You Need Brand Photography

Photography is one of the most important considerations when developing a brand. You want customers to be able to look at your imagery and know exactly what your brand is and what it stands for. And because our brains can process visuals 60,000 times faster than text, photographs are one of the best ways to tell stories, especially your brand story. Hiring a photographer to take high-quality images that reflect your brand not only helps strengthen your visual branding efforts but also helps you create a consistent customer experience across all of your physical and digital platforms.

Great brand photography can help you do these five things:

  1. Connect with your audience authentically and attract more ideal clients. Good brand photography shows your audience what it looks and feels like to work with you and what sets you apart from others in your market.
  2. Strengthen your brand’s “know, like and trust” factor by being able to show up consistently across platforms.
  3. Position yourself as an expert, allowing you to confidently command premium prices and drive revenue.
  4. Enhance your brand with custom images that reflect your values, passions and personality.
  5. Inspire your audience to live and work beautifully, therefore adding value to their life or business.