When building your brand or your business, you will need to use photography in your marketing campaign. Unfortunately, finding the right type of photos to represent your company often proves difficult. However, finding the perfect images to represent you is sure to take your marketing to new heights. This leads us to the question of whether or not you should use stock photos for your marketing, or create your own.
What is Stock Photography
According to Webopedia, stock photos are professional photographs. They are often photos of common places, landmarks, nature, events or people that are bought and sold on a royalty-free basis. Stock photos can be used and reused for commercial design purposes, which is a common practice for most online businesses. Typically, stock photos are easily identified because of their plain look and white backdrops.
What are the Problems with Stock Photos
Yes, stock photography is free or close to it, but there are issues with using these types of photos. One of the main problems of stock photography is that they are often clichés; like images that portray everyday thoughts and actions. In certain instances, you might need this type of image. It could also make your company look cheesy. When you want your brand to stand out, using stock photos could prevent that. Because they are free, anyone can use them. It’s likely that your customers will recognize stock images from other websites or blogs. And finally, it’s just not original work. When you want to make a lasting impression on your landing pages, stock photography is not going to cut it.
What are the Problems with Custom Photos
When taking your own photos, you will have to purchase a lot of equipment. Things such as a proper camera, lenses, backdrops, lighting, and more. Upfront, it costs a good amount of money. You often spend a lot of time editing or pay someone else to edit them for you. Custom photos are often tricky; sometimes editing is not needed and other times the pictures are only as good as the editing process allows. However, when it comes to marketing professional level photos, editing is a must. All of this takes a considerable amount of time and money when compared to using stock photos.
Which is Better
Both stock and custom photography have their pros and cons when it comes to marketing. However, when figuring out which one to use, it’s best to choose custom content. By showing off your creativity, your customer base takes notice. Eventually, you draw in more customers with it. Of course, it seems expensive. Sometimes, you need to spend money to make money. Thankfully, it’s a one-time expense for the equipment and with proper editing software, you won’t need to outsource the editing process.