Marketing Basics
5 Steps to start your first media campaign
Should you be spending on visual media? Will marketing and visual media grow my business?
YES — and I will help you understand why
Visual media is a major factor for clients to decide whether or not to make a purchase. The need to visualize and understand the product or service is what drives customers to sites like Yelp (to check dish photos) and to sites like Amazon to see what a product looks like.
You can help craft this imagery by developing a clear strategy around your visual media. This step-by-step guide will help you better understand how to start the process and create a procedure to which to constantly iterate and grow.
But first an example of the potential of a successful campaign that is focused on the benefits of pro photography for a online site’s performance.
Taking the Plunge: First Visual Media Campaign
Lily Pulitzer inc, known for its colorful floral wares and chic fabric, largely utilized low visual media or simple product placement photos to promote their business online. The media team was seeing lackluster results as they were trying to invest more into their online store and decided to put some of these funds into the photos they were using on the site.
Through this ad campaign they created a simple collage that combined their more vibrant prints, with a hodge-podge of topics and seasonal elements to note their relevance and timeliness. Overall this shoot was not expensive, but focused on the quality of the photos and the vibrancy drawn out from their fabrics through the photos to help drive the redesign of their website.
The results, through this one campaign, was a increase in website traffic 49 times over the previous month and over a 300% increase in their conversion rate (a person making a sale) through their website.
The team isolated release variables and continued to test small changes to only their visual media and found similar results — visual media drives engagement and the decision to purchase in their site visitors.
Now that you are inspired, here are the steps to hosting a successful campaign.
Step 1: Recognize the Key Aspects of your Product or Service
A media campaign is as successful as the dedication of the company and its leadership to make it so; therefore you cannot rely on a external person (or internal) to best present your brand and interests.
- Create a shortlist of characteristics (in the case of your service) or use cases (in the case of a tangible product) and provide this to your photographer.
- List the colors and common themes around your business.
Does your business gravitate towards blues and natural colors or more yellows, oranges, and reds? A product photographer can intermix in some of these elements to add a subtle but customized element to your product photography.
- Elaborate on your potential users and clienteles so the photographer can gear your visual media around the audience. If you know the social media platforms or avenues you would utilize these visual assets let the photographer know so they can format appropriately
For example, If you are selling a watch it is important to understand who is your potential user. Would they be a surfer who would appreciate the watch in a more bohemian or eclectic display or a metropolitan customer who enjoys clean lines and modern art deco elements.
Step 2: Project the TOTAL Cost of your Campaign Budget
You want to determine what is your total budget for your campaign.
- How long will this campaign be in use and how long would the media be relevant?
- Given the duration of your campaign, what is your budget (it is easier to think about this as a monthly expense)
- U.S. Small Business Administration states small businesses should spent 7–8% of gross revenue on marketing and advertisement if below $5 million in gross annual revenue
- In a marketing budget, you should spent 20–30% on content creation (photography, videography, editing, and production)
Step 3: Find a Photographer
When you are booking a photographer you want to consider what is in your budget, which photographers have the right experience in commercial photography (or have a creative perspective close to your brand and company values), and also how much time you think you will need with the photographer during a session.
Photographers should guide you through a session and provide you some insights around the expected length of a shoot and will also provide you a timeline of reviews and receipt of final product after a shoot is completed.
You will want to consider what are your expectation of setting and whether you will need a clean photo shoot space, can mock something in your office for the photographer to use, or whether you can find a public space that works.
Photographers can provide you amazing content that can sell your brand in innovative scenes that can further your brand story and industry perspective.
Step 4: Outline Shoot Details with Photographer
Once you know your price range, this information may be asked by the photographer/videographer. We recommend you mention the following considerations for your budget and photo use to your photographer:
- Total budget availability for the photo shoot and the expected product to be delivered upon that budget cap (how many prints/copies, digital, what degree of editing or video production)
- Commercial Use — Make sure you elaborate on the use of the photography and ownership considerations
- Get it in writing — you and your photographer should develop a (at the least) simple contract to outline the service or book through a umbrella organization that organizes the booking and commercial use
Step 5: TRACK YOUR RESULTS
I know, I know — looking at data sheets and tracking results is boring.
But this is a incredibly important step. The ability of your business to grow and maneuver between trends, consumer interests, and campaign performance is dependent upon your ability to track impact.
You can use a variety of methods for tracking impact and you should adapt them as you grow:
- Social Media engagements (not just likes and comments)
- Conversion software like Buffer, Later, HootSuite, Google Analytics
- Sales Rate of Change: Sales as a difference of Web Traffic and Bounce Rate
Tools to help you with performance of your campaign (for free):
- Google Analytics — Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic
- Bitly — Bitly is known for its ability to shorten URLs, but have progressed into a agile service to, once shortened, track link performance as a anchor to your website and service
- SimilarWeb — This powerhouse lets you track both your website performace and your competition providing amazing data visualization and powerful conversion tracking
Clicke is your partner for finding local photographers and your visual media strategy
Through our close relationship with this community, and our strong focus on customized experiences for our clients, we can help guide your brand and campaign strategy through accessible photography solutions that are local to your business.
