WSS #0091: Picture Perfect Marketing: How Great Custom Photography Can Make Your Business Money

Show Notes

Say cheese! Today we're talking to Paul Scharff, a photographer who specializes in taking photos that help businesses make money. Whether they're product shots or pictures of you and your staff in action, Paul wants to showcase your business so you'll win more customers. So ask yourself, do the photos on your website and in your other marketing materials pull people in, humanize your brand and make people want to do business with you? Listen for some great insights into what photography can do and some tips for doing it yourself when you need to.

In This Episode We Talk About

• When you can and can't rely on stock photos to help market your business
• The value that custom photography can bring and how it can add authenticity to your company
• Why it's more important to think about what a photo can do for you rather than focusing on technical details or artistic style
• Whether the iPhone is ruining photography
• When you can take business photos with your smart phone, when you can't and when it might actually be better for you
• How to choose the right photographer for your business
• Why there is no "one size fits all" photographer and you shouldn't have your wedding photographer shoot your business photos (even if he's really, really, really good at weddings)
• What it means to "overcook" a photo
• Optimizing photos so it makes customers want to buy
• What the Rule of Thirds is and how it can help you frame pictures that have more power
• Why you should shoot 100 photos if you want 10 good ones
• The importance of NOT deleting photos and protecting the ones you have
• What shooting RAW means and whether it’s the right format for you
• Plus we talk about experiencing your life vs. photographing it, why the iPhone may be the only camera you'll ever need and the wrong way to take photos if you're doing it yourself

Links & Resources

• Visit Paul's website to see some of his work and check back for his new site coming soon with even more
• Take a look at Amazon's Cloud Drive, a photo storage service that Paul recommended to us after the episode for very low cost storage so you never have to lose another photo again!

Your Marketing Action Item

From Paul: Have a colleague some time in the next three days take photos of you at work – whether you're working on a job site or at your desk. Have that person take photos of you doing your job, talking on the phone with customers, engaging with your work. Take at least half a dozen or more. Wait ten minutes then take a look and think about what photos like those – or even those exact photos – can do for your business rather than not having them.

 

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