Images are indispensable for every company. A brand without images that represent the brand image is unimaginable. Whether it's the website, adverts, sales brochures, email campaigns or social media posts - you often have to decide between hiring a photographer or resorting to more cost-effective stock photos.
Before we look at the negative aspects of using stock photos, we should first consider how incredibly important images are for perception and our decisions. For example, Facebook posts with images currently have a 94% higher engagement rate than text-only posts, tweets with visual content are retweeted 150% more often and videos on landing pages increase the conversion rate by up to 86%.
"A picture is worth a thousand words."
Nothing hits the nail on the head better than this sentence. Information from images is absorbed up to 60,000 times faster than information from text. 55% of all internet users spend less than 15 seconds reading text on a website. According to some surveys, 67% of online shoppers said that high-quality photos are more important to them than product-specific information, long descriptions or reviews.
In view of the many points, it should be clear to everyone that the importance of the images used should definitely not be neglected and that they have a direct impact on the perception and credibility of the company. And therefore also directly on your turnover.
Let's get back to the real question: Why should you do without stock photos? It sounds very tempting. A huge selection of different images, in all colours and variations - quickly available and cheaper than a photographer booked specifically for a project. Below you will find seven good reasons to avoid stock photos and book a professional photographer who will create customised images especially for you.
1. stock photos are not customised to your company.
Do you know Bob? Bob is the "employee you can trust". Does he look familiar to you? This may be because you may have already seen him on more than 20,000 different websites. He appears there under a different name or in a different position - but the image is always the same. He fits the cliché exactly: he is the solid businessman who is supposed to make a serious impression with a strong handshake. If Bob doesn't happen to be employed by you, a person you don't even know is now representing your company - and in premises that don't belong to your company. Wouldn't it be much nicer to photograph a real employee of your company, possibly wearing a polo shirt with your brand logo and in your office premises? This would significantly increase credibility and create trust. You show your customers real insights into your company and create a direct connection.
2. stock photos have no meaning
Stock photos need to appeal to a wide range of people. They use all-encompassing images to appeal to all audiences and show situations as vaguely as possible. To give a good example, here we have a bizarre image of two employees congratulating themselves on having drawn a blank organisational chart and obviously achieved nothing. Nevertheless, many companies use this photo or variations of it on their corporate websites.
3. stock photos are nothing special
We already know how important images are to us. So why not perfect the best way to convey your brand image? Using photos misrepresents what your company stands for and lacks originality every time. The lack of naturalness in this photo would almost make advertising a deodorant brand more effective than demonstrating team cohesion. As is so often the case, stock photos are a clichéd and "slick" symbolic image that can be found on thousands of other websites in exactly the same way.
4. stock photos often contain the same people
Over the past few years, this woman has managed to single-handedly handle customer service in thousands of companies around the world. Despite this enormous pressure, she manages to stay cool and always keep a smile on her face! However, she is not the only woman who is changing the marketing world every day. When she's not working in customer service, she does a range of other jobs: from modelling in competitive marketing campaigns to publishing in a series of books on Christianity.
To get a better idea of the problem, I recommend you watch the following video, which was created entirely from stock footage:
5. stock photos have no clear line
When you use stock photos, it is often impossible to maintain a clear line in the multitude of images. All too often, the visual language of the individual images does not match. Wildly mixed images create an unprofessional image for the viewer, so it almost doesn't matter how beautifully formulated your texts are on the website. To get a nice, clear line in all your images, it is a good idea to hire a photographer and let them in on your plans. He or she will coordinate the images in any case and respond to the visual language of the company.
6. stock photos reduce the Conversion rate
Do you remember the last time you clicked on Contact Us on a website and had the feeling that the person pictured wasn't actually working in the company? That's how many people feel. Stock photos look extremely fake and not real - we recognise this in a fraction of a second. It is therefore not surprising that, according to a study, the conversion rate of a website with real pictures of employees was almost 35% (!) higher than with stock photos.
Source: https://marketingexperiments.com/digital-advertising/stock-images-tested
7. cheaper in the long run
Can you see how "natural" and barely posed Meike, the nice lady in the picture, is happy about the money she has saved with stock photos? Of course, it is more expensive to book a photographer, organise a photo shoot and possibly release employees from their jobs to take the pictures. However, you should not forget that there is also a considerable fee for a large selection of stock photos. There are often staggered prices for different uses. If you now consider that the conversion rate is significantly higher for your own images and that you can use these images freely for all purposes, the tide turns. The higher conversion rate means you will earn more money in the long run and you will be glad to have made the initial investment. Will Meike still be so happy if she has really thought about it? We doubt it 🙂
If you have no other option than to use stock photos, we recommend customising them with Photoshop. With Photoshop you can, for example, adjust the colours, add or delete things and thus change the image slightly. With some images, it is therefore possible to disguise the origin of the stock photo and not make it immediately recognisable as such for everyone. Nevertheless, we strongly recommend having professional images created. You are unique - then your images should be too!
We will be happy to advise you in detail! And don't worry - under Agency you will of course find real pictures of us so that you can get an authentic picture of us. It would be funny if we used stock photos and then looked completely different at the appointment 🙂
