I want you to join me on a movement. It’s called: Stop the Stock. Stock photography is ruining websites, costing businesses in lost revenue and killing the sea turtles and it’s time we put an end to this!
Ok, maybe I’m getting carried away but this is a real issue which not many people are addressing because it is a ‘new normal’, but it is FAR from optimum.
We can’t deny how convenient it is to just ‘grab’ some photos, chuck them on to your website and voila! Done! Well, that’s great that we solved the problem of finding photos of a house under construction, or an office space, but did we also just CREATE a new problem for ourselves without realizing it?
Yes, we have!
A website is supposed to communicate reality, real things in the world, that prospect can see and touch. When you use a fake photo you are essentially making yourself ‘not real’.
What you gain in convenience and time, you lose in credibility.
On the web, credibility is EVERYTHING!
Let me repeat that with some more exclamations: on the web credibility is EVERYTHING!
People don’t know you, they don’t trust you, why would you do something that conceals reality! People WANT the reality, they want the truth, even if the photos don’t look as good, at least they are real. And that goes a long way.
There is a place for stock photography, sure. But when you are depicting your services, your customers, your products, your business, your staff, partners, locations, offices, spaces, the photos MUST NOT be stock.
I think TV commercials are to blame. They’re all actors, pretending to be happy customers.
I’m looking for a bookkeeper in my local area and I land on a website and I see a big photo of a bunch of men dressed in suits, clearly a stock photo, all photo-shopped with perfect lighting and smiles. Who the hell are these guys? I’m looking for a real person to call; not a representation.
Whether or not the prospect can articulate it, it is in the back of their mind and they achieve a much stronger bond with the company that has real photos, as opposed to stock.
And you need that bond if you’re going to convince them to do business with you, so, just stop the stock! I want to hear you say it!
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