In an age where visual content is an integral part of any marketing campaign, it’s crucial to ensure images used are of the highest standard.

While the quality of smartphone cameras continues to advance, there can be no match for the quality achieved from a professionally shot photograph. Here’s five reasons professional photography is a valuable tool to help elevate your brand.

1. Books are judged by their covers

An image is a powerful way of bringing a story to life. Words are inevitably an important element of a narrative but to quickly capture the attention of the audience, there’s no more effective way than a quality photograph. Consequently, audiences will associate your brand with the same level of quality.

What you don’t want is for people to associate your brand with blurry, low resolution, dark images that leave a negative impression. You want sharp, bright and vibrant images. We’re big fans of Drybar’s website and social media imagery, which presents a consistent look and brand message.

2. There’s more chance of quality media coverage

Although the rule of always issuing a press release with a photo is tried and tested, this doesn’t mean any image will do. If you can secure the attention of a journalist with a great image, it could result in a front-page splash in a newspaper, a feature in a magazine or a prime space on the homepage of an online news site.

A leisure client of ours wanted to attract the interest of national travel writers to increase bookings following an extensive accommodation refurbishment. We arranged for new professional images to be taken, updated the website and social media channels and secured the visit of a journalist from the Guardian, leading to a full-page feature in the travel section, in print and online, as well as an increase in accommodation bookings.

3. You will increase engagement on social media

Human beings by nature are visual creatures and where social media is concerned statistics support this, with posts on Facebook including a photo said to achieve higher engagement than those without, contributing to 54% more likes, 104% more comments and 84% more click-throughs on links.

While it’s not imperative to include professionally shot photography on all social media posts, make sure the quality of your images is of a high standard and that no post is ever published without an image. This will make a user more likely to share the image or post, meaning more opportunities for engagement.

4. Customers are more likely to buy

For businesses that provide e-commerce, once you’ve managed to get potential customers to your website the last thing you want is for them to be turned off by poor, low quality images.

Even if you don’t provide e-commerce, the principles still apply; people are more likely to trust a business and its services when this is reflected in quality imagery with connotations that support the brand values, for example high end, professional, clear, vibrant. This means an increase in conversions, whether that’s the completion of a ‘contact us’ form or a subscription to an e-newsletter.

5. Website rankings are boosted

Quality photography can help boost the search ranking potential of a website, because the wider brand exposure achieved from activity which utilises imagery, including media relations and social media campaigns, helps to achieve more web traffic, clicks and conversions. This means your website will get a better ranking in search engines and the photography is more likely to perform well in image searches too.