Marketing your offering if you’re a service industry is difficult isn’t it?
If you manufacture chocolate bars, it’s easy. Show people the packet, tell them what flavour it is, list the ingredients. It’s easy for the customer to understand. The same’s true of any product, really. Our brains get it, and get it with little need for prompting.
Or if you do any kind of physical job. It’s not hard to show that you’re a bricklayer, a personal trainer, a chef. Shots showing you in your work environment, with the tools of your trade, and we’re laughing. Years ago I was asked to spend the day in an iron foundry taking marketing photos. Honestly, it was one of the easiest (and best) jobs I’ve done. Because everything was so visual. Sparks flying, welders cutting through metal, huge machinery in operation. Exciting to look at, and crystal clear in what they depict.
But marketing a business that does something less tangible is hard. How do you get across to potential customers a set of ideas, or a skillset? How to convey expertise, or the right people skills? A company culture? Quite simply, it’s hard.
A huge number of my clients fall into the service industry category, and creating images that do just that is often what I’m asked to do. They might be insurance companies, or mortgage brokers, professionals such as accountants or solicitors. I also work for plenty of advisors, analysts, software developers, and so on. What they all share in common is that their job isn’t particularly active or visual. A lot of their time might be spent analysing data, looking at spreadsheets, working on a computer, reading documents, writing reports or sitting and thinking. And none of those are particularly visual activities are they?
However, if this sounds like you, please don’t worry. it is possible to make images that get across a sense of what you do, and what you’re about. Here are a few examples, showing how people interact in person and online with colleagues and clients. The photos show that sense of thought, co-operation and interaction that are at the heart of many service industries.
Big thanks for Equal Experts, who asked me to their co-working day to create these images for them, and to Oppidan.Social for providing the great enviroment.
If you’re in this boat, and struggling to create good marketing photos that convey your service, your staff and culture, please get in touch to talk.
