What is personal branding photography?

You’ve been hearing about it all over the place: personal branding photography. What is it and why should you care if you own a business?!

Personal branding photography is one of the most important tools in promoting your brand and showing your clients HOW and WHY you do what you do. What makes you unique? Why should someone do business with you as opposed to your competitor? What is your story? Personal branding photography highlights all of these things and illustrates what makes you YOU. The simplest way to put it is that personal branding photography shows your audience who you are, versus regular headshots that simply show people your face.

How can personal branding photography attract your ideal clients?

You are more likely to attract your ideal clients when you nail down a brand that speaks to them. If you own a boutique business, I’m sure you have figured out at this point that not everyone is your client - and that’s okay!

I’ll give you an example. Say you are a baker that specializes in making custom, classic wedding cakes. Your ideal client may be a bride who isn’t looking for anything fancy and appreciates classic styles. You would NOT be serving Joe Shmoe who wants to buy a birthday cake for his four-year old son. This is because branding for a wedding cake business is completely different than branding for a bakery that specializes in custom children’s cakes. In order to attract a bride, you might want to use an image that shows a bride cutting into her custom-made wedding cake. If you want to attract parents who need a birthday cake for their child, you may want to use an image of a cake smash with a cute child in view. See the difference?

Once you’ve nailed down your brand and who you want to serve, a branding photographer will help you create images that represent your unique brand. Using images that truly represent your brand will not only make you appear more professional, but will also attract your ideal clients and convey you as more trustworthy. And we all tend to purchase from businesses who feel most trustworthy to us because we purchase based on feelings. Make sense?

Do I need a personal branding photographer?

If you own a business, you need a branding photographer. Even if you are not regularly using social media everyday, you still need images to market yourself. Think about it: how many times a day are you putting your brand out there for the world to see? And what do you want people to see? If you are sending out emails, have a website, creating a blog post, posting an ad, printing out marketing materials to give to customers, have a business card, the list goes on and on, you need professional images. Taking photos with your cell phone camera just isn’t going to cut it any more with the amount of competition that is out there these days. Yes, people want to see authentic and real, but they also don’t want to see a selfie of you that was taken in your living room. It just doesn’t convey professional, and it certainly does not reassure people that you know what you are doing.

Ready to up-level your business and leave the picture-taking to someone else? Want more free time to do what you actually love doing and not having to worry about where your next image is going to come from? Sick of using the same old stock photos that everyone uses? I can help.

Click the button below to learn more about the branding photography services that we can offer you.

Photo by Chucktown Art.