Business Brand & Imagery

I recently had the privilege and honor to take some business imagery for a local beauty salon SASS The Spa On 14th. The owner and operator Teghan was amazing, opening the niche boutique store on the weekend just to allow for me to move in with all my camera gear and have free roam throughout.

Prior to the photoshoot I did some additional research, first a meeting with Teghan during regular hours to complete pre-shoot meeting to assess the space, color, lighting, and any obvious items needing attention. I also spent some time online looking for inspiration from other beauty salons and nail business from around the world, not to copy but rather see the details that other professionals have identified and more importantly what details are being so over used they no longer are new, edgy or inspirational for clients or business owners. While completing my research I also looked at many other local Campbell River businesses, learning the feel in which the town conveys their businesses to the local population. It occurred to me during this research that many local businesses have out dated, generic, and often poor quality imagery displayed marketing their store, products, and business.

Even though we live in a digital age, and everybody owns a cell phone with a rather sophisticated camera it is certainly not the right tool for the job. I believe that your business image tells the story of your business aka “a photo is worth a thousand words”, and unfortunately our brains are trained more and more to recognize an image and in a split second like or dislike, swipe right or swipe left, checkmark or no checkmark.

What this realization tells me, is that within a split second a potential customer will base his or her decision off of your business brand and imagery. I know we all have that one restaurant that is a classic “whole in the wall, doesn’t look like much, but is absolutely amazing” scenario but let me ask you this. How many recommendations did it take before you considered going there? By representing your business brand and imagery poorly, as a business owner you are relying solely on word of mouth which will take time and effort to convince those potential clients to walk through your front door, make that phone call or send that initial email.

In today’s age, the minor cost to bring a professional photographer into your business and produce amazing high quality imagery for your business is more important than ever. Businesses like SASS The Spa on 14th, and owner’s like Teghan have identified the importance of these qualities when representing their business. I’ll end this post asking another question, would you rather have five potential clients see your business and open up a potential sale, or wait for them to receive five recommendations from other’s before considering your business?