Five Minute Friday: Stock Photos are Killing Your Brand

Foreign. Business can be a lonely game. But it doesn't have to be. Welcome to Boutique Chat where we explore community over competition and how to scale your company with the balance and the happiness that we all seek. We'll hear from product based businesses of all types, retailers, e commerce and wholesale brands, along with industry experts shaping the future of our industry. I'm your host Ashley Alderson from the Boutique Hub and I can't wait to chat. Hi. Guess what? I get asked this question all the time. Or actually I shouldn't even say that I don't get asked this question. It's more so when I get asked the question, why is my business not working? Or I've been doing this, I feel like I'm getting nowhere. Or I have a brick and mortar and I'm trying to grow my online business and no one is buying. Right. Those are the struggle questions I get asked all the time. And then when I investigate a little bit further to try to help these people and answer this question and I dig in and maybe I go visit their social media account or I hop on over to their website just to kind of see what I see. What I find is a bunch of stock photos. I find a website full of the exact same girl that came from a bunch of LA vendors five years ago. Or I see just some very boring, unmerchandised, all different sizes stock photos. Or I see stock photos that everyone and their mother has gotten from the latest dropshipper. And so when I come back to answer this question, the stock photos make a huge difference in why a boutique is or isn't successful. And there's a bit of a difference here between apparel and home and gift. So I'm going to get to that in just a minute. But let me speak to apparel first. First, if you're in the apparel industry, one of the biggest reasons why you don't want to use stock photos is you literally look like everyone else. There is no way to differentiate your brand from anyone else using that wholesaler, that drop shipper, or anyone else who downloaded that photo off of Fair Fashion Go or Hubventory, you literally look like everybody else. So you have no way of creating a recognizable brand that people want to come back and shop again and again. I also think that stock photos really limit your ability to create brand through merchandising. Right. One of the biggest reasons, especially in apparel, that your customers want to shop with you is they love your style, they love your taste. You know, if you have a brick and mortar, you've probably had the customer come through the door who said, oh, that mannequin. I'll take the whole thing, I'll take the whole look. Because they love how you've put your touch on it through merchandising and styling. And when we use stock photos again on social media or on your website, and you've lost all the ability to make it unique and to merchandise the look. So the last thing I'll say that also is a huge drawback for using stock photos is sizing. One of the biggest struggles people have with buying online, and this has been for a number of years, is really understanding what is the size and how is it going to fit me. And when you use stock photos, you're kind of up to whatever the model is, right? Like maybe the model's a zero, but how does this hit for someone who's a long torso or a short torso? Or how does this fit someone who is a plus size person? So there's no ability to relate to your customer on how does this actually fit me? If you are someone who's gotten serious about growing your brand online, your customers will typically get very accustomed to whoever the model is and understanding, okay, this is Tina, she's the model and she's a size six. And we all know that Tina has, you know, bigger hips. Or this is Rebecca and she's my plus size model. And here's how she's plus size. Not all plus size models are the same, right? You can be plus in a lot of different ways. You could be broad shouldered, you could be bigger on the middle, you could be shorter, you could be taller, you could be athletic. There's a number of ways to slice and dice it. So one of the main reasons for success for those who have really gone and sold well online is the customer can relate to the model and stock photos totally take that option off the table for you. So there's a million reasons in my book why stock photos do your brand absolutely no good. And I think in order to really grow online and really to grow your brick and mortar as well, and to drive excitement and FOMO and get people viewing your social media and coming into the store, is to create a brand through photography. So you've got to start to set yourself up with some really good systems and processes to allow you to get there. You don't have to have an expensive photographer. You can do it all with an iPhone and a light ring. Just need the process. Where's the space? With good lighting, I could take the photos with a clear and consistent background. What's the day that I'm going to do it every single week. What's the process for unboxing and hanging and steaming these items and merchandising them together so that they're ready on this day for the photo shoot and then they're ready for the launch after that photo shoot. So yes, it might take a little bit of work for you to put those things together up front, but I promise you the work will be worth the reward in the long run. Now, if you're Home and Gift let's talk about stock photos for home and Gift real quick. It is almost impossible to think that you're going to come in stock or re photograph every gold piece of jewelry or every candle in Home and Gift there are a lot better just like plain white background stock photos that are available to you. So if you're wanting to bring the home and gift and decor and accessories online, use those stock photos. That is totally fine. But you still need to have a plan for some kind of branded photos that are going to be for your headers, for your emails, for your website collections and for your website as a whole and for your social media. So you're going to be listing these items with stock photos again in home and gift, not so much in apparel and but then get some of those well lit, consistent, same background, well merchandised photos that are going to be more for marketing photos. So go through and just look at your brand and say if I went to this website, would I buy these things? Does this brand have an identity? Do I feel like I can relate to this brand? Do I trust this website? Like are there real people here? Is there a real story here? Is there a real location here? Or is this just a bunch of stock photos that happen to look like everybody else online? So there you have it. No more stock photos. If you want more conversation around this topic, you guys hit me up on A.J. alderson, my personal Instagram. I would love to talk to you all day long about when or where to use stock photos. Heck, send me your website link, ask me a question about how your photos look and I'd be happy to give you feedback anytime. Thanks for listening to this five Minute Friday you guys. I appreciate you. Thanks for showing up. I'll see you next week. Thanks for listening guys. I hope you took away all kinds of nuggets and new ideas from this week's episode. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a rating and review. We love to hear your feedback and give you a chance to be featured on the show each and every week. For more information on our spirit of community over competition and to access guest downloads and bonuses and all the resources we talked about on the show. Head on over to the boutiquehub.com and join the community. We'll see you next week.