Use Photos and Videos to Make Your Brand Stand Out
We live in a world that is very visually driven. Just check your screen time on your devices, and I bet it's more than you like to admit. Big businesses know that branding is about more than just good products or services—it's about what story you tell about your business. Visual storytelling is the key to that.
Just ask yourself this: What brand have you used throughout your life? Beyond its reliability, it's simply because you have bought into the story or image of the brand. Take Apple products, for example. Yes, they're reliable (debatable), but despite their pricier costs, people still buy them anyway. Why? because they also symbolise status and elegance.
Building Brand Trust Through Authentic Storytelling
Trust is the foundation of long-term business success. The right mixture of photography and videography allows your brand to narrate and tie in an everlasting story. Pushing a product in the customers’ faces is never a sustainable strategy, but telling a story on how your brand fits into the lives of real people, and solving their problems is. One of the greatest storytelling brands is Nike, check it out here.
A loyal customer base is built on visuals that speak reliability and warmth and it fits into their daily lives. Using Khatam as an example, they are selling traditional attires with a modern touch. Competition in this sphere is intense as the market for this is saturated. But Khatam stood out and created a niche for themselves by powerful visual storytelling and embracing the heritage. The story they told has appealed to the masses.
Source: Khatam’s official website — A powerful visuals and narrative of the brand highlighting the feel and essencece of their products.
Showing Value by Solving Problems Visually
A customer exists only to have their needs met or problems solved. The most effective way to convey this is through the right visual presentation. Showcasing how your business addresses real issues or real desires, and sometimes even before they realise these needs themselves.
An insightful visual narrative communicates the value they offer in a subtle yet impactful way. This approach will shift the approach of hard sell to a more refined demonstration of how your brand can do good for your customers.
Using Khatam again as an example, on top of focusing on fashionable-modernized traditional wear, they focus on solving two problems: The easy maintenance of these clothes (people generally hate ironing) and the breathability/comfort of these clothing.
Source: Khatam’s official Facebook page — A video explaining its offerings while showcasing the lifestyle and the problems that its products solve.
Why hire Professionals
While there is nothing wrong with preparing these visuals DIY style, just consider this; on top of your already hectic schedule running your business, are you ready to spend more time/costs just to pick up the bare minimum skill set to do so?
The trial & error costs just to find the right mix of art direction can be hefty. It costs at least MYR 5K just to equip yourself with an acceptable level of gear to shoot and edit. And it also risks damaging your brand reputation in the process.
Outsourcing might be the smarter/economical approach instead. We bring our experience and expertise to the table. We help you decide the art direction that works best, all the equipment needed, and editing expertise that gives you the right story of the brand that you want to get across. We also give you insights on the current market trend, and what your competitors are doing and advise on styles that best fit with your brand’s goals.
Source: Shoppee’s website — On top of the huge price tags, you’ll also need to learn how to use it properly.
Investing on other gears on top of camera not only will cost you, but you will also need to figure out maintaining and storage.
Building Customer Engagement at Every Step of the Buying Journey
Customers don’t buy there and then. Instead, we all go through what we call the “Buying Journey”.It begins with capturing the customer's awareness, sparking their interest, and, ultimately, guiding them toward making a purchase.
Visuals are important for every stage of the journey, easing them to casual interest, and coasting them slowly to the purchasing stage. Remember the last time you saw an ad and straight away bought it? Yeah neither do we. We usually take time to ponder and familiarise and imagine how it will be to buy it.
Giving customers informative photos and videos, warms up your customers without overwhelming them, allowing them to explore and imagine the benefits of your offerings before they make a decision.
Awareness: Grab attention, visuals that speak the brand’s identity, sparking curiosity.
Consideration: Hooking them in, with visuals that display uniqueness and showcasing how it fits their lives.
Decision: Visuals that give them the final push of confidence, customer testimonials, and real-world experiences of the products, making them feel confident.
The Benefits of Catalogues and Educational Visual Content
Almost all businesses can benefit from having catalogs for their offerings. It is an educational tool for customers to see, explore, and learn about your offerings in detail behind the scenes, and imagine how they will fit into their lives. It warms up customers, allowing them to familiarise themselves in a non-pressured way.
Catalogs reduce friction in the buying process and create a seamless experience that customers will remember and return to. Nowadays, with digital, interactive catalogs, customers can get a closer feel of the products, helping them move to the buying decision faster.
(Source: https://khatam.com.my/collections/)
(Source:https://www.converse.my/men/shoes/)
2. Elevating Physical and Digital Spaces with Visual Displays/Stories
Notice how all big brands have visuals all over their stores? Visuals help to incite feelings of excitement, they will automatically imagine how they will look and feel by wearing the products. You can also invest in a huge TV set (52” inches or bigger) and display it there, bonus point is you can keep things fresh and change the visuals displayed throughout.
For online/social media platforms, visuals are used to strengthen your brand’s digital presence. Professional crafted content breaks through the crowded feeds when crafted with platform-specific appeal, they build an emotional connection with the audience, promoting interactions more than just likes and shares.
(source: Khatam’s official Facebook page)
3. Create a website
Having a website is a must for today, and it costs way less than you’d think and reaps more benefits than you’d imagine. Check out Squarespace, it's super affordable and super intuitive, and yes, you can do this by yourself without hiring anyone.
Having a website shows seriousness and class in doing business, instantly separating you from your competitor( or putting you on the same playing field). While having all those visuals is great, it works even better if you have a website to craftfully display it. You can fully use those visuals by having video banners, photos, and a catalog – creating a space that brings your customers into your brand
Go ahead, claim your free website trial today.
A website makes it easier for you to browse and explore everything we offer.
4. Social Media Vertical Format
Social media platforms currently dominate our media consumption – for better or worse. So it's important to make sure visuals are optimized for them – with Vertical Format media. The majority of our media consumption is using our mobile devices (have you ever purposely opened your laptop just to browse social media?) so the content must be optimized for these channels.
You might have the nicest visuals but if it doesn’t look good on those media, it might not be as effective. Bonus point— Professional photographers usually provide raw files in 4K, so you can use them for a variety of platforms - websites, social media, and so on.
Major brands uses 4K composed videos/photos that can be optimised for both landscape/horizontal orientations
5. Post Customer Service
The best customers are returning customers, and happy customers who return most likely will tell others about it too.
Simple content like tutorial videos, care instructions, or a follow-up email with helpful visuals can add more value to their customer experience. These visuals can help you to send your appreciation and encourage customers to repeat purchases. To top it all off, these contents can even help you to reduce the costs of support-related inquiries.
Source: Khatam official website
Final Thoughts: Why Visuals Are a Worthwhile Investment
If you want to grow your business, professional visuals offer more than just a marketing expense—they’re an investment in customer trust, brand loyalty, and market positioning. More than just an attention piece, it builds lasting relationships between your brand and audience.
We professionals can help translate what you have in mind for your brand and turn it into an impactful story and will better equip you to connect with customers, communicate your value, and build a brand that people trust and turn to for years to come. In the end, it’s this investment in quality, authenticity, and expertise that will set your business apart.
