3 Unique Ways to Get Attention with Photos

Marketing with photographs is an excellent way for business owners and entrepreneurs to create marketing that stands out and gets attention.  Photos in marketing have been around since the early 20^th century and some of the greatest names in advertising have created world-famous campaigns built around photos.

Ogilvy’s Rolls Royce ad, Bernbach’s VW ads, Absolut Vodka’s ads are a few that immediately come to mind.

We should all be using photos in our marketing, but most business owners and entrepreneurs who do use photos, typically use stock photos and images.  And while I have absolutely nothing against stock photos – I use them myself – I want offer up three ways you can use your own photos in your marketing.

Power Poses

You’ve seen these before and I use them all the time.  They are photos of you, in various poses, taken in such a way that the background is transparent.  This allows you to overlay your photos on top of other graphics or backgrounds. Every marketer should have a set of Power Poses in their marketing tool kit and here’s three ways to get your own.

 

Hire a local professional photographer.  Any pro can do these for you easily.  They can even do the Photoshop work required to remove the background and make it transparent.  Chances are this will not be in-expensive, but I’ve used the same photos for years so it’s worth the investment.

Go to your local department store or mall where there’s a Picture People or some type of photo studio.  I know Sears and J.C. Penney have studios.  Have them take the photos on a white or green-screen background and make sure you leave with a CD-ROM of digital photos.  You will need to find somebody familiar with Photoshop to do the background removal.

The last idea is for anybody who hosts events.  To help my clients create their own Power Poses – at different events I’ve hosted, I paid a professional photographer to set up a studio and take the photos.  ATTENDEES LOVE THESE!  If you do any type of marketing event, this is a niche add-on and one that will be greatly appreciated by your attendees.

Click here to download a PDF I gave my attendees to help them choose their Power Poses.

Your Seat Here Photos

This is a fun strategy if you host events or sell some type of product or service that people must experience first-hand.  For the sake of this article, I’m showing event marketing, but I can easily see real estate professionals or travel professionals using this strategy too.

The idea is to take a photo of your event in such a way that you can “black out” one of the people in the picture.   Then using a CopyDoodles® handwriting font and arrow, you write an personal note and draw an arrow telling the recipient you’re saving a seat for them at your next event.  You can see a few examples of how I and others have used this strategy.  What I like most about this, is that it allows the recipient to “see themselves” at the event and helps further the sales process.

Cartoon Photo Overlays

This last idea is for any business owner who doesn’t take themselves too seriously and likes to have fun with their marketing.  I’m not sure if anybody else has done this, but recently for my CopyDoodles members, we’ve started creating “cartoon photo overlays.”

Remember Colorforms®?

When you were a kid these were little adhesive things that you could stick on pictures of people and you could put hats and ears and other fun things on them.  I took this idea and applied it to my marketing and came up with a collection of these graphics designed to be laid on top of your photos.

Now for those of you who are familiar with photo editing packages like Photoshop, or Paint, you can easily go into one of those photo image-type programs and start layering.  You can also layer photos in Word, Publisher and PowerPoint.

If you’re a CopyDoodles member, you can log into the CopyDoodles Access Club and check them out (if you’re not a member, visit CopyDoodles.com) or you can hire a graphic designer to create your own personal set of cartoon photo overlays.

How are You Using Photos in Your Marketing?

So there you have a few, fun and unique ideas on how you can use customized photographs in your marketing.  If you have used photos in your marketing in other unique ways, leave a comment below and share with everybody.  I would love to hear (and see) what you’re doing!