As humans we are drawn to images and video, including on business websites.
Pages full of text make it hard for the visitor to stay focused on the product or service that you are offering.
On the flipside, there is zero point in using images purely to break up the text on your website page. For example, this type of thing:
That just annoys people!
Here we’re going to separate out video and images into two categories of products (below) and services …
It’s easier to use product images and videos than it is to use images and videos for services.
If you have physical products then you have plenty of opportunity to impress visitors to that part of your website.
Your starting points here are your competitors.
Your objective is to utilise images and video in ways that are stronger than all your competitors combined.
Here’s how to do it …
Create a list of all your competitors, including their website urls.
Also do a Google search to see who appears under search phrases related to your products. You may be surprised to see some competitors appear that you weren’t aware of.
Spend time visiting the product pages of your competitors, looking specifically for the images and videos they are using on pages that are comparable to the products that you offer.
For each positive example, copy the url of that page into a document, along with a screenshot of the image(s)/video(s) you’ve seen on that page.
Ignore anything that is vanilla/general/stock photography.
Having built up a document of competitors website urls and examples of images/videos from those pages, review them all within that one document and highlight which ones are stronger than others.
For example, if you make metal widgets, some of your competitors may have supplied images/video of the process taken to make metal widgets, but the quality will vary. You need to decide who has done the best job (from the viewpoint of a potential customer viewing that product page) and then highlight that in your document.
You will also need to focus on the quantity of images and videos. If, for example, most competitors have two or three images of their product but one competitor has many more images (perhaps implying how busy they are at creating those products), then you would focus on the one that supplied the most.
Videos should also be compared. Some are too long and try to cram too much in, whereas the solution is to create a series of smaller videos, each focused on one topic area that gives the website visitor the choice of viewing only those parts that they’re interested in.
You should now have your research document, where you’ve highlighted the best parts of what your competitors have done with their product images and video.
You now know what would impress your own website visitors if your product pages contained images and video in a way that equals and then beats your competitors.
Your next action is to create a basic list of what you want to create, ready to be added to your product website page(s). For example:
Now it’s time to add something extra …
It’s worth asking yourself whether all your competitors combined have missed anything out.
What else could your potential customers be interested in, that could be portrayed in images or video?
What you’re trying to do here is go beyond what’s been done before and create that extra piece of magic within your own product pages.
The overall objective of this stage is for you to visualise this happening:
Your list of actions may appear to be huge, and potentially have associated costs and time to create.
This is where many fall down because they put the planning in place but the implementation can seem daunting.
Our recommendation is to take each task and break it down into manageable bite-sized tasks, aiming to achieve just one part each day (perhaps focusing up to an hour on it). Those bite-sized tasks should then be added into a project plan (and/or your day-to-day calendar) so that there’s focus time on the implementation of each part.
Something that works particularly well is to focus on just one product as follows:
Having implemented images and video that exceeds the combination of all your competitors, you will gain more enquiries from your website visitors.
This is the time to increase your marketing spend, fully confident that your website beats all your competition.
Increased spend leads to increased enquiries and weakens your competitors, while strengthening you.
Although unlikely to happen for awhile (they won’t realise what’s happened), some of your competitors may realise that you have vastly improved your website and will go through the same process themselves.
Here’s how we recommend staying aware of what your competitors are doing:
Unlike products, services are not so easy to portray in the form of images and videos.
What do you do if your service doesn’t naturally have images/video that would apply? For example, if you provide consultancy, telecoms, or IT support services.
What you definitely should NOT do is to automatically follow what many others do.
Resist the urge to use stock photography of people shaking hands, or round a meeting table, or anything similar. Those type of images add no value at all.
Your objective is to utilise images and video in ways that are stronger than all your competitors combined.
Here’s how to do it …
Create a list of all your competitors, including their website urls.
Also do a Google search to see who appears under search phrases related to your services. You may be surprised to see some competitors appear that you weren’t aware of.
Spend time visiting the service pages of your competitors, looking specifically for the images and videos they are using on pages that are comparable to the services that you offer.
For each positive example, copy the url of that page into a document, along with a screenshot of the image(s)/video(s) you’ve seen on that page.
Ignore anything that is vanilla/general/stock photography.
Having built up a document of competitors website urls and examples of images/videos from those pages, review them all within that one document and highlight which ones are stronger than others.
For example, if you sell telecoms services, some of your competitors may have supplied images/video showing the financial savings and operational efficiencies achieved by using them for one aspect of telecoms services (e.g. mobile phones).
The quantity and quality of the images are also important. If, for example, most competitors have one image directly related to their service, but another competitor has many more images, then you would focus on the one that supplied the most.
Videos should also be compared. Some are too long and try to cram too much in. The solution is to create a series of smaller videos, each focused on one topic area that gives the website visitor the choice of viewing only those parts that they’re interested in. For example, a telecoms business offering mobile phone services could divide that into a series of short videos, each focusing on cost savings, operational efficiencies, and more.
It’s highly likely that many of your competitors will not have innovated with their service images or video, opting instead to include generic stock photography that adds no value. If you find this, it’s a fantastic opportunity to think creatively about what you offer and what types of images/videos would impress visitors to each service page. For service-based businesses, those opportunities could easily include:
All you have to do is think about how those could be portrayed in image or video form, instead of too much focus on text descriptions.
You should now have your research document, where you’ve highlighted the best parts of what your competitors have done with their services images and video.
Your next action is to create a basic list of what you want to create, ready to be added to your service website page(s). For example:
Now it’s time to add something extra …
It’s worth asking yourself whether all your competitors combined have missed anything out.
What else could your customers be interested in, that could be portrayed in images or video?
What you’re trying to do here is go beyond what’s been done before and create that extra piece of magic within your own service pages.
The overall objective of this stage is for you to visualise this happening:
Your list of actions may appear to be huge, and potentially have associated costs and time to create.
This is where many fall down because they put the planning in place but the implementation can seem daunting.
Our recommendation is to take each task and break it down into manageable bite-sized tasks, aiming to achieve just one part each day (perhaps focusing up to an hour on it). Those bite-sized tasks should then be added into a project plan (and/or your day-to-day calendar) so that there’s focus time on the implementation of each part.
Something that works particularly well is to focus on just one service as follows:
Having implemented images and video that exceeds the combination of all your competitors, you will gain more enquiries from your website visitors.
This is the time to increase your marketing spend, fully confident that your website beats all your competition.
Increased spend leads to increased enquiries and weakens your competitors, while strengthening you.
Although unlikely to happen for awhile (they won’t realise what’s happened), some of your competitors may realise that you have vastly improved your website and will go through the same process themselves.
Here’s how we recommend how to stay aware of what they’re doing:
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