It’s crucial to look professional when potential customers find you, especially when online, as such customers can’t physically see you and must base their trust entirely on your online image.
However, there are many pitfalls you should – and can – avoid when creating an online presence for your business. So, what dangers do you need to be careful of? What things can show your photo business in a less than attractive way?
1. Poor Website and Template Designs
The first thing a possible customer sees when he or she finds you is, of course, your website.
One of the most basic, simplest things that can scare people away from your website is an outdated appearance or design. It can readily discourage people from buying your photo products.
Another mistake you can make is through lacking user-friendly navigation options. In this case, your customer won’t be able to find what they want and, sooner or later, they will give up and leave your website, all without making a purchase. Similarly, it’s also important to make color choices that are tasteful and appropriate for your brand, yet also ensure the website remains clear and readable.
Alongside your website design and certainly no less important are your photo product templates. If a potential client wants to create a beautiful photo book, they will likely want a design that is beautiful with a modern sense of style. Consequently, the templates you offer should be refreshed and updated to ensure they are inline with today’s trends. Ugly and obsolete templates, on the other hand, will only serve to make your photo product business appear unattractive to potential shoppers.
2. Inactive Social Media
In order to build a decent online brand image of your photo products company, having social media profiles is necessary.
However, it is often a much bigger problem when you create such accounts on various platforms and none of them are active. When users like and follow your profile or account, it means they have expressed an interest in the news, information and posts that you created – likely all connected with your photo product business. When you don’t provide this, such followers will lose interest or consider your company to be inactive.
Furthermore, situations where the excessive amount of social media activity across your profiles means you are unable to answer user questions or retain current contact can also negatively influence your brand image. When someone visits your profile and attempts to communicate, your inactivity and silence can easily result in a lack of purchase.
3. No Special Offers or Discounts
People like to save money and will often look for shops that offer discounts. If you don’t show off your available discounts and special offers, you can lose the interest of these potential customers.
Imagine you are visiting an online photo product store and see a big message claiming “15% off photo calendars”. Such a strong offer incentivises users to take advantage of the promotion. In other words, it’s essential to always highlight your discounts and promotions on your main page. This way, you can easily increase sales and ensure your photo product business remains attractive for new and existing customers alike.
What if you do not have any special discounts to showcase right now? Instead, try to offer other incentives – perhaps you offer free shipping when customers spend a certain amount in your store. Regardless of what you offer, ensure it is prominently displayed and highly visible, like in this example below.
4. No Clear Brand Identification
If your brand is inconsistent, showing different logos or colour schemes across social media profiles and adverts, this will put users off. This also applies on your website, so ensure all fonts and visual design styles remain consistent throughout.
You should solve this by defining a permanent style for your logo, leading colors, fonts, themes and images, before applying this to all forms of media. This includes your website and social media profiles, but also your marketing materials, including your advertising, newsletters and emails.
5. Poor Quality Product Presentation
The quality of your photo products readily reflects upon your brand image, often creating the first impression your customers will have. How you show your products can either encourage or discourage potential buyers to make a purchase in your photo product store.
Big and realistic photos can provide the right view for your products, showcasing their quality. This is especially important in a sector such as photo products, where items should always look pretty and appealing.
Look at this example of proper product presentation using a few, good-quality and stylish photos.
This is also true when it comes to photo product descriptions. Your descriptions should be rich with detail, written well and containing important keywords. Above all else, they should show the possibilities and pleasures your products can provide, in addition to all the technical aspects that customers need to know.
If any of these problems exist in your photo product business, try to eliminate them as soon as possible, while also being sure to avoid these mistakes in the future. Even the smallest mistake can heavily impact the image your brand has, losing visitors before they have a chance to convert into loyal customers!
Katarzyna Michałowska
Reader. Writer. Communicator. PR & Marketing Specialist at Printbox. Learning from only the best and writing killer copy.
