How Professional Photography of Interiors can Have a Great ROI
How Professional Photography of Interiors can Have a Great ROI
Professional photography is a powerful tool. Leveraging your interior photography properly can generate free publicity, improve your chances of being featured in an editorial, and give you the best chance when competing in design awards.
How Professional Photography of Interiors can Have a Great ROI
Why You Should Get a Professional Photographer
If you’ve ever seen a photo of yourself, then you know how many things can affect the way the camera sees you. The angle the photo is taken from, the quality of the camera itself, the lighting in the room, even the composition. You’re still the same person, nothing has changed about you, yet you can look almost completely unrecognizable from one photo to the next.
The same is true of interior design photography. Subtle changes to the light or different angles can draw attention to different features, textures, and colors. The way a photo is taken can make a room look warmer or more upscale, romantic or more family-friendly. The same examples you can offer to your clients about investing in your services as an interior designer can easily be paralleled as to why you would benefit from working with a professional interior photographer. As professional interior design photographers, we have the tools and knowledge to capture your designs because we have spent 20 years building that toolkit of experience and skills.
Editorial Features Are Endorsements of Your Work
Let’s assume that you are onboard with our claims as professional commercial editorial photographers. You know it will communicate your work better than your iPhone or a lower cost real estate photographer, but how can you get your investment back from it? Consider the power of free editorial coverage.
There is no doubt that at some point in nearly every client relationship, a reference has been made to a great interior image. Perhaps that image was from a catalog or Pinterest, an instagram account, or Houzz, or a magazine editorial. The visuals that your customer holds as a standard for their expectations usually come from third party images. More often than not, those photos are pulled directly from editorial content or aggregation. So how do you make your work the source of your customer’s inspiration? It’s a powerful vote of confidence to be featured in the editorial content that your customers read. You know what the best part is? Editorial coverage is usually free.
If you’re asking a publication, website or social media account to feature you in an editorial, it’s important to think from their perspective. Photo editors often don’t have time or budget to arrange a photoshoot specifically for a piece, however they still require high quality images, so they will be more inclined to include designers and establishments that can provide quality photographs on short notice.
How You Can Get Better ROI on Your Photography
Our clients have certainly found that having a variety of great, print-ready images prepared gives them an edge over those who don’t. For example, Architectural Digest recently ran a piece on hotels with bee gardens, and our client, the Baur au Lac, was able to provide our professionally staged image for the piece. Another client, Obelisk Home of Springfield, MO regularly finds their interior design work featured in publications and on sites like Houzz, because of their great work of course, but also because they can showcase that work with great photography.
Now, think about the value that an editorial feature brings to your business. A typical full page ad in a publication or a featured ad on a lifestyle website can cost many thousands of dollars. For that ad to work, you still need good interior photography. Many of our successful clients invest regularly in professional photoshoots then make a regular habit of posting and submitting the images for websites, social media accounts and publications. Those who follow this strategy are often rewarded with coverage worth far more than the cost of the photography.
