Putting Your Best Photos Forward for Black Friday
Moving into this Black Friday, traffic to your site will increase over the next few months exponentially. People have become conditioned to start their search for good deals on products they want, gifts for loved ones, and new product launches around this time of year.
First impressions
Good website imagery can make or break your e-commerce sales no matter how well written your story is. Often the quickest way to help the user’s experience on your site is through the use of high quality images. So how exactly do you increase your online sales while using high quality images?
Placement
On the Homepage, large image sliders are a great way to capture the attention of your visitors who are visiting your site from an indirect traffic source. I.e. an organic Google Search. These sliders are often used to direct traffic to specific landing pages or products. This key area is often your sites most prominent visual element so the best of the best photos should go here.
Example of a slider with a call to action
Utilizing Featured Images
Another area that is frequently overlooked is the featured image. Most content management systems have this functionality built directly into the site so the lack of use is inexcusable. Featured images set the tone for your story. 34% of marketers selected visual assets as their most important content, behind blogging (45%) and before videos (19%). If you are selling guided trips, do you want to show your potential clients the above average brown that was snapped with the guides phone (this is okay for social media posts) or a high definition image that captures the emotion of your client catching the area’s “Lodge Monster”. Use your blogs to sell experiences over things.
What are Look-books and why you should be using them
An upcoming trend in the online industry is creating look-books for products. A look-book is a series of images compiled to showcase a product and the lifestyle it fits. Not every angler fishes the same and utilizing a look-book can really speak to these individual audiences. An angler from Colorado who enjoys their weekends going on backpacking adventures fishing for Cutthroat Trout out of high country lakes is more likely to react to imagery that speaks to this lifestyle over exotic trips to the Bahamas for bonefish. Visual content is 40x more likely to get shared on social media than other types of content, so make sure you are speaking to the right audiences.
Patagonia’s fly fishing section has effectively combined a quality look-book with a converting landing page. Check it out here.
When deciding which audiences to speak to, your ad campaigns will practically write themselves. But they won’t dress themselves. Researchers found that colored visuals increase people’s willingness to read a piece of content by 80%. Once you’ve determined which audience you want to target for the holiday season, the imagry for your upcoming ad campaigns will determine how well your audience will receive your social ads.
Adverts must always follow the 3 Bs. Big, Bold, and Beautiful.
The holiday season is the most competitive for ad space on the bigger social sites like Facebook. Knowing your audience and planning ahead to acquire assets in time for your advertisements will put you ahead of your competitors who treated their marketing like an afterthought. Your advertisements should appeal to emotion. Appealing to the human senses is an important factor in the buying decision. People who are engaged in the pleasure and excitement of purchasing a new product are more likely to follow through with the checkout process than the people who are shopping for the dutiful acquisition of life’s necessities.
The TL;DR (Too Long Didn’t Read)
While there might be several areas on your site that need your immediate attention, your websites visual elements shouldn’t take a back seat to everything else. The use of good imagery is key to your brand’s creditability and recognition. When shoppers are on your site, they will be more inclined to make buying decisions if they emotionally resonate with your product’s story. We have provided a quick guide to help you get through this Black Friday ahead of the game and ahead of your competition. Click the image below to download your copy today.
