What Are You Lookin' At? (It's Time to Find the RIGHT Images)

If you've looked at another advisor's website and thought, "That's what I want MY website to look like," chances are it's because of one simple thing: the images.

Most of the time you don't realize it - you think it's the layout or some of the graphics there, but I promise you that when I have an advisor contact me and tell me, "I want my website/marketing to look like that" my immediate answer is going to be, "Then you need to have a branding photo shoot."

And many times, unfortunately, that's where I lose some people. Then they go right back to doing what they did before - which doesn't get them anywhere and, frankly, doesn't make them happy.

I understand why they're hesitating; branding photo shoots are a little intimidating for several reasons:

Time
Money
No desire to see pictures of yourself (we are our own worst critics)

But I can guarantee you that the time and money will be well spent when you have an entire library of custom photos and even if you hate what you think is a double chin, the result is that your potential client is already feeling like they're getting to know you.

Think About This

At the very least, the images on your website and throughout your marketing need to tell a visual story and this is why:

The human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text.

Yup. Before your potential client even reads the copy on your website they're already getting an idea of who you are and who you work with.

Years ago, the trend in financial planning seemed to be to have a lot of pictures of nature on advisor websites and for the life of me I can't figure out why. I don't know what clouds or a trail going through the woods has to do with creating a plan for retirement, but there you have it.

That's not good enough anymore. When I open your website I need to see a visual story of who you are and who you work with. Even if it's a stock photo (my branding photographer will break out in hives when she reads that), it's better than pictures that do nothing to as far as your branding goes.

Here's an example:

I have a client with Lincoln Financial Advisors (Charpentier Wealth Strategies) who recently updated her website while we were in the middle of COVID, so a branding shoot wasn't possible. But that didn't mean our hands were completely tied. Here are her hero images at the top of her website:

Immediately these images tell the story of who she works with:

Small business owners
Women
Retirees
Young families
She lives in southern California, so having people of color was important in these images

Why is this important? Because people need to see themselves in your marketing. They need to envision themselves as your client before they reach out for the first time. And while they might not realize it...that's exactly what these photos accomplish.

Before I wrap this up, I want to give you a few more reasons why visual storytelling is so important in your marketing:

90% of the information processed by the brain is visual.
It takes only 13 milliseconds for the human brain to process an image.
80% of people remember what they see, compared to ten percent what they hear and 20 percent of what they read.
In responses to a recent survey, 95% of B2B buyers said that they wanted shorter and highly visual content.
When people hear information, they’re likely to remember only 10% of that information three days later. However, if a relevant image is paired with that same information, people retained 65% of the information three days later.
On Facebook, photos have an interaction rate of 87%, compared to 4% or less for other types of posts, such as links or text.
Tweets with images receive 150% more retweets than tweets without them.