Images: the things we place on our websites, marketing pieces, blogs, etc… are supposed to symbolize the idea that we are trying to explain. Sounds like a pretty easy thing to do, right? Well, from experience and vsiting lots of websites, apparently it isn’t! The pictures you choose for your marketing must create the same ideas, responses and emotions that the wording does, otherwise, why put the picture there at all?
For example, pulling from our website (www.tornadomktg.com), the first paragraph looks like this:
I’m Adrianne Machina. I started Tornado Marketing to serve the marketing needs of small businesses, especially those in technology consulting. During my 15-year career, I’ve met many business owners and executives who are amazingly technically competent and business savvy, but they struggle with marketing. Marketing is a fundamental part of business success. The best product (or service provider) rarely wins. It’s the provider who is perceived as being the best fit who wins — and that’s marketing! Tornado Marketing can help your business get GROWING! 
Although this is a very basic example, the image fits exactly what we are conveying. The picture is of Adrianne Machina (me) and the paragraph is about Adrianne Machina (me).
Good news!
There is an easy way to test your images to make sure that they are portraying what you want. Gather a group of friends together (people that you trust to give you their honest opinion about the pictures). Then, put out 4-5 of the pictures you were thinking about using for your marketing piece. Have them give you a description of what is going on in the picture or what feeling it evokes. You might be surprised at the answer people give you!
Lets take an image:
Now…leave a comment and tell us what you think the image is portraying or what you might use it for (type of ad, product, etc). We will see what the results are, and that will give you an idea of how one image can be seen in so many different ways….
This is a picture of a young woman on her lunch hour in a large metropolis who was hoping to get some work done on her laptop but the cell phone call is from her mother.
Alan Baumbach
March 26th, 2008
1 - Mac Pro laptop
2 - Use it for Serenity Day Spa with the caption “Can’t Get Away From It All? Get Really Away at Serenity!”
3 - Chapman Chiropractic - “Does Your Mobile Office Puts a Strain on your Back?”
4 - City Slickers Ranch - when city folk need a real getaway from a busy city life where you can’t escape to a quiet place.
Those are a few right off the top of my head!
Fellow DTMAC,
Randy
MarketingTwins-Randy
March 26th, 2008
[...] Duct Tape Marketing coach, Adrianne Machina, posts an intriguing article about the use of images on your website (or even in printed materials for that matter). Are your [...]
Marketing: What Do Your Images Say? « MARKETING TWINS.com
March 26th, 2008
Adrianne,
Great “game” for us to play. So many thoughts about the image:
1) A wireless company touting it’s mobile workforce
2) A woman working remotely while trying to figure out how she’s going to get down from the ledge!
3) A great promotion for a Sales person who says she will go to great heights to be there for you.
Those are just a few that come to mind. -donny-
MarketingTwins-Donny
March 27th, 2008
To me it portrays corporate mobility - the cell and the laptop.
David
April 1st, 2008