By Liz Hammond of Local Food Marketplace and Tricia Phelps of Taste the Local Difference
Online sales through Local Food Marketplace increase your products’ accessibility, offer convenience to your customers, and develop key marketing touch points that you otherwise would not have – but you need to harness these opportunities to get the most out of them.
We teamed up with Taste the Local Difference (TLD) for a four-part series focused on quick, easy, and impactful marketing resources for farmers, food hubs, and markets! Taste the Local Difference specializes in marketing local food and to help amplify their efforts. TLD represents thousands of local food businesses across the value chain, and they all have one thing in common: limited time and resources.
Part 3: Use Pictures Worth Clicking
At the farmers market we can taste the peppery bite of an arugula leaf, smell the aroma of freshly baked bread, test the ripeness of a peach with a gentle squeeze, and hear—often directly from the producer—the story of how their food was grown or made. We shop with our senses, and when we shop online those senses are limited. When you can’t rely on a free sample or a friendly chat to make the sale, product photos are the next best thing. Quality images reach through the screen and spark a sensory response, helping your customers imagine just how good your products taste, smell, and feel.
In Part 2 of our TLD series, we discussed social media strategies to maximize your online store. An impactful practice for your online store and social media is the use of high quality, clear images to highlight your product and marketplace. Social media is an excellent tool for driving traffic to your online store, too! Now that you have the traffic, how do you convert this to sales?
Use these tips and tools to represent your brand online with high-impact photos that help drive sales.
 |
 |
 |
Add an image for every product
Online items without a photo are usually matched with a logo, low-quality stock image, or just a blank space. These placeholders look generic and skippable, and do nothing to entice customers. Great photos capture customers’ attention and help differentiate your products. While it’s tempting to assume that customers know what they want and don’t need photos to help them shop (Everyone has seen a carrot. Do I really need to add a picture?), remember that in an online marketplace your pictures are your packaging. Think about how much goes into making products stand out on grocery store shelves or farmers market displays. Well-styled, high-quality images are the key to standing out online.
Customize your product photos
One way to quickly build a customized image library is to hire a photographer. For about $300/hour an experienced food photographer will capture images of your products styled in ways that emphasize your brand. Share inspiration photos, branding guidelines, or key words (e.g., fresh-picked, handmade, heirloom) to help the photographer understand as much as possible about your business and your vision for the photos. Ask for links to their portfolio and published work to get a sense of their style.
If the $300/hour rate feels out of reach, consider organizing a full day shoot for multiple vendors. The photographer may offer a day rate (which is often a better deal than an hourly rate), and you can offer time slots for other local businesses to sign up and get their products professionally photographed. Charge a fee for each participating business and use those funds to cover your costs.
Another added benefit for having professional photographs of your products and vendors is the ability to reuse these photos for different purposes. In part 1 of our TLD series, we discussed how to use press releases to promote your online store. News outlets love a good photo opportunity, so providing a professional, licensed photograph with your press release is a sure fire way to get your story out there.
If you’re using a stock photo, make it a good one
If paying a photographer is out of reach or you need high-quality placeholders while you’re waiting on a photoshoot, browse an image bank. Unsplash offers thousands of high resolution photos contributed by photographers all over the world. Their photos are free to download and use to market your business. When searching for images, keep in mind that effective product photos have:
- Good variation in color
- Aren’t too busy or cluttered
- Make it clear what the product is
Unclear Image
|
Clear Image
|
Taste the Local Difference offers a library of high quality photos
In a large image bank it can take some digging and a critical eye to find appropriate photos to represent your products. And if you’re selling unique produce varieties, you might be out of luck. A search for “purple carrot” in Unsplash yields plenty of photos, but only 3 feature the root vegetable. The Taste the Local Difference image library comprises over 75 high-quality photos shot specifically for use in Local Food Marketplace. For $100 you can access the full image catalog and set high-quality photos as the default image for your fruit and vegetable products.
We hope these tools and tips empower you to choose the best images to represent your brand and help you build a more beautiful online store!
Let us know how it goes, and keep an eye out for more marketing tips on the blog from TLD! You can gain access to 1:1 support and customized marketing strategies from Taste the Local Difference here.
