Content is incomplete without visuals. You need to engage your audience’s mind with beautiful colours, pictures, and videos every step of the way.
While using original photos is always the best case scenario, it’s hard to do as a startup, especially when you have to run a marketing campaign every now and then.
This is where the excellence of stock photos comes in. They come in plenty, and they are always super specific for the needs of most unique businesses. And the best part? Many are free to use!
Without further ado, let’s discover some of the smartest ways to use stock photos for content.
1. Giving Visual Breaks in Your Blogs
When writing blog content, it’s important to keep your audience engaged and ensure they don’t feel overwhelmed by long blocks of text. Stock photos can serve as an effective tool to break up the monotony and make your content more digestible.
Here’s how stock images increase blog readability:
Breaking Up Large Blocks of Text
A wall of text can be visually overwhelming. Using stock images strategically throughout your blog creates natural pauses, making it easier for readers to process and follow along.
Supporting Your Content with Visuals
Stock photos can illustrate the points you’re making in your text. For instance, if you’re writing about travel destinations, including relevant scenic images can evoke emotions and deepen the reader’s understanding of the topic.
Improving Reader Retention
Research has shown that people remember 65% of visual content three days after reading it, compared to only 10% of text alone. Using stock photos aligned with your blog’s content can help your readers remember the information more effectively.
Making Your Blog More Scannable
Readers often scan articles before fully engaging. Including visuals like stock images helps break the text into more digestible sections, allowing readers to easily skim through and find sections that interest them.
Incorporating stock photos this way not only enhances the visual appeal of your blog but also creates a smoother, more enjoyable reading experience.
2. Enhancing Social Media Posts
In the fast-paced world of social media, grabbing attention quickly is essential. Stock photos can play a pivotal role in making your posts stand out in the feed. With the right image, you can instantly catch the eye and spark interest, leading to more engagement through likes, shares, and comments.
Why use stock photos for social media?
Quick Engagement
Posts with images produce 650% higher engagement than text-only posts. Stock images, when used with catchy captions, can significantly boost interaction rates.
Consistency in Branding
By selecting stock photos that align with your brand’s aesthetic (colour schemes, tone, mood), you can maintain a consistent brand image across all your social channels.
Cost-Effectiveness
When you need frequent posts, using stock photos helps keep costs low while still offering high-quality visuals to maintain your online presence.
3. Elevating Website Visuals
Your website is often the first impression potential customers get of your business, and high-quality visuals can make or break that impression. Stock photos provide an affordable way to create a visually stunning website that tells your brand’s story.
Stock photos can instantly elevate your website’s look, making it appear more polished and professional.
For startups or small businesses without a huge budget for custom photography, stock photos can serve as a temporary solution to fill image gaps in service pages, banners, or blog sections.
Images help create an intuitive flow on your website, guiding users through different sections with ease and keeping them engaged with your content.
4. Capturing Event Memories with Stock Photos
Whether you’re hosting a virtual webinar or an in-person event, finding the right images to promote it or showcase highlights afterward can be challenging. Stock photos can fill the gaps when you don’t have enough original images or need to quickly represent a certain event atmosphere.
Stock photos can help with the following:
Event Promotion
Use stock images to convey the excitement or professionalism of your upcoming event. Choose images that capture the vibe of your event, whether it’s casual, formal, or somewhere in between.
Event Recap
If you’re summarising a recent event, stock images can be used in blog posts or social media recaps to illustrate key moments, keeping your audience engaged even after the event has passed.
Flexible Themes
Stock photos come in a variety of event styles, from corporate conferences to relaxed meetups, ensuring you always have an image that fits the tone of your gathering.
5. Creating Eye-Catching eBook Covers
A compelling eBook cover is key to attracting readers. Stock photos can be a game-changer in making your eBooks look polished and professional without the need for custom photography.
First impressions matter, and a visually striking cover can entice readers to click on your eBook and explore further. Stock photos provide high-quality images at a fraction of the cost of commissioning a photographer, which is particularly useful when you’re producing multiple eBooks or working on a limited budget.
With so many diverse stock images available, you can easily find photos that align with your eBook’s subject matter, making the cover visually cohesive and relevant to the content.
6. Showcasing Branded Merchandise
Suppose your business involves selling physical products or branded merchandise. In that case, stock photos can help you create mockups, showcase products in lifestyle scenarios, or even highlight your brand logo in professional settings.
Showcasing your products in real-life scenarios—such as a person using your branded coffee mug or wearing your company’s T-shirt—helps customers visualise how they would use the product in their own lives.
7. Boosting Advertising Campaigns
In the competitive world of digital advertising, visuals are everything. Stock photos allow you to create eye-catching ads that grab attention and drive conversions without having to break the bank on a custom photoshoot.
Why are stock photos ideal for advertising?
Grabbing Attention Fast
Ads need to make an impact within seconds, and stock photos offer the versatility to create visually compelling ads for different platforms, from Facebook to Google display ads.
Versatile for Different Campaigns
Whether you’re running a holiday sale, launching a new product, or promoting a special offer, stock images provide a wide variety of options to fit the theme of any campaign.
Cost-Effective
Using stock photos in your ads allows you to save money while still producing high-quality visuals that resonate with your audience. This is especially helpful when running multiple campaigns at once.
8. Supporting Email Marketing Campaigns
Email marketing is a powerful tool for nurturing leads and staying connected with your audience.
Stock photos can help make your email campaigns more engaging and visually appealing, enhancing the overall impact of your message.
Emails with images see significantly higher click-through rates compared to text-only emails. Stock photos can provide visually appealing elements that encourage readers to interact with your content.
Such images can help visually convey the message you’re trying to get across, whether it’s promoting a sale, launching a new product, or sharing company news.
Final Thoughts
Stock photos are a versatile, cost-effective solution for businesses looking to enhance their visual content across multiple platforms.
Whether you’re designing a blog, creating social media posts, building a website, launching an ad campaign, or running an email marketing campaign, stock photos offer an accessible way to keep your content visually appealing and professional.
When used strategically, they can elevate your brand, engage your audience, and ultimately drive results for your business.
