They Look Cheap
Most stock photography is just straight “meh.” They all have the same lighting, similar-looking Caucasian models, and exaggerated poses. While your customer support team may be phenomenal, and your web copy talks about how they are users of your product and know it inside and out, if you slap a generic image of “phone support agent” that every generic brand uses, your potential clients are going to get the feeling that your customer support experience is the same as every other brand’s—regardless of what your copy says.
They’re Generic
Stock photography photographers aim to make as many sales from each image, so they avoid anything notably stylized or specific. Nothing says, “we tailor our product to your needs,” less than a picture of some people shaking hands in the general vicinity of a laptop.
They Are What They Are
When creating imagery that’ll have typography set upon it, or needs to fit within specific cropping on a website, you create that image to fit perfectly within the space it’ll live. Stock photography photographers can’t do that for you, because the images aren’t created for your needs—they’re created to generate downloads.
They’re Everywhere
No, really, they’re everywhere. In the span of my career, I’ve spent countless hours finding the best* stock photo for employers without the means for bespoke photography, only to see the same image up on a competitor’s website the next month. How are you supposed to leverage your unique value proposition if there is nothing unique about your branding assets?
They Have Their Place
Okay, I know I’ve done a fair bit to slander the reputation of stock photography, but that doesn’t mean I think they should be banished from the face of the internet. In content marketing, the name of the game is creating consistent content to educate and connect. This requires a hefty amount of articles and web content to be generated at a rapid pace—creating bespoke assets would greatly slow down this process and deplete the ROI of your efforts. For this reason, stock photography tends to make do for all but the largest brands. That being said, even large brands such as Microsoft utilize bespoke photography in their Stories content. It should be noted though, that these images aren’t highly conceptual; for the most part, they’re photographs of the people involved in the story.
They Don’t All Suck
If you have to use stock photography, here are some tips I've come up with to help you find the images that are the least bad.
• Set a decent amount of time aside to dig through stock sites.
• Keep digging. Most stock sites sort their galleries by most popular—that means that the images on the first page are going to be the most frequently used out there in your industry. Do yourself a favor and dig deeper for some hidden gems.
• Think outside the box. Most people would search for the most literal image for their topic. Writing a blog post about travel rewards on a credit card? Your first thought may be of people at an airport or Spanish villa. However, any image of people enjoying themselves outside could be of people traveling.
Move Beyond Stock
You may not have the time or budget to bring me in to create bespoke images for your product or brand for your content marketing strategy. However, I highly encourage you to take the time or find the budget when it comes to branding collateral and the main pages of your website. If you aren’t going to have marketing images to support your brand or speak to your market, what does that say about your brand to your target consumers? *The best stock photographs still aren’t super compelling photographs.
