Solicit Photos from Satisfied Customers

Ask your customers to share with you photos of them enjoying the products and services they buy at your store. Then feature an ever-changing portfolio of the best of these photos in your advertising, on your website, and on your brick-and-mortar store walls.
     Review all photos to eliminate inappropriate ones, and be sure your uses of the photos are legally defensible. Watch out for exhibitionists. Some want to show off imaginative ways to use your products, ways that are entertaining, but wholly unsafe. You don’t want to imply that you endorse those uses. Others seem to have misread the phrase “solicitation of photos” to say “solicitation by photos,” and so respond with more exposure than fits your business image.
     With that out of the way, here are shopper psychology tips:

• In general, use only crystal clear images. Fuzzy images irritate most viewers. This irritation can corrupt positive impressions of your business.
• But if you’re wanting to persuade shoppers who like a challenge, fuzzy up the photos a bit. University of Chicago researchers showed heterosexual men photos of potential female dates and asked the men to judge each woman’s attractiveness. Some of the photos were crystal clear, while the other photos were out of focus by 15%. Those men who had previously described themselves as “smooth talkers” found the women in the blurry photos to be more attractive than those in the crystal clear photos. Meeting the challenge of decoding the blurry photo added to the attractiveness. On the other hand, the men describing themselves as “shy gawkers” judged the women in the clear photos as better looking.
• In comparative ads, do not show pictures of people using the product. University of Maryland researchers discovered that such pictures lead shoppers to start thinking about using the products themselves, and when they do this, they put too much mental energy into thinking about only the recommended product. They forget to pay attention to the comparative advantages, so the power of the comparative ad fades away.
• Acknowledge each submission. In the same place you solicit the photos, have a note explaining that you won’t be able to use each one. Even with this, however, people will yearn for acknowledgement. They’ve sent off to you something special. The photo captures the soul of them and/or of those they care about. In addition, the photo is their work of art. So remember that these people are your satisfied customers. At any point where you find you lack the resources to acknowledge every submission, stop soliciting more submissions.

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

Click below for more:
Offer Neatness to Creative Shoppers
Be Provocative, But Don’t Offend
Challenge Smart Shoppers
In Comparative Ads, Don’t Show Users