A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words – Marketing With Pictures

It is often said that a picture is worth a thousand words but when does it matter what those thousand words are?

If the picture is some form of art then it’s probably okay to let the viewer choose the thousand words… but what if it’s a picture being used in advertising?

Surely you would want the thousand words associated with that picture to be carefully thought out words that you’ve chosen yourself right? The point of advertising should be to convey a specific message.

This message should connect with people at a deep level, if it doesn’t, then you’ve failed to tap into the core fundamental desires of people that cause them to buy. These fundamental desires are called The Life Force 8 or LF8. They are responsible for more sales than all other human wants combined. These desires are common to everyone.

1. Survival, enjoyment of life, life extension
2. Enjoyment of food and beverages
3. Freedom from fear, pain, and danger
4. Sexual companionship
5. Comfortable living conditions
6. To be superior, winning, keeping up with the Joneses
7. Care and protection of loved ones
8. Social approval

Having said all of that, the topic of this article is the use of pictures through social media to spark interest and influence people to buy something. The examples being used today are for weight loss. The goal is to help demonstrate the effective use of a picture when used in marketing across social media, such as Facebook.

Facebook inherently allows for a description and a status update when uploading a photo. The best way to demonstrate this lesson is to use real photos currently being used as advertising.

Before we dive into that, just keep in mind how many photos go viral on Facebook. Most of them are not just pictures, unless they are funny memes.

Most of the viral pictures are ones that move people emotionally. Perhaps a picture of a young boy, holding the American flag because his father died in combat. That picture alone is moving, but when it comes accompanied with a story in the caption, it goes viral.

Caption: ““I lost 9lbs in 8 days using xxxx Fat Burning System, easiest 9lbs ever”

What does this picture and caption do for you?  Here’s what it does for most people.

1. They say who cares
2. They don’t believe it’s real
3. They look up xxxx Fat Burning System on google where they will find someone else giving them the information they want or reviews on how it’s a scam, either way, the chances they enroll under you are slim

This doesn’t mean to say that you won’t sell it to people with this picture.  I’ve done extensive banner and advertisement split testing over the years, everything sells at some point, but in running the tests we establish something called a conversion factor.  In other words, out of 1000 people who see this image, how many people will be interested enough to contact you and then buy?

It’s a simple statistic.  You can ask me any time of the day on average how many people I need to see any one of my sales pages before one person buys it and I have that data on hand.

There are two things I work toward improving, my exposure and my conversion.  When done simultaneously they compound but I have found over time that conversion is more important than exposure.

What good is running a poor advertisement during the super bowl that 10 million people see if the message is unclear and it doesn’t connect to anyone?  Especially when you can run a better converting advertisement and reach the same number of people?

This conversion factor is the most important factor on a sales page as well.  Are you converting 1 in 1000 people or are you converting 500 of 1000 people?

The message you relay in those “1000” words can significantly improve your conversion.  You may be a very great salesmen but if you had a choice between 1 out of 1000 people coming to talk to you or 500 out of 1000 people from this image, what would you choose?

Probably the 500 right?  So why wouldn’t you do everything in your power to effectively market your product with images?

Our goal then is to connect to the Life Force 8.  How can we do that?

First we need to connect to people at a personal level, something that hits them emotionally.  Yes, everyone wants to lose weight, but not everyone believes they can.  Simply seeing a photo of someone who lost weight, without knowing who they are or why they lost weight — will only inspire those people who already think they can lose weight to contact you.

Here begins our problem because we haven’t reached out to those who can’t believe they can lose weight and we haven’t given a reason to those who need it.

Your job is to convince everyone that this is possible for them as well.

We can do this by addressing what we have to offer.  Most weight loss products are not just about losing weight.  They’re about improving the quality of your life.

What are some of the reasons people want to lose weight and how can we connect to those specific people?

Let’s go over a few examples here.  Obviously, people are losing weight for reasons other than so they can look good in workout clothes as this picture indicates.

So what are some of those reasons?

What about life threatening illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease, or cancer?  There are many more, but how would we convey this message to connect with someone?

Let’s start with the picture.

The picture on the left is a daughter with her father.  Both of them appear to be out of shape and over weight, not very healthy looking people.  And the photo on the right is that daughter standing over her fathers grave, but she’s no longer unhealthy.  She appears to be in shape.

Did I get your interest at all with my picture?

The Caption

Sandy (age 34) and her father (age 53) were more like best friends than father and daughter.  They were close ever since Sandy’s mother died when she was 3.  Her father had raised her and protected her as far back as she could remember.  They did everything together.

When Sandy was feeling down her father was there to inspire her and lift her up.  When she left home at the age of 18 to go to college it was one of the saddest days of her life because she had known she would have to leave her father behind.

Her father, realizing how important it was to her, not only helped her move into her new dorm room but also moved to the city where she would be in college.  She was thrilled.  After college she got a job and her and her father kind of went separate ways.

One thing Sandy had always dreamed of is her dad walking her down the aisle at her wedding.

At age 34 it seemed she would finally get that chance.  Her father was so thrilled for her when she told him she was getting married.   Things were all set to go and her wedding was a week away when she got a disturbing phone call from the hospital.

It was her dad.  He had a heart attack and died at the age of 53 — a week before her wedding…leaving her alone for the first time in her life.  It turns out that her dream of having her greatest friend walk her down the aisle would no longer be possible.

“Impossible!” she told the doctors.  “He was so young.”

The doctors agreed with her but told her it was more than likely the result of her fathers unhealthy lifestyle.  He was overweight and didn’t exercise.

From that day forward, Sandy vowed to live a healthy lifestyle so that this could never happen to her children.  She wanted to lose all of her weight and she did thanks to xxxx weight loss program.

A less serious example…

Taking the photo above let’s use a less serious example, although an unhealthy lifestyle is the #1 cause of early death, not everyone loses weight just to live longer or be healthy.  Some people have more shallow purposes like high school reunions, proms, or weddings.

No one wants to show up at a 10 year reunion looking like jabba the hut.  No one wants to  look fat in a wedding or prom dress either.  So what type of pictures could convey this without words?

If you can somehow stage a reunion photo on the left with everyone else fit and in shape and one overweight person looking out of place and then on the right, that same over weight person but no longer over weight, then you’d be heading in the right direction.  Use that creative power to connect with people.

Or how about an unhappy woman trying to fit into her wedding dress but it won’t zip or button on the left side and on the right the most beautiful wedding dress and happy woman zipped up and ready to walk that aisle.

Don’t Forget The Caption

Even in something not so life threatening as losing weight for a wedding dress there is always a good emotional story.  If you can tell it then you’ll capture everyones attention that wants to get married and look good someday.

Use both the caption and the photo to speak to very specific groups, this is called niche marketing.  If you’re targeting weight loss alone, it’s just way too big of a niche.  If you target specific niches inside of weight loss, body building, health, and whatever else you have a product for then you are on your way to increasing your conversion.

To do this start identifying why people work out.  Is it to pick up girls?  How can you connect to those people?

What about why people want to be healthy?  Is it because someone close to them is sick? How can you connect to those people.

What about depression or lack of energy?  How can you demonstrate your product working for them with just a picture and a caption?

It is in targeted niches that people are willing to spend more money.

So would you rather have your picture spark the general interest of 1000 people and only be able to convert 10 of those or would you rather spark the specific interest of 100 people and convert 20?

These are questions I ask myself everyday as a niche marketer.  I can tell you from experience that if you convert 10 out of 100 in a specific niche and 10 out of 1000 in a general niche, that the 10 out of 100 are going to be way more valuable over time.

In closing, everyone who is using any weight loss or health products probably have a story — so tell it.  Everyone who wants to get these products and doesn’t even know it yet, has a goal — connect to it.

It makes the advertisement come to life and people feel like they know you personally when they know some of your story.  On top of that, you’re tapping into the power of LF8.