Should an engineering company invest in high-quality photography for their website and social media?
Engineering is predominantly technical. It’s all about fine measurements. It’s about precision. It’s about facts. And it’s about physics. So not surprisingly, a lot of engineering marketing revolves around words. You’ll be stating all the facts and figures about your products, as well as what they can achieve. You’ll be informing customers what a product is made of, and what’s it coated with, for example. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.
But good-quality imagery is really important to an engineering company. In fact, it’s as important as it is to any other online business.
As engineers, we’re obviously fascinated by facts and figures. But we’re probably even more fascinated by the finished product. So we love to see the products actually being made. We like to watch the milling, the turning, the grinding and the fitting. There’s nothing we love more than seeing the genius behind the way that some of these products are made.
Few things can match the excitement of a five-axis machine whizzing through the most intricate products you could possibly imagine. Even in a hardened state, those sparks come flying off as the ceramic cutter hits the material.
All of this is absolutely fascinating for engineers. But we so often forget to share that, on websites and in marketing material.
It’s incredibly easy to capture the attention of an engineer. Show him or her a photo, or a video of the manufacturing process. Let them see the actual parts being made. Show them the sparks and the swarf flying and the machines operating at high speed. That’s guaranteed to make a fellow engineer, or a buyer for engineering products, stop and take a second look.
It’s the image, or video, that piques their interest in the first place. Then they can move onto the facts, figures and features afterwards. But high-quality photography is the bit that first draws them in.
So next time you’re putting together some marketing material, or planning your next website, keep that in mind. Think about how best to catch the attention of your target customer, and persuade them to read those all-important facts and figures about your product.
By investing in photography, and by being a little inventive with it, you can really stand out above your competitors.
