It's no secret that using professional imagery can greatly enhance the readibility, atractiveness, and retention power of your marketing materials. Images keep readers interested by breaking up large blocks of text, they draw readers in by providing an immediate connection to the material, and they can illustrate your meaning and emotion like nothing else can.
Using high quality images in your marketing materials can be very easy. Of course, you can hire a photographer or illustrator to create the images for you. If your business is in southern Arizona, just drop me a line; I'd be happy to help you out in that regard. But sometimes budget or time constraints make hiring a photographer impossible. In that case, you should consider Stock Photography.
Stock Photography are those images available for licensing for use in marketing materials, websites, email messages, and elsewhere. For low-cost, high-quality stock images, you can do no better than iStockphoto.com. iStock photo boasts the largest library of stock files (as of the time of this writing, there are about 4.5 million files available). The bulk of those files are photographic images, but there are raster illustrations, vector illustrations, Flash files, videos, and soon iStock will begin marketing its new audio collection.
To get started buying iStock images, head over to iStockphoto.com. Browse around while you're there: the search box near the top left corner of the website will let you find whatever it is you need, from Aardvarks to Zygomatic Arches, and everything in between. Once you've found the image you like in the search results, click on it to see the detail page. Select the size you need, and click "Buy", and the image is yours to use in your next marketing piece! In order to buy the image, you'll need credits, of course. Be sure to click the "Buy Credits" link at the top of the page. If you'd like to start your account with a bundle of 10 free credits, just send me an email, and I'll send you a referral code to get you started.
- Find out more about Tucson Photographer Ethan Myerson and Myerson Photo
- Learn how you can get started using stock images in your marketing materials for as little as $1.
- Find out how your small to medium sized business can benefit from an investment in photography.
