Launching your online brand? Let’s talk about how to setup your Shopify store and build your website with high quality photography.

Starting an online business requires several moving parts. You have to build your brand, employ marketing efforts and make sure your products are ready for launch. Yet, in the midst of this creative chaos – you can’t forget the most important piece of the puzzle – to setup your Shopify store.

Related: The Best Photographers in the United States

In fact, building your store is pretty straightforward – thanks to the ingenuity and user friendly experience of Shopify. But, it’s not the building of the store that you should be concerned with. It’s that scary C word that has everyone in panic mode. Yeah, you guessed it – CONTENT.

You have your brand logo, various social media accounts and the products ready to rock. But, how exactly are you going to visually showcase your company? How will consumers see your products online before they buy them?

Freak out no more because we’re here to dish all the details on how to create quality and unique content for your Shopify store through photography.

Related: The Top Product Photographers for Marketing Your Brand

Let’s talk about working with a photographer to setup your Shopify store.

Using Photography To Setup Your Shopify Store

Determine Your Creative Message

The first logical step to crafting any type of visual production is to think about what you want your images to say about your brand. In fact, creative messaging is one of the most important aspects to a solid marketing structure.

Related: Creating Effective Advertisements With Photography

So, start by thinking about several key factors:

• What type of products do you sell?
• Are you more look book or lifestyle focused?
• Do you want your images to include people?
• Is there a color scheme or palette you have in mind?

These simple questions will allow you to begin building a visual representation of your brand. Once you have these answers, this will be the top layer of your image strategy. So, let’s take it to the next level and dig a bit deeper.

Put The Message Into Action

Begin by knowing your product and how you want to showcase it. This is what helps you build your online store and find the perfect template for your images.

Do you sell shoes, clothes, household appliances, electronics or food? Do you sell something that needs to be demonstrated or can be photographed alone?

Related: The Most Creative Fashion Photographers in the World

Let’s use the example of selling shoes.

Picture this: You’re a DTC brand that sells sneakers to your audience through your Shopify Store. You want to create images that showcase your product in action. As well as, highlighting the design details of your product.

So, what type of creative messaging will you use?

For your photography campaign, you will find one or several models to wear your sneakers. And, have the photographer capture them while walking, running, engaging in any type of movement you want. These photographs will serve as the lifestyle aspect of your brand. You can place these on your homepage, within headers – any spot on the page to connect with and drive consumers to act.

Then, the photographer will capture product shots by placing the shoes on a solid backdrop to capture every detail. Add a color or keep it simple to elevate the physical aspects of your product. These will become the images for your look book.

This combination of photographs reinforces your creative messaging:

We sell the best designed and engineered shoes for any type of movement.

And just like that, photography has your brand ball rolling.

Build Several Campaigns At Once

If you’ve read our, How Photography Is Redefining The Way We Create Brand Campaigns, you know that developing a campaign can be done in collaboration.

In fact, it’s a pretty popular movement for e-commerce brands to create multiple visual projects at once in order to showcase all of their products.

Let’s take Urban Outfitters and & Other Stories for example. What I love about their content is that no two items look the same. Wonder why? Because they utilize various photographers to create batches of different images.

Related: The Platform To Use If You’re Looking For a Photographer

They have photographers shooting their products on the beach, on the streets of New York and in studio for their look book. And, they’re doing all of this simultaneously. Which in turn, allows for an abundance of top notch content. The more content, the more you have to share. And, the more ways you can reach your consumers. 

Related: What Do Millennials Like: The New Generation of Consumers

Many brands become focused on one big campaign to bring their company loads of attention. Yet, to be honest – this technique doesn’t always work. Sure, if you’re a big brand with relevancy and authority in your market – you can get away with rolling out visual campaigns less frequently.

Yet, as a new brand – who’s just starting out – content and fresh images will be your best friend.

Here’s a little secret, you don’t have to be a huge company to employ the techniques of large scale e-commerce brands. You too can hire multiple creators at once to capture the best content for your Shopify store.

Related: Direct To Consumer Advertising With Photography

Instead of viewing content as a few images here and there – view it as a lifelong practice that goes hand in hand with building your brand.

Create Imagery That Captivates And Engages Your Consumers

When you setup your Shopify store you want it to knock the socks off of your consumers. You want it grab the attention of your audience, so much so that they feel connected and inspired by what they are seeing on the page.

You want them to say things like:

• “Wow, this store just gets me.”
• “I’ve never seen such creative images in my life.”
• “If I had a mood board to describe me – it would be this store.”
• “Going to make this my homepage, immediately!”

Okay, so we may be shooting for the moon here. But, isn’t that kind of the goal? Did anyone ever build a brand because they just wanted it to do just fine? Or do we build companies, stores and ideas because we want to knock it out of the park? In my opinion, you’re looking for that home run.

Related: 10 E-Commerce Trends That Will Increase Your Online Sales

In fact, as I’m thinking of stores that leave me wanting more – I can think of only a few that draw me in time and time again. And, when I do find a store that blows me away – I have an overwhelming, positive reaction and feel a push to purchase from them.

Example, I just recently visited the online store of the brand Entire World. And, let me just say – Wow. 

There aren’t many other words to describe the experience that store has once landing on their homepage. Moving imagery, high quality photographs, design elements that make shopping an experience. 

Isn’t that the kind of reaction you want from your consumers? Don’t you want to give them something to awe about?

Related: Planning a Professional Photoshoot for Your Brand

Call it an aesthetic curse, but good design and high quality images make for the perfect combination of curated consumerism. If you’ve got the design (any template on Shopify) and the high quality imagery (the work of a creative, talented photographer). Then you have everything you need to take the e-commerce world by storm.

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Did you know that you can find a photographer for your Shopify Store with our H Hub Marketplace. If you’re looking for a roster of creative talent with experience across various commerce genres – fashion, product, food and more – browse our photographers to start building your next creative campaign.

If you have an e-commerce store that has been built with high quality photography, share with us on social at @h_collective