NOTE: Are you looking for a scalable professional photography solution that will make it easy to fill your marketplace with great images? Snappr is the answer you've been looking for. Learn more here.
What are marketplaces built on? Peer networks? Transparent reviews? Satisfaction guarantees?
Nope, it's the photos.
Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit when I say that great photography is the critical piece to all successful peer-to-peer marketplaces, but not by much. Don't believe me? Try buying a car, an apartment, or a mattress on Craigslist without seeing photos of it first, and then let's see how you feel.
It's true that we're biased. As a photographer marketplace that connects pro photographers with businesses, we see every day how great photography radically changes businesses' prospects. But I also know that we're not the only ones who've seen it. To prove that, we gathered five of our favorite case studies that show how improving their photo practices radically improved their conversion rates.
Airbnb - Pro Photographs Perform
Of course, we're going to start with the classic: Airbnb has been very vocal over the years about how investing in great photography of its spaces has ignited rapid growth for its peer-to-peer housing rentals.
You can read the full story in this Growthhackers case study.
Faced with an avalanche of listings with no photos or bad photos, the founders themselves started pounding the pavement to take HD photos of new spaces. They even used this as an incentive to attract new listings - every one came with a free set of professional-quality photographs of their space.
The Airbnb team moved on from handling photoshoots personally to building their own team of freelancers (and hiring Snappr, of course), but their commitment.
Marketing Experiments - Customers Recognize Stock Photos
We live in an age saturated with options for finding great photography. You can buy a generic photo of a smiling doctor for a few bucks on Shutterstock. Hell, you can probably find it for free on Unsplash or Flickr Creative Commons, so why would anyone ever pay to have custom images created?
Because they work better, that's why. In this fascinating test run on a debt relief company performed by digital marketing consultancy MECLABS, they showed conclusively that digital banners with custom images of real people on their team brought in more business:
It makes sense, of course — aren't we all experts at spotting those fakey generic photos that abounded on early websites by now? Custom images convey a sense of honesty and transparency. Stock photos are fine in a pinch, but real photos of real products and people will win every time.
Nasty Gal - Photos Create Personality
Nasty Gal was one of the great success stories of the eCommerce movement in the first decade of this century, and great photography played a big part in that.
As Growthhackers covers in another great case study, they used photos with a certain perspective and style from their earliest days to "sell the fantasy". Investing in great photography for listings on your marketplace enables you to establish a style and perspective that is not "grainy vertical phone photos." Whether you opt for sexy like American Apparel or comfortable like Airbnb, or something totally different, you'll only be able to create a visual feel and brand for your marketplace by involving experienced photographers.
Hipcamp - Photos Build the Fantasy
People won't go somewhere they haven't seen a picture of. Plain and simple.
That's why most space marketplaces have followed Airbnb's example, investing a lot of time and thought into how their properties are portrayed on their marketplaces. Hipcamp, which helps landowners host campers on their land, shares its perspective in a great article aimed at camp hosts that explains the importance of inviting "Photo Scouts" to their properties.
The punchline you should pay attention to is this:
"In 2016, on average, Field Scouted properties got 15 times more bookings than non-Field scouted properties."
15x more bookings, every time
In other words, when Hipcamp sent dedicated photographers to camping sites to take a set of custom photos, rather than relying on photos submitted by hosts, those listings got 15X (!!!) more bookings than similar nearby campsites.
And who among us would turn down 15X increases in sales?
AgentImpress - Listings with Photos are Worth More Money
Real Estate agents were early adopters of the online listing model, so they're great people to talk to about setting up online marketplaces.
This great piece from Agent Impress, an industry publication that provides resources for real estate agents, distills key insights into 15 easy-to-digest facts. These were some of my favorites:
- "Buyers spend 60% of their time looking at listing photos, and only 20% each on the listing description and agent description."
- "Homes with professionally photographed pictures can sell for up to $19,000 more."
- "Listings with professional photographs sell 32% faster, spending only 89 days on the market compared to 123 for other homes."
In other words, when it comes to convincing someone to click that all-important "buy" button online, great professional photos encourage people to click sooner and pay more for the same thing.
