Start with the end in mind
If your product is any darn good, it makes someone’s life better, if only for a moment. Ponder, if you will, for a moment how your product is going to make a customer’s life better in some way. Will it save them time? will it save them money? Will it make their home, or commercial building more efficient, more attractive, more structurally sound? Are you thinking about it? hold that thought . .
Marketing is Empathy
Knowing with whom you are speaking to is crucial for marketing. This holds true with the images you use of your products. Understanding the problems, difficulties and challenges of your customers is a great place to start. What are the needs your product is fulfilling and what are the feelings behind those needs? If your visual communications can speak to those feelings, you will make a more intimate connection and have far more success.
Example #1 Strength & Stability
This product, like many I am asked to illustrate, is never seen once a home is built. It goes under the floors and provides superior durability and strength. To communicate the feeling of stability and strength to a homeowner, we decided to take them to a kitchen. A kitchen they could see their family cooking, gathering and dining in. Using photorealistic rendering, we then peeled away the floor, showing what is beneath the kitchen of their dreams – the solid foundation on which it sits.
In the second illustration we lifted the kitchen off the floor and used arrows to depict the weight of the situation. In the final layout the actual weights of each item are estimated and printed on the arrows themselves to further drive home the concept.
Example #2 Protection – Safety – Weatherability
So many building products are about keeping out the elements. Keeping water out of a structure is always one of the biggest challenges. What homeowner or building owner doesn’t worry about leaks?
Regards and I hope you make an emotional connection today.
-JY
About the Author :
Jason Yana has 2 decades of experience in architectural technology, 3d graphics and construction marketing. This unique combination provides highly-effective visual representations of building products that fuel marketing and support efforts.
His award-winning body of work informs, inspires and educates building product customers.