Say cheese, say increased conversion rates
There are many reasons why all businesses should show images of their team and promote staff credentials to their clients. This newsletter has been written to discuss the different ways you can put a face to an email address, why it’s essential, and to provide tips to get it right.
The different ways to showcase your team
The easiest way to showcase all of your team is to create a ‘meet the team’ page on your website. Research shows this is one of the most frequented pages for website visitors when available. A team page should include an image of each team member. Or for large businesses, you may prefer to just show images of senior staff and people who frequently communicate with external parties, such as customer relations staff and personal assistants.
Alongside the image it’s a good idea to provide details of the staff member’s credentials and possibly some information about them outside of work – depending on your brand. Some websites build this into a fuller profile, providing a page for each member of the team.
There are other innovative ways to showcase your team, such as office “behind the scenes” style videos uploaded to social media channels, or you could write a newsletter about ways to showcase your team and include an image of your office Christmas party in the introduction…
Staff images humanise your brand
By publicly uploading images of your staff to a website or social media page, it humanises your brand. Seeing a warm smile can make staff appear friendly and your business more approachable, which can increase the likelihood of website visitors making a call or sending your team a message.
Other ways to humanise your brand include the use of narratives, such as a company story on your ‘about’ pages, and injecting personality into your marketing campaigns where appropriate.
It allows leads to verify credentials
Showcasing your team isn’t just about smiling faces. A ‘meet the team’ style page should also tell the reader something about each staff member’s professional background. For example, you might list their qualifications and how many years they have worked in the industry.
This will allow potential clients to verify each staff member’s credentials for the task they need to complete. Showing how much experience they have can increase confidence in your services and therefore increase website conversion rates.
On the other hand, not having a team section with information about their credentials can make website visitors question the legitimacy of the business and its services.
Tips for team photos
You’ve decided to make a staff profile page – fantastic. Now it’s time to get it right. The biggest mistake is not using quality images for your staff. If you show you’re not willing to put the effort in with a couple of images, your clients may not believe you’ll go the extra mile in any of your services. It can also be a sure-fire way of taking the shine off of a beautiful website.
Avoid allowing staff to use their own images or to take their own photo with their smartphone at home. You ideally should be using a professional photographer to create headshots, or at least use a good camera and plain background to snap each photo in the office wearing professional clothing. It’s a good idea to give staff notice that it will be photo day as they’ll likely want to put more effort into their attire.
If you want to try something different, you could use caricatures of each staff member instead of actual photos. Although this does lose some of the humanising benefits of photos, it can be innovative and unique. Your branding should determine whether this would be a good idea or not.
Need help showcasing your team?
WEBPRO is on hand to help create your meet the team website page or individual staff profiles. And we can also help create professional images for each profile or for social media posts. For more information, do not hesitate to speak with our creative team.
Recap: Using images of staff and creating staff profiles can add a human touch to your brand and help leads verify your business and services as legitimate. Team pages are among the most visited website pages and can positively affect conversion rates for a variety of reasons. Every business should be showcasing its team and reaping the benefits.
P.S. If you have an innovative idea to showcase your team on your website or social media, let us know!
