Boost Your Brand with Stock Photos of People: A Guide

Building a strong brand presence is more challenging than ever in today’s competitive market. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last decade, you understand the importance of adding images to your digital content as a way to build a strong brand presence, whether on your website, social media, or even print ads. According to Forbes, images help tell your brand’s story, which increases engagement, enhances your brand’s credibility, and helps to build a cohesive image of your brand across all your marketing efforts. Using high-quality visuals, including video, reinforces an image of your brand as professional, capable, and, depending on the images chosen, what your brand stands for. These factors translate into broader awareness, stronger brand attitudes, increased sharing, and higher sales. Forbes goes on to show that using photos of people helps consumers identify with your brand, creates a stronger emotional connection to it, and makes it easier for them to remember your brand and its attributes.

Businesses struggle to find go-to visuals that captivate their target market while humanizing their brand to convey authenticity and professionalism. High-quality pictures featuring people can bridge this gap, creating a connection with your target market while boosting your brand identity. Remember that consumers want to see themselves in your images, so choose carefully. I once attended a seminar where results from a three-country study showed that the same visual did better in terms of driving traffic to the store in one country compared to the other two. Since the ad consisted solely of the image with no text, language was ruled out as a contributing factor. After further study, researchers found that a small piece of the license plate on the car featured in the forefront of the image was discernible as reflecting the country where the ad performed better, although this wasn’t obvious. Moreover, choosing an image that looks inauthentic or stereotypical in an effort to appeal to a segment of your target market can do serious damage to your brand’s reputation. Thus, sourcing visuals that support your marketing goals without damaging your efforts can be time-consuming and costly, especially if you need a steady flow of unique images to support your campaigns. This leaves many brands wondering how to proceed effectively.

Stock photos of people are a quick, budget-friendly, and efficient way for brands to capture customer attention. You’ll find thousands, maybe millions, of images to choose from across various platforms. Take your time balancing the cost of these images (platforms offering free images often feature low-quality or generic images that may not meet your needs) with the quality and character of the image to ensure you choose the best one for a specific purpose.

Read on to discover how to use stock photos of people to enhance your branding, marketing, and communications while maintaining ethical and legal standards.

Enhance your commercial and creative projects with licensed, high-quality stock images from Depositphotos

Why should you use stock photos of people?

Stock people pictures are professionally photographed visuals that feature individuals in various poses, activities, or settings. These can be people working in an office or engaged in hobbies, as well as families, friends, and couples spending time together. You’ll easily find photos of people by themselves, in various types of groups, wearing various clothing, and representing various demographic and geographic groups. The demand for stock visuals keeps growing, and so does the market size: in 2024, its valuation reached $6.8 billion.

Benefits of using stock images of people for business projects

Stock people pictures offer multiple advantages for businesses of all sizes, allowing them to save resources and enhance their commercial projects and designs.

Here are the main perks of using stock images of people for your business:

1. Saves time and budget. Hiring a photographer, sourcing (and paying) models, arranging a photoshoot, and paying for editing can be quite expensive and time-consuming. I once worked with an ad agency in New York, where I spent days working with a graphic designer to edit an image of a very beautiful model to meet the exacting standards required by the client. Even for a small firm, this can cost tens of thousands of dollars if you want a quality end product. Add in the days and weeks required for everything necessary to produce a few images, and you’ll never be able to produce enough images to satiate the daily demand imposed within the digital marketing world, where you need multiple images EVERY DAY.  If you think you can simply go around and take photos to use in your marketing campaigns, you’ll run into ethical problems, as you need a release from people captured in your images, and take the risk of producing lower-quality images that make you look unprofessional. In contrast, a wealth of stock images is available instantly, so you’ll always have a choice between dozens of appropriate images with a few simple clicks.  With the vast array of options, it’s easy for businesses to find online photos that match their industry-specific needs, target market, and visual goals.
2. Improves marketing materials. Brands that use visuals consistently are 3.5 times more likely to achieve high visibility and customer recognition. That’s because photos of people capture the viewer’s attention and convey emotions better. For instance, a picture of people who are smiling can help create a sense of happiness and comfort.
3. Boosts brand identity and trust. Adding visuals of people to your marketing materials can make your business look more relatable and approachable, fostering trust among customers. Furthermore, including diverse people in your visuals helps reflect inclusivity and aligns with today’s audience values.
4. Helps make your website and content look more polished. For instance, you can add stock images of people to banners, blog headers, or team introductions. Your presentations, newsletters, and educational materials can also benefit from high-quality visuals that explain or complement the message.
5. Easily scalable for numerous campaigns. You can reuse stock visuals across platforms (such as Facebook ads, Google ads, or emails) and quickly align your campaigns with holidays, seasons, or trends using relevant stock images.

How to efficiently and legally use stock photos of people for your brand

Although businesses can easily use stock photos of people in various commercial materials, they still need to follow specific rules to ensure they do so legally and ethically. Here is how you can achieve that.

Pay attention to licensing

Licensing can vary from one platform to another. That’s why you should always read the stock photo provider’s licensing agreement for specific terms, restrictions, and allowed uses.

The most common types of licenses are:

• Royalty-free. After purchase, you can use these visuals multiple times in diverse projects, but they might still come with several restrictions, e.g., they cannot be resold.
• Right-Managed. With this license, you can purchase a visual for a specific use case, e.g., a particular marketing campaign;
• Creative Commons. Often, CC pictures are free to use but may require attribution or have restrictions on commercial use. Always check the specifics of a chosen CC license type.

Keep model releases in mind

Stock photos with recognizable people must include a model release. This is a signed agreement from the person in the photo that allows their image to be used for commercial purposes. If a picture doesn’t have a model release, you can use it for editorial purposes only (e.g., in news articles or educational content) and not for commercial advertising.

Ensure the proper use of visuals

Businesses can use stock images featuring people for:

• Marketing and advertising, such as on websites, social media, brochures, or ads, as long as the image license permits it and the photo includes a model release.
• Corporate presentations, both internal and external (if this aligns with the photo license);
• Product packaging, provided that the image license permits commercial use and the photo includes a model release.

Businesses should avoid using such visuals in situations that might include:

• Misrepresentation, e.g., if a photo’s usage implies that people promote a product, service, or viewpoint (unless the license permits it). Using images in defamatory, offensive, or misleading ways is also forbidden.
• Controversial or sensitive topics, such as mental health and sexual health, again, if proper consent isn’t granted.

Consider the possibility of customization

Minor edits, such as cropping or color adjustments of visuals, are usually allowed. Drastic edits, on the other hand, might violate licensing terms unless explicitly allowed. The same goes for image repurposing—for instance, creating derivative works using a chosen visual.

To sum up

Stock people pictures are a powerful tool for businesses that allows them to create compelling marketing campaigns, build trust with their audience, and save time and money. Choosing high-quality, relatable images and following best practices for legal and ethical use allows your brand to maximize the benefits of these visuals. Remember the tips listed in this article to help your brand grow with the help of high-quality stock content.

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