7 Creative Ways to Use Professional Headshot Photos

Professional headshot photos aren’t just for world leaders and celebrities. They are an important marketing tool for people across all professions. Why? Because high-quality headshots help a person stand out.
Professional headshots are an investment. So, you want to get the most bang for your buck once you have these photographs taken. Luckily, there are many ways you can use your professional headshot photos to establish trust with potential clients, connect your face with your brand, and get your name out into the world.

1. Use Headshots in Marketing Materials
There’s a reason so many advertising agencies use pictures containing people to market products. It’s because smiling faces sell. Our brains associate the brand with positive emotions like trust, confidence, and joy.
Using your headshots in marketing materials works for your benefit as it helps people put a face to your name. When people link your face to your business or brand, they perceive you as a trustworthy person they are familiar with. Once people feel connected to a brand, they will likely seek its products or services.
Some marketing materials where headshots work well include:

Business cards
Brochures
Billboards
Door hangers
Postcards
Newspaper ads
Posters or banners

These marketing materials are great for telling prospective customers about the business. You may hand these out at events or send them to potential clients. By having your face on these items, people will more easily recall their conversation with you and feel more confident in their decision to use you for personal or business needs.

2. Add a Headshot to Your Email Signature
Email has become a regular part of most businesses marketing strategies. Unfortunately, this means that most people receive dozens of messages on a typical working day. If you want people to connect with your brand and utilize your services, you need to find a way to make your messages stand out. In other words, your emails need a personal touch.
Email signatures are a great way to personalize emails. Email signatures add a personal touch to the message, and you can include everything from your signature to social media links. You can even add a headshot to your email signature if you want your email to stand out.

Inserting a professional zoomed-in photo of yourself gives the emails an edge over competitors. It also helps people make up their minds about engaging with your brand. When people open your email messages and see a professional picture of you in the signature line, they will see you as more reputable and trustworthy. They may also notice that you’ve gone out of your way to establish rapport with them by including your headshot. All of this will work to your benefit.

3. Update Your Social Media Accounts
Social media has become an ideal place for working professionals and brands to engage with their customer base and promote themselves. For certain industries like law and accounting, using a professional headshot as your social media profile picture shows potential customers that you are serious about the work you do and committed to their needs.

You can also use headshots along with short biographical captions for social media posts. These types of posts can give your clients a view into who you are as a person. This personal touch helps establish meaningful connections with your client base, which often boosts engagement and sales.

If you know that you’ll be using your headshot photos for social media and other marketing endeavors, we highly recommend you read our career-specific recommendations for the finance industry, technology headshots, and ERAS headshots for the medical field.

4. Stick a Headshot on Custom Cards
Marketers and businesspeople know that it is cheaper to keep an existing customer compared to getting a new one. Since customer loyalty is critical to the growth of any business, brands need to retain customers by acknowledging important events and milestones in their lives.

One of the excellent approaches to appreciating your customers is sending them cards for birthdays and holidays. You can also create custom thank you cards and send them to clients after they book an appointment, make a purchase, or interact with your business in some other way.

If you send out these cards regularly, it is worth investing in customized cards that include your brand information and a headshot photo. These small acts of thoughtfulness will likely win your customers’ hearts and probably even get you new clients.

5. Use it on your professional social media profiles:
A professional headshot can help you establish a strong online presence on platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook. Your headshot is just one element of your social media profile. Make sure your overall profile is professional and aligned with your personal brand. This includes your bio, background image, and any other profile information that reflects your professionalism and credibility.

6. Use a Headshot on Video Intros
YouTube has become a go-to place platform for brands to share videos and engage with users. Since this platform has become a highly popular marketing method, you should consider your YouTube channel as an extension of your business.

Regardless of what types of videos you create, a consistenint introduction and wrap up can help promote brand recognition. What’s more, you can include your headshot photos in your video intros so everyone can see you before they watch.

7. Place Images on Your Website
High-quality, professional headshots can make a lot of difference in your online presence. Normally, when a user lands on a website, the visual appeal is what catches their attention first. Therefore, you want to make a great first impression on potential customers with an easy-to-read page that includes engaging images and content.

When the visual effects of a website are enhanced by great headshots, a user connects better with the brand and feels like they already know the people behind it even if they have never met or spoken to them. A website featuring a high-resolution smiling face on its Home or About Us page is simply declaring “We are human beings you can trust, and rely on to deliver.” This is exactly the type of image you want to portray, especially if you live in an area that supports local business.

Make Your Headshot Investment Worthwhile
Making the decision to hire a photographer for professional headshots is an investment. As you can see from these suggestions, though, it’s an investment that pays off in many ways.

Before you can use your photographs in any of these creative ways, you need to hire the right person behind the camera. That’s where Denver Headshot Co comes in. Our experienced team of master photographers has been serving the Denver area since 2015, and we know exactly how to create flattering professional photos that will convey your company’s message loud and clear.

If you’re ready to smile for the camera and start using your images to increase your brand’s visibility, book a session with us.