Selling cars in the UAE is extremely competitive!
To acquire leads for your dealership your advertisements MUST capture the reader’s attention. The most important part of any advertisement is photos.
Do your current vehicle photos grab a reader’s attention?
Put yourself in your customers shoes, if you were scrolling through hundreds of vehicle listings, what would catch your eye? What type of advertisement would you click on? Would you click on an advertisement with no image?
Before we get into how to take the best vehicle photo, we first need to address some of the common dealer photography mistakes.
Common dealer photography mistakes include:
- Not including a vehicle image
- Using a manufacturers image
- The vehicle is too bright or too dark
- The vehicle is no distanced appropriately
These simple mistakes can have a profound impact on your dealership and could cost you thousands in sales.
Point number 1 is by far the greatest mistake you can make – there is no point paying for an advertisement if it doesn’t have a vehicle photo. How will a potential customer know what your vehicle looks like?
In the case of point 2, using stock images from a manufacturer is quick option but it doesn’t quite represent the car in its current condition.
If you fall into category 3 or 4 that’s okay, using the tips mentioned in this guide will help you avoid having a vehicle image that’s either not lit correctly or distanced appropriately.
Here’s how your dealership can take the perfect vehicle photo.
How to create the best vehicle photo:
Before we start, we need to clear up one major point. Your dealership doesn’t need to have a professional photographer to take the best car photo!
Taking the best dealership photo comes down to 5 main foundations:
1. Lighting:
The most important part of any image is the lighting. To capture the best vehicle photo, you need to ensure the car is clearly visible. Avoid taking photos at night or in a garage.
The best time to take a photo is at 10am in the morning or 3pm in the afternoon. This avoids glare that comes with capturing an image in the middle of the day.
2. Focus:
Sure, it’s an obvious fundamental, but many dealership images posted online are out of focus.
There is an easy way to focus your camera for a photo. If you are capturing an image on a smart phone, select the car on your screen and the camera will automatically focus to the part of the image that you selected.
If you are using a DSLR or any other camera device – you can implement the auto focus setting in the settings menu.
3. Angles:
The angle you choose to capture your car with can make or break the advertisement. Your first image is the cars selling point – it needs to reach out and grab the reader’s attention as soon as they see it. The best angle to capture your car is on a ¾ angle.
The image should have 2cm spacing at the top with the car placed appropriately in the centre of the screen. There shouldn’t be any dead space.
4. Distance:
We see far too many dealership photos where the car is too close or too far away. If your car is too far away, you will lose quality if you try to crop it at a later stage.
Best practice is to capture the car approximately 5 feet away.
5. Take as many photos as possible
The more photos you have the better! The benefit of capturing as many photos as possible is you can select which photo looks the best!
If you are taking an image on a phone there is no limit on the amount of photo’s you can take.
In conclusion,
The more you practice, the better the quality of vehicle image you will take. Using the foundations mentioned above you will go along way to creating the best vehicle images for your advertisements.
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About EasyCars
EasyCars by Jeal is a web-based dealer management system that automates the buying and selling of cars in the UAE.
Everything from Stock management, Advertising, Government Compliance, VAT Calculations, Business reporting, Website listings, and Accounting is completely automated.
Using the latest technologies EasyCars removes common frustrations faced by motor dealers in the UAE.
For a free no-obligation demo of EasyCars submit the form below.