Engage Employees and Promote Workplace Culture Through Marketing Visuals: Cecilian Partners

Lifestyle marketing photography is a great way to show off your brand in a more approachable, real world way. Lifestyle marketing can also be used as a tool to show off your product/services, recruit new employees and even as a tactic to retain the team you have. I have seen this successfully implemented in the past during my shoots with Ballinger and Swartley Bros and more recently with Cecilian Partners. 

It is no secret that companies of all sizes have struggled with employee turnover and retention since the pandemic. According to a survey conducted by Nectar HR, nearly half of the survey respondents shared that they plan to look for work in the next three months and 47% of employees surveyed have been with their organization for five years or less.

Companies are getting creative when it comes to employee retention. When planning your company’s next branding photoshoot or website update, don’t overlook the overarching benefits of using your employees in your marketing materials:

1. Humanize Your Brand - Showcasing the faces behind your brand helps humanize your company, making it more relatable to your audience. Using stock photos is easy, but real employee photos are effective. Potential customers are more likely to trust and engage with a brand that feels personable and approachable. 

2. Celebrate Your People and They Will Celebrate You -  Employees are more likely to become advocates for a company when they feel valued and trusted. When employees feel that their contributions are valued, they are more motivated to actively participate in marketing initiatives and promote your products, services and workplace culture. Using your own employees also lets you celebrate your people - and what’s better than that?

3. Diverse Representation -  Employee photos allow you to showcase the diversity within your workforce across gender, age, ethnicity, etc. promoting an inclusive brand image.

4. Reflect Company Culture - Employee photos give customers a glimpse into your company culture and work environment. This gives them a better sense of the people they may be working with. If your company is hiring, using real employees will also give your applicant pool a peek into your company and culture.

Leveraging employee engagement in your marketing efforts not only enhances brand authenticity, but also fosters a sense of belonging and ownership among employees, ultimately leading to improved retention rates and higher employee morale. I had a chance to see this put into practice more recently with a local Pennsylvania client.

On the Job: Cecilian Partners
I recently had a chance to visit Ceclilian Partners in New Hope, Pennsylvania, and not only was their office unique and beautifully designed, but you could also tell right off the bat that they truly value their team and wanted to feature them in their marketing efforts. 

It was clear that Cecilian Partners had put a lot of thought into creating a workspace environment that fostered flexibility and inspired creativity. Rather than a staid corporate vibe, their casual culture allowed for an organic flow during our photography session. We moved quickly through booking and planning the photoshoot which left a lot of the shot list unstructured. This level of pre-planning is unlike many of the more organized projects I work on, but it allowed us to be creative and produce authentic photos that genuinely captured Cecilian’s brand. This shoot could serve as a masterclass on how to create a  workplace as an extension of your brand.