Landscape Marketing Myth #5: Photos and Videos Are Nice to Have but Not Really Necessary
You wouldn't hand your foreman a wheelbarrow and tell him to build a boulder wall with it when a skid steer is sitting right there, right? The skid steer is a tool. It makes the job safer, faster, and more efficient for your crew. Choosing not to use it doesn't make you scrappy. It just makes the job harder than it needs to be.
You supply the right tools for the job for your crews. Make sure you do the same for your sales team.
Professional photography and video are the same kind of tool, except for your sales process. And yet landscape companies that would never shortchange their crews on equipment think nothing of sending their sales team, or themselves, into client conversations without the visual assets that make closing so much easier.
What the Science Actually Says
Here is something worth understanding about how your potential clients are processing information when they look at your website or your social media.
The human brain processes images in as little as 13 milliseconds. Research suggests that up to 90% of all information transmitted to the brain is visual. And when it comes to memory, people recall about 80% of what they see compared to roughly 20% of what they read. Online content that includes strong visual images gets viewed 94% more than content without them.
This is not a marketing opinion. It is how human beings are wired.
When a potential client lands on your website, they are not reading every word on your services page. They are looking at your images and forming an impression within seconds. That impression, positive or negative, is going to stick with them far longer than anything you write in a caption or a bio.
Landscaping is a visual industry. The product you sell is something people can see, touch, and experience in their outdoor space. If the images you are using to represent that product do not reflect the quality of the work you actually deliver, you are starting every sales conversation at a disadvantage before you ever pick up the phone.
The Aspirational Moment
I remember the shift clearly from my time as a landscape designer.
We finally hired a professional photographer to document our projects. And not long after, something changed in the sales conversations I was having. Prospects would call and reference a specific photo on our website. They would say things like "we want that" before I ever had a chance to explain what we could do for them.
Customers have trouble unseeing an aspiring image that they want.
I didn't have to draw anything out. I didn't have to describe the transformation or explain what a finished project might look like. The image had already done that work. The client came in with a vision already in their head, placed there by a photograph, and my job was simply to help them get it.
That is what the right tool does. It makes the job easier and the outcome better.
What You Are Actually Competing Against
Here is the reality of the landscape market right now. Clients are not getting easier to attract or easier to close. The bar for trust is higher than it has ever been and the options available to a homeowner looking for a landscape company have never been greater.
In that environment, every touchpoint your brand makes with a potential client either builds confidence or erodes it. Your website, your social media, your Google Business Profile, the images attached to your name everywhere a prospect might find you. All of it is either working for you or against you.
The landscape companies that are winning consistently are not necessarily doing better work than their competitors. In a lot of cases they are doing comparable work. What sets them apart is that their visual brand reflects the quality of what they do. Clients can see it. They trust it. And they commit to it faster because the images have already done the heavy lifting before the first conversation.
The companies relying on phone snapshots and inconsistent visuals are not just missing an opportunity. They are actively making it harder for the right clients to choose them.
A Tool Is Only as Good as Whether You Use It
Professional photography and video are not a vanity purchase. They are not something you do when business is good and you have extra budget. They are a core part of how a landscape company builds trust, attracts better clients, and shortens the sales cycle.
You would not send your crew to a high end residential install without the right equipment. The finished product depends on having the right tools for the job.
Your sales process is no different.
Great work deserves great images. And the clients you want to be working with deserve to see what you are actually capable of before they ever pick up the phone.
Sources
Brain processes images in as little as 13 milliseconds
MIT News, research by Mary Potter et al., 2014
https://news.mit.edu/2014/in-the-blink-of-an-eye-0116
Up to 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual
Cinch Learning, The Science Behind Why We Remember Images Better Than Text, January 2025
https://www.cinchlearning.au/post/the-science-behind-why-were-remember-images-better-than-text
People recall 80% of what they see vs 20% of what they read
This stat is widely cited across marketing literature including via Sadler 2022, referenced in an arxiv.org academic paper on visual content marketing
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2211.12660
Online content with images gets viewed 94% more than content without
Same arxiv.org source above, citing Sadler 2022
Picture superiority effect, 90% image recall vs 60% text after three days
Cited in visual learning research via Nikki Wordsmith, referencing cognitive psychology literature
https://nikkiwordsmith.com/visual-learning/
