Photography, video and branding, Glasgow. For trades and service businesses across the UK.
Look as good online as you are in person.
Your work is your best advert, and most of it is never seen by anyone except the customer whose house it’s in. Real photos and video of your team and your finished jobs, plus a logo and branding that hold up, so people trust you before they’ve met you. We shoot it, edit it and put it to work on your website, your ads and your social media.
10 years in business · Rated 5.0 on Google · No minimum contract
Why real photos matter more than you think.
A homeowner choosing a tradesman is choosing who to let into their house. Before they ring, they want to see what your work looks like, what you look like, and whether you seem like the sort of outfit that turns up. Stock photos of a smiling model in a hard hat answer none of those questions, and everyone can spot them.
Real photos of real jobs, a short video of you explaining something in your own words, and a customer saying on camera that you did a good job: those are the most persuasive things you can put online, and they cost far less than the Google Ads you’d need to make up for not having them.
Phone photos are a fine start, and for day-to-day social posts they’re all you need. Where a proper shoot earns its money is the handful of places that sell for you every day: the top of your website, your Google Business Profile, your ads and a testimonial video. If you don’t yet have a website or social media to put the content on, do those first. We’ll tell you if that’s the case.
What you get
Content that shows the real you.
Everything here is made to be used, not to sit in a folder. Before we shoot anything we know where it’s going: which page, which ad, which post.
Content days
We come to you for a day and shoot a batch of photos and video in one go: the team, the vans, a job in progress, two or three finished jobs, and a few minutes of you talking. One visit gives you enough to fill a website and feed your social media for months, which is far cheaper than booking a photographer every time you need something.
Video
A short introduction to the business, customer testimonials, and walk-throughs of finished jobs. Shot on site, kept natural, and cut into the lengths each platform wants: a minute for the website, thirty seconds for an ad, fifteen for a Reel. A customer saying “they turned up when they said and the work was spot on” is worth more than any page of text we could write.
Photography
Your team, your premises, your vans and your finished work, shot properly: in good light, with the mess tidied out of frame, from the angles that make a roof or a kitchen or a garden look like the thing the customer is paying for. Delivered edited and sized for the web, with the originals kept for print.
Logos and branding
A logo, colours and fonts that look professional everywhere they appear: website, van, workwear, invoices, social media. Supplied in the formats a sign-writer and an embroiderer actually need, not just a small JPEG. If you’ve already got a logo you like, we work with it rather than talking you into a new one.
Graphics
Social media templates, ad creative, review graphics, flyers, van livery, quote and invoice templates and anything else that carries your name. Everything in the same look, so a customer who sees your van, your Facebook page and your website knows they’re the same business.
Put to work everywhere
We don’t hand you a folder and leave. What we shoot goes onto your website, your Google Business Profile, your ads and your social media, because we’re usually the ones running those too. One shoot, used in five places, is where the value is. And you own every photo, clip and file.
What we shoot
Three kinds of content, and what each one is for.
Proof content
Finished jobs, before-and-afters, and customers on camera. This is what a homeowner is looking for when they check you out, and it’s what goes at the top of your website, in your ads and on your Google profile. If we only shoot one thing, it’s this.
People content
You, your team, the apprentice, the office. A short clip of the owner explaining how they approach a job, or what to look for in a quote, does more to win trust than any amount of polish. People hire people, and they like to know who’s turning up.
Brand content
The logo, the van, the workwear, the templates. The things that make you look like one established business rather than a bloke with a phone number. Done once, properly, and then used everywhere for years.
How a content day works
One visit. Months of content.
We work around your day. The job carries on, we film and photograph around it, and the only thing we need from you is an hour of your time and a couple of customers who are happy to be on camera.
1
Plan
We agree a shot list with you: which jobs, which people, which customers, and what each piece is for. If the website needs a hero image and the ads need a thirty-second clip, we know that before we turn up, so nothing gets missed.
2
Shoot
We come to you, usually to a live job and a couple of finished ones. The team keeps working; we keep out of the way. Anyone who’d rather not be on camera isn’t, and anyone talking to camera gets a few easy questions rather than a script.
3
Edit
We edit the photos and cut the video into pieces sized for your website and each social platform, with captions for people watching on mute. You see everything and tell us if there’s a shot you’d rather not use.
4
Use it
The finished content goes onto your website, Google Business Profile, ads and social media, and you get the full set to keep. The best clips become ads; the best photos become the first thing people see on your site; the rest feeds your social media for months.
Sound familiar?
Why most trade websites look the same.
Open five local roofing websites and you’ll see the same stock photo of a man on a ladder on three of them. It’s not that the businesses are the same. It’s that nobody ever pointed a camera at their actual work.
“The most effective thing on our own website is a sixty-second video of a roofing director in Perth standing outside a job, saying in his own words that he’d stopped using MyBuilder and quoted thirty jobs in a week. No script, one take. It’s done more for us than any page of copy we’ve ever written, and it’s the first thing I show a new client who’s nervous about being on camera.”
Yas, Director
Stock photos everywhere
Customers recognise them instantly, and what they read into it is “this company has nothing of its own to show me”. One real photo of a real job beats a hundred stock images.
Reviews with no face behind them
“Great job, would recommend. J.S., Paisley” could have been written by anyone. The same customer saying it on camera, outside their house, can’t be faked and is far more convincing.
A logo that falls apart on the van
Made on a free tool, saved as a small JPEG, and now it’s blurry on the website, the wrong colour on the workwear and unusable by the sign-writer. A logo needs to be built once in the right formats, then it works everywhere for years.
Good photos, never used
Plenty of businesses have paid a photographer and the results are still sitting in a folder two years later. Content only works when it’s on the website, in the ads and on social, which is why we build the shoot around where every shot is going.
What our clients have seen.
30+ jobs quoted in a week
Essential Roofing, Perth, as the director says on video
37 more leads a month
Flooring company, Glasgow, from Google Ads, within three months
£100k to £2 million
Roofing company, Glasgow, from SEO, turnover over five years
Photos and video don’t produce enquiries on their own. They’re what makes the website, the ads and the social media that do produce them convincing. The results above are what the whole system delivers.
Where content fits with the rest.
Think of photos and video as the raw material everything else is made from. The website needs a hero image and job photos on every service page. The Google Ads landing pages need the same, plus a testimonial. Social media needs a steady supply of real jobs. Your Google Business Profile ranks better with real photos on it.
One content day supplies all of them at once, which is why we usually suggest it alongside a website build or at the start of a social media retainer rather than on its own.
If you just need a logo, or a set of photos for a site someone else is building, that’s fine too. We’ll do it well and hand it over.
Content questions
What business owners ask about photo and video.
I don’t like being on camera.
Most owners don’t, and most of the ones on our Results page said exactly that before we turned up. We keep it relaxed: no script, a few easy questions, and we only use the bits that work. You never have to speak on camera if you’d rather not. Footage of your work and your team does most of the job, and a happy customer talking is better than you talking anyway.
What’s actually in a content day?
Typically: photos of the team and vans, a job in progress, two or three finished jobs, a short interview with the owner, and a testimonial with one or two customers if they’re willing. You get the edited photos sized for the web, the originals, and the video cut into the lengths each platform needs. The exact list is agreed with you beforehand.
Can I just use photos from my phone?
For social media, yes, and we’d encourage it: a quick before-and-after from your phone is exactly what a Facebook page needs. Where it falls down is the handful of images that represent your business every day, like the top of your website and your ads. Those are worth doing properly once. We’ll happily use a mix of both.
Can you just do a logo?
Yes. Design work can be done on its own and delivered remotely, wherever you’re based. You get the logo in every format you’ll need, for web, print, van livery and embroidery, along with the colours and fonts so anyone else you work with can keep things consistent.
Do you travel?
We’re based in Glasgow and cover central Scotland as standard. Further afield is possible for a content day; we’ll be upfront about any travel cost before you book. Design work is done remotely for clients anywhere in the UK.
How long until I get the content?
Edited photos and the first video cuts usually land within a couple of weeks of the shoot. If something is needed sooner, like a hero image for a website launch, tell us and we’ll prioritise it.
Do I own the photos and video?
Yes, all of it, with no restrictions on where you use it. If you ever stop working with us, you keep the lot.
How much does it cost?
It depends on what you need and where you are: a logo, a half-day shoot and a full content day with video are different jobs. Tell us what you have in mind and we’ll explain the costs and what you’ll get from it. If we think you’d get more from spending the money on your website or ads first, we’ll say so.
Show people what you can do.
Tell us about your business and what you’d like to show off. We’ll call you to talk it through and come back with:
- What we’d shoot or design, and where each piece would be used
- Whether a content day, a logo or a few photos is the right place to start
- A clear cost, including any travel
- An honest view of whether you’d get more from your website or ads first
Over 30 jobs quoted in a week
Essential Roofing in Perth stopped using MyBuilder and quoted over 30 jobs in a single week. Michael, the director, says so on video on our Results page, in one take, outside a job.
Rated 5.0 on Google
Prefer to talk? Call 0141 378 0881, WhatsApp 07542 737977 or email hello@istratagem.co.uk.