Creating appealing and distinct visual identity is one of the greatest challenges for all business beginners. One picture says more than a thousand words, but it can also cost more than a thousand dollars, which is often an entire initial budget of a small start-up.
So how can you find or create images for your products, website or advertisements without going bankrupt or getting sued? In this article, we will show you how to find marketing images on several free stock websites with amazing photo content.
How do I make sure the marketing image is free?
Before we deal with the free marketing images you may find online, it is extremely important that you get familiar with some basic rules of photo licensing.
The first one is simple: never, ever use an image you found online without checking its license. Just because it is extremely easy to copy and paste an image nowadays, doesn’t mean it is legal and it can get you into trouble.
Think you won’t get caught? Think again. Google has a reverse image search and plenty of photographers and agencies will run an occasional check on the use of their images. If they find their work on your website, they can send you an email and ask you to take it down or pay for it – and if you do not comply, you can easily get sued.
It just isn’t worth the risk, let alone destroying your reputation – stealing things is never a good look for a budding business. So how do you make sure that marketing images you googled are free to use? Pay attention to licenses.
Royalty Free Image License
Although it contains the word “free” this license does not mean you won’t have to pay for the image. This image is still copyrighted. You pay a one time fee for it – which can range from one dollar to thousands of dollars. After that, you can use it repeatedly without paying the creator again – but you still have to credit the copyright holder. This is commonly used in stock photography.
Creative Commons Image License
This type of license was created by an American non-profit organization Creative Commons with the goal of increasing distribution of creative content. There are several subcategories of Creative Commons licenses – while some give you full freedom to copy, distribute and modify the images, some require credit or limit their use to non-commercial purposes. CC0 license is the ideal one, with no strings attached.
Copyright Free Image License
This type of license allows you to do whatever you want with the image, without crediting the author.
Public Domain Image License
Public Domain photos are images whose creators’ copyright have expired, making them available for public use. However, this type of license can be a bit tricky because the expiration period varies from one country to another. If you want to calculate, you should do it based on the country where the image was created.
How to find out if the marketing image is licensed
So, you want to know whether some pretty marketing image you like is licensed? Well, it often takes a little bit of investigative work. Sometimes you will see the same image used by dozens of websites, which may lead you into thinking that they are probably circulating for free. But look at this.
I googled the images of a cup of coffee and clicked on one. Sometimes, you can visit the website and see if there is any credit under the photo or watermark. If there is no information, you can right click on the image and automatically conduct a reverse search on Google image. This is what I did here.
As you could see, although plenty of websites used and modified the photo, it originally comes from Getty images and it is absolutely not copyright free. So how do you save yourself time and trouble of investigating?
Websites with free marketing images
Now that we went through a crash course on your marketing image licenses, let’s see how to make your life easier. Enter these four websites. I use their marketing images on a regular basis when I create lead generation quizzes and surveys.
Pexels
Pexels is a stock photo website that was founded in 2014. On Pexels, you will find high quality and free marketing images and videos licensed under the Pexels license. You can easily search them by a term, and the results won’t be too shabby. There are hundreds of thousands of stock photos on this website.
Pexels photos are free both for commercial and non-commercial use, and the attribution is not required, although it is always an appreciated gesture. Pexels also allows you to edit the photos you find on their website.
Pexels has a rich database and most of your searches are bound to yield dozens of results. The photos are, yes, obviously stock-y, but they are beautiful nevertheless.
Unsplash
Unsplash is similar to Pexels. All photos from this website can be used both for commercial and non-commercial purposes, and crediting the author is not required. Much like Pexels, it boasts a solid database with hundreds of thousands of photos you can download or edit as you like.
If we are comparing websites, I have to admit that Unsplash, in my experience, has a tad bit prettier stock marketing images than other similar websites. Also, I’ve noticed it returns good results even for a bit more specific search queries.
Pixabay
Pixabay is a community for sharing copyright free images and videos. Everything on this website is released under CC0, so you can edit and use them any way you like.
On Pixabay, you can also find vector graphics and illustrations, which can come in handy if you want to create infographics. You can browse by category, size, and color, as well as vertical or horizontal orientation.
Pixabay boasts a solid database and additional content is definitely a plus.
Dreamstime is a distinguished leader in stock photography, a major supplier of high-quality digital images to the world’s largest advertising agencies, national and international magazines and film and television production companies.
As of March 2020, Dreamstime numbers 29,000,000 registered members and over 127,000,000 photos, illustrations, cliparts and vectors.
In addition to the almost one million free images available, Dreamstime’s active gallery is updated by the second with photos from the site’s 590,000 plus contributors.
Barnimages is a handcrafted free image site created by two photographers. Unlike other similar sites, Barnimages is not an aggregator, and it is mostly just them who shoot and upload the images so that you can find something different from the photos published on Unsplash or Pexels.
PicJumbo
Picjumbo is free stock photo site created by a designer & photographer Viktor Hanacek in 2013. Just like on the other sites, you can browse marketing images by category and while you will find somewhat more modest choice, you will find plenty of great photos.
PicJumbo has a perk of upgrading to premium, offering themed photo collections that look absolutely stunning, like this one.
The monthly plans start at $10.
Rules with free stock photo websites
Everything with these websites comes for free – but there are still some exceptions to how you can use the downloaded content. So there are several things that are not allowed, or require a special license. These rules are applicable to all websites listed here.
Photo redistribution
Photo redistribution is not allowed. This means you cannot sell, resell or reshare the images for download.
Consent
Identifiable people and locations are a somewhat tricky territory, especially if you are using these marketing images for commercial purposes. So let’s run through the consent question quickly.
You are not allowed to portray identifiable people from the photos in any bad light or offensive way unless they give you their explicit content.
Unless you made that french braid, you should not use it to advertise your hair salon.
Similarly, if you are using marketing images and videos to advertise your business, you have to ask for consent from all identifiable people in the photos. This requirement does not stop at people – the same applies to private property, trademarks, and visible logos. You have to obtain permission from their owners or creators.
For example, you cannot use an image or logo of the United Nations and place it next to your own advertisement in a way that suggests the UN would sponsor or recommend your service.
Feels overwhelming? Having dilemmas? Pixabay’s guide wraps it up in a way that will easily offer an answer to any question you may have – put yourself in the shoes of a photo model or a creator and think whether you’d approve of using the marketing image in the way you intended.
Conclusion
My ultimate advice? The best and most authentic marketing images are the ones you create all by yourself. Stock images are always a bit stock-y and recognizable for their perfection and airbrush.
However, the realities of starting a business often don’t allow people to spend much time taking and editing photos, let alone hiring professional photographers whose services come with a price tag. In these situations, stock marketing images can come in handy.
You may notice that these websites definitely won’t offer you a marketing image for every imaginable situation the way Getty or Shutterstock can. However, they will meet most budding businesses’ needs – so download away and use them in good faith.
Build Your Email List By 100K This Year Using Quizzes
Get Started
Build Your Email List By 100K This Year Using Quizzes
Get Started