There is that age old saying ‘never judge a book by its cover.’ A moral told in many stories, teaching us not to judge someone or something based only on what you see on the outside. Although an admirable and lovely sentiment to live by, in this fast-paced digital age, this is just not the reality of business. People have jam-packed, busy lives and don’t want to spend hours on end ciphering through loads of options. They are looking for quick tell signs to help them make snap decisions. Is this a contender or heading for the reject pile? Brutal! But do not fear, there are strategies you can put in place and actions you can take to make that great first impression. Having well designed, cohesive branding across platforms and a landing page with wow factor is one such way to establish a strong online presence and stand out from the crowd!

Maybe you are in the early stages of setting up or launching your business and still getting your head around branding and marketing? Perhaps the price of the Adobe Creative Suite has just knocked you off your chair? Or maybe you don’t feel particularly confident in the area of design yet, you are not quite in the position to hire a dedicated Social/Content Creator? Well here at Made By Dave we would like to let you in on a well known secret: Canva. Canva is an online graphic design platform. It is an excellent tool for small businesses, covering them for all their branding and marketing needs. Here are 5 reasons why: 

User Friendly

First things first, let’s knock any feelings of intimidation you may have on their head. Canva is super easy to use and navigate. Even those who have no design experience whatsoever, can quickly and easily create professional-looking graphics. At its simplest, all you have to do is: select one of Canva's many pre-made templates; edit the text; amend the colours; and switch in your own photos or images as appropriate. Hey presto! Your first piece of visual marketing content. As the meerkat would say: ‘simples.’ From social media posts, to hard copy materials such as logos or posters, or even video animations, Canva has a wide range of designs waiting to be customised at your fingertips. 

Canva is super intuitive; the layout is clear and all the icons do what you think they will do. It is a very simple drag-and-drop system. They have an in-built help centre complete with tutorials and guidance to help you along your way. Additionally, you could easily get lost in a YouTube rabbit hole with the number of explainer videos out there. 

We cannot emphasise enough what a game changer the platform Canva can be as you are setting out. Plus, it can actually be quite a lot of fun and a creative outlet too! 

Affordable

Canva is a free online tool for designers. There is also a Pro or Teams version available for a fee, which both unlock further features - you can see latest prices here. These affordable subscription plans provide small businesses with access to an extensive library of design elements, templates and stock photos. You can create high-quality visuals for your business without having to fork out extra cash on hiring a designer or purchasing expensive design software. A no brainer when trying to reign in those upfront expenses.

Brand Kit

As discussed in the previous point, you can choose to opt into Canva Pro which unlocks a whole array of features. The most exciting perhaps is the Brand Kit.

Essentially, the Brand Kit is a place where you can save all the key elements of your brand in one place: fonts, logos, colours! When creating any future content, by referring to your Brand Kit, you can be rest assured that all visuals are consistent with and play into your brand’s overall scheme.

• Colours - If you are already in possession of a company logo or website, you can input the colour hex codes used in those straight into your Canva brand kit. A hex code is a colour code which reads # followed by six digits (eg white = #ffffff). By inputting them into your brand kit, you can quickly and easily create ‘on brand’ visuals.If you are not sure how to find these codes, we can help you out with that here at Made By Dave. You could alternatively use a variety of online eye-dropping tools to identify and pick out colour codes. Furthermore, if you don’t already have a designated brand colour scheme, Canva has a plethora of colour palettes available to choose or draw inspiration off.

• Fonts - There are a multitude of fonts to choose from already included with Canva (Pro). If your company’s font isn’t available, there is the option to upload it.

• Logos - You can upload your business’s logo with ease into your Brand Kit and mark each of your designs with the company’s official seal.

Collaboration and Organisation

Graphics take up a lot of space! Rather than having to download all your designs locally, Canva has its own filing system. You can save and organise all of your templates and designs into Canva Folders. There is also a built-in collaboration feature that allows teams to share and work together on designs. You can even selectively share folders beyond your team with clients or suppliers, such as web designers like us. At Made By Dave, when we have worked with clients who use Canva, we have been able to access their creations directly to utilise within the website design and also work within the parameters of their Brand Kit.

Social Media Integration

Loathe it or love it, social media is an essential component of any small business's marketing strategy. Canva has made it super easy for businesses to create social media graphics that are optimised to each platform. For example, you may have made a graphic for an Instagram post but you also want to upload it to Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. All of these social platforms have guidelines with different, recommended dimensions and sizes for posts. With the Canva Resize feature, in a few simple clicks, you can replicate your designs for alternate platforms that meet their specific requirements. No more blurry images or weird crops! It can be quite a minefield navigating this changeable information and Canva has automated it and will always be on top of any updates or changes.

On the theme of automation, it is also possible to integrate your Canva account with your social media profiles. You can publish designs directly to the gram or into the twittersphere, which saves time and streamlines the publishing process. If you sign up to Canva Pro, you can even schedule your social media posts in advance with the Content Planner feature and have access to an array of analytics and performance metrics that can help track the success of your designs. You can see how many views, clicks and shares a design receives, gaining valuable insight into your audience's engagement, identifying what is and isn’t working. With this in mind, you can make informed decisions about future marketing efforts and refine your branding strategy accordingly.

Conclusion

So there you go, 5 reasons why we think Canva is an excellent tool for small businesses. For a relatively small price, you and your team could get to grips with this easy to use platform and be publishing visually appealing, on brand, professional-looking marketing materials in no time!