Graphic design for small businesses matters - a lot. I’m sure many of you would agree. A company’s image can rely heavily on its visual identity and graphical elements. Look at companies like Apple, Nike, and Amazon. Their logo design alone encapsulates each brand’s vision and personality. Each is unique in its own right.
Moreover, their brand design never fails to carry over into other consumer-facing channels. From their social media handles to their online ads, outdoor billboards, flyers, and packaging, their brand image is consistent, attractive, and identifiable.
Impactful and effective design is the kind of stuff that many small businesses hope to achieve for their own brand. But the reality is that graphic designers aren’t always available for your day-to-day needs. Maybe their bandwidth is short; perhaps their quote for a project would have broken your budget. The point is that it’s not always viable to hire a graphic designer involved every single time you need a visual piece created.
Unfortunately, this is one of the most common challenges small businesses face. Creating visually appealing designs that represent your brand and bolster customer trust usually takes time, a specific skill set, and expensive design software. But what if it doesn’t?
Today, I want to outline a web app that all small businesses should keep in their arsenal when leveraging a professional designer isn’t doable. For the love of brand marketing, please do not succumb to using clip art or stealing online images for customer-facing materials. (Yes, I’ve seen this happen.) There’s a better, professional way to invest in your business design.
Introduction to Canva: Quality Graphic Design for Small Business
First, let me say that this post is not sponsored. We don’t have any affiliation with Canva. I genuinely find this tool extremely helpful and, more importantly, simple for non-designers.
It's time to discover Canva, an online app that lets you create fast and easy designs. The Pro level account starts at $9.95 US a month and has a free 30-day trial.
I have a free account; honestly, it’s all I’ve ever needed. Depending on your particular needs, the free account might be enough! Budget-friendly tools are such a bonus.
Design Practically Anything
This is where Canva has the edge over other graphic design tools I’ve used. They have a massive library of over 50,000 ready-made templates to leverage. Select a template, edit the text, select an image from their library (or upload your own imagery!), and you’re ready to download. Most templates, fonts, and images are free, so teams with a limited budget will especially love them. Others, I’ve noticed, start from as low as $1, so it’s not likely to break the bank.
Template categories vary for needs, too. Brand new businesses can start by exploring Canva’s pre-made logo templates. Templates for business cards, stationery, brochures, and even websites are available from there. My favorite thing about their template library is the variety of designs that suit different styles, audiences, and industries.
For example, suppose you start a small catering business and must quickly create new, affordable business cards. Here’s a glimpse of some pre-made business card templates they have if you search for “catering.” (There are even more templates I didn’t capture in this shot!)
Now, if you have a graphic design background, you’ll probably like the familiar editing features. Like Photoshop and Illustrator, Canva allows you to create separate canvases within which to work. Typographic designers can adjust the tracking and kerning of text. You can even define specific Hex color codes for your design elements if necessary.
So, whether you’re an amateur designer or have an advanced graphic designer on your team, you can draw plenty of inspiration from Canva’s collection of templates, images, and even fonts.
Content Marketing, Social Media, and Canva
Around here, content marketing is always a hot topic. How to produce fresh content, best practices for appealing to your audience, learning what content is share-able, standard image dimensions for social channels... the list can seem endless.
Needless to say, the content marketing world might be a little foreign to the small catering business I referenced earlier. What’s a caterer to do when their competitors are all over visually driven channels like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest?
This is where Canva can fit into a full-blown content strategy. Here’s a glimpse of key features I like:
- Social media standard sizing - when it comes to social media images, one size does NOT fit all. Twitter header sizes differ from Twitter post images; the same goes for Facebook ads and Pinterest’s pins. Optimizing your imagery for each individual channel can determine how eye-catching your content is to your audience. TIP: See “Social Graphics” templates for an entire collection of pre-made graphics for Instagram, Facebook ads, YouTube thumbnails, and even Etsy shop icons. Dimensions and resolutions are all taken care of for Canva users.
- Variety of display ad formats - new businesses, in particular, might not realize that ad sizes can heavily impact conversions. Catering businesses everywhere can rest easy knowing that Canva’s web ad templates come in standard sizes for leaderboard, skyscaper, rectangle, inline rectangle sizes, and more. So you don’t have to worry about learning all the different sizes!
- App integrations to streamline workflow - an excellent feature for all teams looking to scale or boost efficiency is Canva’s tool integrations. Canva can connect to other popular third-party platforms like Mailchimp, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, and more; loading Canva designs directly onto platforms can be a huge productivity boost for any online strategy. TIP: If you’re a larger team or have an outsourced designer, the integrations with Slack, OneDrive, and WeChat promote quick, easy, and real-time collaboration.
Building Brand Recognition with WSI
Canva is a powerful tool in a small package. Learning how to use Canva to make impactful images, which you can see across multiple platforms and channels, is something every marketer, team, and business owner can start doing today. The ratio of time/effort vs. the impact Canva can have on your marketing efforts is the type of big win every business needs to jump to that next level they’ve been striving for.
At WSI, we understand that building brand recognition is crucial for your business’s growth. Our team of digital marketing experts can help you make visually appealing and cohesive branding materials that resonate with your target audience and potential customers. From crafting eye-catching social media graphics to designing engaging email campaigns and professional presentations, WSI ensures your brand sets you apart in the crowded digital landscape. To learn more about graphic design for small businesses, contact WSI today.
