Canva is a drag-and-drop design tool that lets you create pretty much any type of visual content with ease. It is available FREE for life, which is plenty powerful. But there’s a paid version that has additional features and once you go pro, you won’t go back!
According to techcrunch.com, Canva has over 15 million monthly users. With a current value at $1 billion, it’s fair to say many of those users are Canva Pro users.
When I started doing a lot of social media marketing for my clients, Canva was the first tool I picked up for creating and working with images. The free version is great, and I really learned a lot about image creation and manipulation. I’m not a graphic artist but I sure felt like one! The more I worked in Canva, the more powerful of a tool I realized it was.
One of my clients had a Canva Pro account, and once I started working in her pro account, there was no way I was ever settling for the free version again! One of the most important visual marketing assets for your business is your brand. With Canva Pro, you have access to their Brand Kit, which I use daily for my clients.
Let me tell you about some of what I think are the biggest reasons to use Canva Pro for your business.
Why do you need a designing tool?
Well, here’s why: visual content has significantly increased in importance in the past few years. If you’re not sure, just think about the things that every business needs — business cards, email templates, postcards, logos, etc. All very visual. Most small businesses and start-ups can’t afford to pay a graphic designer to create a logo for them, so they search for cheaper alternatives to get their brand in place. At $12.95 per month, Canva Pro gives you the most bang for your branding buck!
Why do you need a brand for your business?
Branding helps to keep your company in the mind of your potential customers. A solid brand identity helps build customer loyalty. Your brand makes you recognizable and memorable.
Canva Pro is the most cost-effective tool you can use to help get your branding in place.
Again, one of the most important visual marketing assets for your business is your brand. With Canva Pro, you have access to their Brand Kit with which you can create templates for your brand. Having templates in place help you maintain consistency and to be recognizable whether you’re handing out business cards or doing social media marketing. One only needs to look and say “oh, yeah – that’s XYZ company! I just love them!”
There’s more to think about what represents you to your customers or clients than a logo. Not that a logo isn’t important, it is! But creating the whole visual picture of who you are and what you’re about is what makes the difference between being hired and being passed over.
Canva Pro gives you templates for every marketing tool you need to get your business noticed and allows you brand consistency throughout each item.
If you’re just starting out, are a solopreneur or small business, oftentimes there just isn’t a big budget for marketing/branding and hiring a graphic designer. With Canva Pro, you don’t have to have a degree in design to create an eye-catching branding identity.
So, just what do you get with Canva Pro’s brand kit?
Some of the most useful features include:
- Having multiple brand color pallets
- The ability to upload your own fonts to use (you must have the rights to use it!)
- Upload your logo to use on all projects
- Access to over 4 million photos, illustrations and icons. For an extra $9.95/month you get access to unlimited photos. Canva just recently bought Pixabay!
Why is it important to have multiple color pallets and your own fonts? While Canva offers a large number and variety of fonts, we oftentimes will see a font used in something else and love how it looks. The same with colors. When you hit on a color scheme that screams “ME!” you want to make sure you always have the right codes. You can always have these available to you at your fingertips.
But why, may you ask, is having multiple color pallets important?
Most solopreneurs wear many hats. They have different aspects to their business, and each one is unique in its own. For me, knowing that I’m using the right font and color of blue for a client’s media kit for their writing business, and not the different font and blue they use for their coaching – keeps the anxiety at bay!
The same is true for logos. One of my clients has two separate membership sites. The color schemes are similar, but different. And there are two distinct logos. Having that all in one place is a time (and hair!) saver!
I tell you, having access to over 4 million photos, illustrations and icons in one place not only saves time, but keeps me from getting put in copyright infringement jail. You all do know you have to know the permissions of images you use, right? Sharing on social media is a bit more lax but using images on websites and other commercially used products could find you in hot water if you didn’t find out that it was an image you had to have PERMISSION to use! All the graphics in Canva Pro are safe, and if you pay the extra monthly fee, you will never have to worry if it’s free to use or not.
A few years ago, I had a client who hired someone to create her website for her. She trusted this person to know what she could and could not use for images. Long story short; she got tagged for copyright infringement on one of her images on her website because due diligence was not made in determining permissions.
There are many, many image sites out there that have free to use images. Sometimes you must search several of these sites to find just the right image, only to find you must purchase it or give photo credit. When I’m in a hurry, I love the millions of options I have with Canva Pro.
I use Canva every single day in my work. And every day I find more things I can use it for! If these aren’t enough reasons for you to investigate switching from the free version to Canva Pro,watch for my next post as I share a few more of Canva Pro’s awesomeness with you!
Of course, you could always just reach out to me if you’d rather have some assistance with it! I’ve love to help you out.