We love Canva at Martin & Jones Marketing. It’s safe to say, we don’t go a day without calling upon its library of useful design tools and functions. It has become a very well known brand amongst the marketing and social media management sector, and we are going to talk you through what Canva is, and the reasons why it can help you reach the next level with your marketing.
What is Canva?
Launched in 2013, Canva has quickly become many people’s go to platform when it comes to designing and creating anything from social media graphics to website banners, print flyers and much more. It’s features allow you to use a huge library of pre-made designs, animations, graphics, images, video clips and fonts to create just about anything. They have even introduced a basic video editing feature in recent years.
How much does Canva cost?
You can create a Canva account for free. However, to access the true Canva experience (Canva Pro), you will only need to pay £10.99 a month for a team of up to 5 people. A real bargain!
Why is Canva so helpful with your marketing?
There are so many reasons why Canva Pro should be in your marketing toolbox, but here’s 10 of our favourites.
- Stock Images and Videos
Canva has an amazing library of stock images and videos that are completely royalty free which means they are available for you to use within any of your marketing materials, without worrying about copyright infringement. There are multiple images and video clips available for just about any search term.
- Brand Kit
One of the most useful tools within the Canva platform is the Brand Kit. This allows you to upload a preset for your brand including your logo, font type, font size and colour scheme. You are able to store up to 100 different brand kits per account – a fantastic feature if you’re like us and managing multiple brands.
- Size Presets
Canva has preset sizes for just about any design size you can think of. Whether it’s a social graphic, a business card, a website banner or a flyer, there are preset dimensions to make your life much easier. You also have the ability to create a design with custom dimensions.
- Magic Resizing
It is always important within marketing to have continuity within your designs and the magic resize tool is perfect for this. You can resize a design with a touch of a button. We often use this tool for transferring our square social graphics into story graphics or blog images.
- Organising and Stacking Designs
Organisation is important when you are wanting to streamline your marketing processes and Canva allows for this. You are able to create folders within your account, just like you would within Google Drive. Another simple but great thing is that you can stack multiple (up to 100) designs within one file, as long as they are all the same size preset. This is great if you use similar templates or design layouts.
- Adding Comments
The ability to add comments anywhere on a design is a great feature, especially if you are working collaboratively and want feedback on a design. You can also use it to leave notes for yourself for future reference.
- Image Editing Tools
The image editing options may be fairly limited compared to programmes like Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom, but it has everything you need when it comes to making your images pop. From the background remover tool to the coloured overlay option, and the ability to change the transparency, contrast, and saturation, they are many options available.
- Pre-Made Designs
If design isn’t your strongest skill, you can utilise or take inspiration from the thousands of premade designs that are on Canva. Pick one and alter it to suit your branding (with the help of the Brand Kit!).
- Animation Library
The animation library is a tool that can really help your designs come to life, especially social media graphics. By adding something that moves slightly, it can really capture people’s attention when they’re scrolling through their feeds.
- Printing Service
Canva also offer a printing service. You can conveniently print your designs directly through the application, with a range of costs and shipping options to suit your needs. We have used this service before and we were very impressed with the quality.
If you haven’t tried Canva before, we would recommend signing up to the free trial for the pro version and having a look through the huge amount of tools and features it offers. We really think you will see how useful it is and consider adding the investment to your monthly outgoings – for £10.99 a month it is truly amazing!
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