Custom branded images are a cornerstone of visual content marketing. The visual appeal of your marketing materials can make or break your brand’s identity. It’s a combination of design knowledge and the right image creation tool.
In this article, I’m talking about a versatile, user-friendly platform — Canva.
You might hear people talking about how much fun it is to work with. But can Canva be used for business?
You bet. Use it well, and even the smallest business can make a big impact.
Today we’ll explore how you can use Canva in your business — and look like you have a top-notch team of designers. I’ll give you three simple, powerful tips to make your visual content marketing effective and memorable.
Why visual content matters
Before we dig in, let’s look at why visual content marketing is so important.
Have you ever stopped scrolling through your feed because an image caught your eye? That’s the power of visuals.
Images convey messages faster. More than that, they stick in your viewer’s memory longer than text alone.
In a world swimming with information, professional, branded visuals can make your business unforgettable.
Whether it’s social media posts, blog posts, presentations, reports, or print collateral, never underestimate the impact of engaging images.
A picture is worth a thousand clicks
Effective visual content marketing calls for custom, branded images. The right tool combined with some simple — and powerful — design rules can make you look like a pro.
Pro tip: Canva is a great design tool. But like any tool, an educated user will get better results.
In the hands of someone with no design training at all, Canva will help quickly and efficiently create terrible visual content.
When you understand how design elements work together, you can create visual content that looks on-brand, polished, and professional.
So how exactly can Canva be used for business? Let’s take a look.
Tip 1: How to choose the best image creation tool for your business
Given its popularity and reputation for ease of use, C-suite teams might wonder: Can Canva be used for a business that’s serious about high-quality visuals?
The short answer is yes. With some basic knowledge of design concepts, Canva can be an excellent tool for your in-house team. And it stacks up well against other top-rated software.
Here’s a comparison of Canva vs PicMonkey and Adobe Creative Suite.
Canva: User-friendly, powerful, affordable
- Canva is renowned for its intuitive interface. With drag-and-drop functionality and a plethora of design elements and customizable templates, it has the power to help you produce high-quality branded images.
- Its collaborative features makes it a superior choice for teams. I’ll talk about integrating it with a team below.
PicMonkey: User-friendly, specialized, affordable
- PicMonkey’s focus is on photo editing. It offers advanced features similar to a scaled-down version of Photoshop, but without the complexity.
- The pro version is a little less expensive than Canva, but lacks some of the capabilities to produce a wide range of designs.
- Its learning curve is considered to be a little steeper than Canva.
Adobe Creative Suite: The professional designer’s choice
- Adobe’s product suite, Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, is the gold standard in the design industry.
- It’s much pricier than Canva or PicMonkey, especially if you need more than just Photoshop.
- While it has a steeper learning curve and higher price point, it’s still the go-to for design professionals.
Related: 5 Easy Steps to Create Stunning Content Marketing Images [Examples]
Beyond social media: Is Canva OK for commercial use?
The most powerful tool isn’t necessarily the best one. If you want to streamline your visual content marketing, choose something that’s simple, easily integrated into your workflow, and fits your budget.
Choose the powerful-enough tool that gets the job done.
The concepts and processes in any of these three tools are transferable to the others. So if you’re looking to switch from your existing software to Canva for visual content marketing, the transition can be easy.
Plus you’ll find plenty of Canva tutorials online to help you make the most of the tool.
Decisions, decisions: Start with an experiment
Canva has a number of plans, including a free one. If you want to take it for a test drive, I recommend experimenting with the free version.
Which might lead you to wonder:
Is Canva Pro worth it for small business?
Short answer: Yes. If you plan to create professional branded images on an ongoing basis, then a Pro (or Teams) plan is worth it for the additional features, which I’ll talk about below.
Tip 2: Pick a tool that works with your visual content marketing process
Canva boasts a user-friendly interface designed to cater to users with varying design skills.
Whether you’re a business owner, seasoned designer, or new to a marketing team, you’ll find the platform’s intuitive tools easy to use. You get access to a library with a wide range of design elements to kick start your creativity.
These include:
- Backgrounds
- Fonts
- Shapes, lines, icons
- GIFs and stickers
- Photos
- Animations
Remember, it’s just a tool. When you’re picking the graphic elements you’ll apply, you need to remember your visual brand and your brand personality, and choose images, brand colors, and brand fonts that are consistent.
Related: Type Styles of the Rich and Famous
Related: The Simplest Way to Choose Your Brand Colors in Just 2 Steps
How to integrate Canva into your visual content marketing toolkit
You can create a brand kit within Canva (the Pro or Teams version) by adding your brand essentials:
- Brand colors
- Custom fonts
- Logo or wordmark
Your brand kit is an easy-to-access custom digital resource library to integrate into your visual content marketing process.
From there, you can create any number of projects. Canva has all the standard sizes you need — from social media posts, to blog images and even videos.
No need to have a swipe file with image dimensions. Just log in and get to work.
One of Canva’s strengths is as a graphic design tool built for both experienced and inexperienced designers. It works across industries.
You’ll have a wealth of possibilities at your fingertips. But is Canva OK for commercial use? Absolutely!
Their licensing agreement clearly spells out what’s allowed. You can do a lot — even design merch for resale. But you can’t resell, redistribute or take credit for content provided through Canva, like their graphic stickers, photos, and symbols.
Important note: If you use images that you don’t own and are outside of Canva’s library, make sure they’re available for commercial use. It’ll help keep you out of legal hot water.
And I’m not a lawyer (obviously!), so if in doubt, consult a legal professional.
Tip 3: Can Canva be used for business when you have a team?
Businesses of all kinds are meeting the challenges — and benefits — of hybrid teams, and teams spread across time zones. Without clear and efficient communication, the simplest visual content marketing project can become a tangled mess.
Canva’s collaboration tools make it an ideal choice for in-house teams as well as making it easy to work with both contractors and clients.
You can streamline your design process by inviting team members to work on projects together, ensuring consistency and efficiency in your visual content marketing projects.
Choose a Canva for Teams plan to get a centralized place for your team to share feedback, make edits, and brainstorm ideas. If you’re creating social media posts, you can publish directly to your channels right from the platform.
Switching apps chews up time and cognitive capacity. A tool that lets you create as well as publish — and does it smoothly — is a smart choice.
Creating memorable images — the professional designer’s secret
Canva for business gives you a versatile, cost-effective, collaborative solution for visual content marketing. But there’s a caveat.
While Canva’s templates can save time and effort, it’s essential to make them your own.
If you don’t customize your images, you risk falling into the trap of visual sameness.
Just like those stock photos that keep popping up on social media and blog posts (you’ve likely spotted some of them), using premade templates doesn’t build your brand in the eyes of your customers.
Looking like everyone else means you aren’t seen at all.
It’s important to remember that the tools you use throughout your business are important. You want technology that integrates smoothly with your processes.
The results you get from any tool will only be as good as your design skills.
It’s crucial to inject your brand’s style when creating visuals.
- Be consistent with your brand colors and fonts.
- Be consistent with your visual style.
- Be consistent with your brand voice.
Understanding the basic “rules” of design is the key to success. Over the course of my marketing and design career, Pamela identified 12 design rules that she still uses to this day.
Related: Discover How to Define Your Brand Personality
Set yourself up for success
Choosing the right image creation tool can be daunting. So let’s recap:
Can Canva be used for business?
Yes. It’s easy to use, cost-effective, and versatile. You can choose a free plan to test out many of its features before investing.
Is Canva OK for commercial use?
Yes. It’s perfect for everything from social media posts to reports to selling branded merch. Just make sure you check the licensing agreement first.
Can my team use Canva?
Yes. It’s built with team collaboration in mind. Make sure you choose the Canva for Teams plan.
Will Canva make me a pro designer?
No piece of software can replace design skills (not even AI). It’s not about the tools — it’s the knowledge you bring to them. And it’s about putting that knowledge into practice.
Even the best professional designers have to learn design rules and apply them.
Whether you’re a small startup or an established enterprise, Canva can help you become an image-making powerhouse that helps your brand stand out, even in a crowded marketplace.