Today, we will be going through Canva and how you can use this tool effectively for your marketing and website.
So, I'm going to give you five tips and tricks. These are things that, as a marketer, I either was surprised when I found them, or they just generally made my life so much easier, and I hope they'll make yours as well.
So, whether you're an absolute newbie to Canva or pretty experienced, hopefully, this article will help make your life a little bit easier or save you some time, so we're going to get straight into it.
Canva Top Tip 1: Product Examples
The first thing that we're going to go through is product examples. Here, I want you to be thinking about downloadable guides destination guides that the area you're using as lead gen, merchandise etc., and you want them to just work for their absolute best.
We're going to walk you through an example, and for this, I'm going to type in ebooks into Canva search, and it's going to give us a range of different templates.
One of the features that I love about Canva is just the enormity of choice that you have. But the problem with these kinds of ebooks is that they are flat when you present them in marketing collateral.
Watch this clip and follow the directions below:
Step 1: Choose your design.
I choose one I've made earlier, and it’s the Airbnb Experiences Guide 2022. It's a helpful guide, and you're welcome to go and download it for free.
Step 2: smartmockups.com
Go to ‘Share’, and then we're going to scroll down a little more, and we're going to be looking out for smartmockups.com as a third party.
Step 3: Find & Select your Design Background
Please click to approve.
While the design is being prepared - Go to your search engine and type in ‘smartmockups.com’.
You can use this site for seven days on a free trial to access all examples or use the free templates only.
We will go to ‘All Designs’ and then click on the product type relevant to you. In my example, I choose eBooks.
Find a design that suits your requirements, and once you’re in the design, select ‘upload’ and then pick ‘Canva’ in the dropdown.
Step 4: Link your Canva Account and Select your Design
If you’ve not used this site before, you’ll need to connect your accounts, and then you’ll see your earlier Canva design saved and ready for you to use. Next, select your chosen design and amend the dimensions to fit the image example.
Step 5: There you have it, your finished image.
You can either download it or save it for later. The download options are really good so that you can get high-quality images this way, you can use it on design collateral, or you can use it on your website, for example.
This is a great way to present your finished products and create images that put your product in context for the viewer.
Canva Top Tip 2: Templates
Next, we will talk about making our own templates and storing them so you're not affecting your original design. This is great if you have a set design for social assets, for example, or work in a team, and you want to make sure your design is consistent.
So let's do an example here:
Step 1: Choose your design.
I will choose one I've already made earlier, my newsletter banner. Go up to the ‘share’ function in the top right corner, find the ‘More’ button, and select ‘templates’.
Step 2: Save your design in a folder
Once you select ‘Templates’ it asks you to save it in a folder. Here you can create a new folder or select one. You can share these folders with a team, granting access to anyone on your Canva account.
Step 3: View your Template
Once saved, you can view that template. If anyone else wants to use that template, they'll get two options:
- Edit the template
- Create a new design
So this is a fantastic way of controlling the design and ensuring it's on brand while ensuring that you don't lose the original.
Canva Top Tip 3: Background Remover
Another Hot Tip is the background remover function - Now, this is a paid feature, but if you’re using Canva regularly, this is a really lovely extra function. Again, this makes design editing quicker, and the tool was quite robust.
So I do want to do a demonstration for you here:
Step 1: Choose your image.
I've chosen something with a really strong foreground and a pale background. And then what we want to do comes to this one; here is the background.
What it's going to do is it's just going to highlight there the image in the foreground. So you may have to like this may not work with every image, but you can certainly make people happy most of the time.
Step 2: Background Remover
Go to ‘Edit Image’ and then click to ‘Remove Background’ - How quick was that?
Removing the backgrounds and layering images adds a different dimension when added to another image. It brings something to the foreground, lading the eye. So it's really handy for any social assets.
This would be applicable or products. For example, if you're putting it there if you have merchandise from before or just want to add an extra dimension to your images.
Canva Top Tip 4: Image Pop
I'm going to show you a technique that's often used on YouTube thumbnails, or you might have seen it on social to make an image pop more.
So here is an example that you can follow along with:
Step 1: Choose your ‘Background Removed’ image
Once you have your design and have your product or person with the background removed.
We are going to duplicate or clone that image.
Step 2: Editing your image
Move your duplicated image up a bit, so it’s easier to work on, and then go to ‘Edit Image’ in the top left corner. You are looking to ‘DueTone’, which should be in the middle or the additional Apps section.
Once you’ve selected Duetone, you can now choose ANY of the colour options and double click. Once you are in the settings, choose ‘white’ for the Highlights and the shadow section.
Step 3: Final Results
Now your image is a solid white colour. You can select the image and click to send the image to the back. It might take a few seconds to process as the image is highly processed now.
You’ll then see the image appear as a shadow, and you can now line up your image behind the original, making it pop out more.
It can work nicely if you've got a guide and you want them to be at the front, and then the rest of the information is a tour, and it makes it personable. In addition, you can do that with any colour in the background, creating something really funky.
Canva Top Tip 5: Finding Designers
I find it quite a struggle to keep the same style when using elements. So next, I'm going to show you how to find them very quickly.
Step 1: Find an Element
Within elements, you can search for anything you’d like to use, from photographs to stickers to videos. Once you find an image, you would like to use, click the three dots in the right-hand corner of the element. Here you will see information on the element name and the designer.
Step 2: Click on the designer's name
Now you can see all the work that the designer has previously done, and you can now find similar images to use in your designs.
Canva Top Tip 6: Canva Presentations
If you've never used Canva to present, welcome to Canva Presentations.
When you’ve created your design, you can click the ‘present’ button in the right-hand corner to see four options. In my example, we walk through option 4; presentation with a speaker:
You’ll see the option to ‘download’ the file or share a URL at the end. I find the download flexible, as I can then upload it to iMovie or other editing software and add introductions, music and additional graphics.
The URL is great if you want to share your presentation with your team, or if you have a website, you can link directly to your presentation, a virtual destination walkthrough or demo.
How do I promote my store? Top tips to Attract Customers
So, you have a beautiful store for your tours and merchandise, and now you're asking, "How do I promote my store?", we'll help you get the most from your shiny new store. Read our 5+ Tips to Promote your Store.
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