How to Use Canva to Create Amazing Marketing Content

Canva graphic design imageHere at LeadQuizzes, we love using tools that make our lives easier when it comes todigital marketing. In fact, that’s the goal with our own product: to create an effortless experience for you to design and implement simple, efficient lead capture quizzes.

We also like to point out some of our other favorite tools that can save you time within your digital marketing strategies and make your campaigns significantly more effective.

One of those tools we love?

Canva.

canva screenshot

What is Canva?

Canva makes it easy for you to create your own professional graphics, even if you’ve never dabbled in design before.

With drag-and-drop functionality and ample free-to-use templates, you can get to work quickly making beautiful images which will wow your visitors without the price tag that comes with hiring a professional graphic designer.

canva create a design screenshot

Canva is ideal for creating social media graphics as well as for a variety of other design presentations, and it’s also perfect for designing powerful infographics that can be highly effective in lead capture and digital marketing.

Ultimately, Canva gives you to the power to produce work like a talented Photoshop professional, even without having any prior design experience. You can then do anything with your graphics– add them to your website, your social media profiles, or your emails.

And best of all, Canva is 100% free to use. Although they give you the option to purchase additional design templates, we’ve found that you can create stunning graphic content quite easily using just the “basic” features (which include more than you would probably ever need).

Features

With Canva, features include:

  • Choose from millions of preexisting images within the Canva database including stock photos and illustrations. Don’t see any you like? That’s okay too, just upload your own.
  • Photo filters aren’t just for Instagram anymore. Make your images look perfect by using preset filters. If you’re feeling a bit more adventurous, use the advanced photo editing tools.
  • There are thousands of elements you can incorporate into your designs include free icons and shapes. You can also upload your own.
  • Canva offers an extensive selection of hundreds of fonts.

These are some of the general offerings of Canva. Below we’ll go into a bit more detail about some of the other features offered.

Photo Straightener

Nothing can ruin the professionalism of your digital marketing images quite as quickly as a crooked photo, but Canva makes it easy to fix. The photo straightener tool offers easy-to-use rotation effects, so everything is perfectly in-line, instantly upping your professionalism and credibility.

Image Cropper

Cropping is a must-have within any image designing tool. Cropping takes on a whole new meaning with Canva, as the tool will automatically fit your image into a grid or frame. You can also crop images from the stock library to customize them.

canva image cropper screenshot

Adding Text

Add text on top of your image after choosing from a wide variety of text holders, typography and fonts. You can also customize the color of the text. As a fun addition, use speech bubbles to give more life to your digital marketing images.

Web Wireframe

If you’re using Canva to design your website, you’ll likely want to take advantage of the web wireframe, which is a simplified plan for your site, focusing on the interface and its functionality. You can drag and drop shapes, look through the widgets, sidebars and other elements, and you can work on your design until you have it perfect. It’s the ideal way to create a functioning mockup of your website.

web wireframe screenshot of canva

Design Grids

If you want to design like a pro, Canva’s design grids make that incredibly easy. You can divide your pages any way you want and then drag your own pictures, fill boxes with color, or customize them however you choose. The Canva design grid feature is perfect for designing your social media and blog post images.

canva design grid screenshot

Social Media and Sharing

The image below is an example of one of Canva’s currently featured social media templates. You can customize it to your specifications and even share it directly to your Facebook or social media profile from within the intuitive interface.

canva social media screenshot

Canva also offers several opportunities for collaboration, so you can email and share your designs in an editable version while letting other people in your team review and make changes before you’re ready to publish. When you’re editing in Canva, you’ll notice many options are free, but there are also premium options that you can incorporate, most of which cost around $1.

Design School

There’s a lot to love about Canva, including their Design School.

The Canva Design School is essentially a series of tutorials that provide you with the information and foundation you need to become a master at designing professional-level digital marketing images.

The Design School is broken into various content areas, ranging from the basics in the “Getting Started” category to more advanced topics, like “Canva Shortcuts” and “Design for Social Media.”

The courses are extremely useful for those new to the program and you can keep up with them as your Canva design skills improve.

Tips to Improve Your Canva Marketing Journey

A lot of Canva is simply about experimenting and learning your way around the tools so you can maximize its functionality. If you already understand the basics, you can move on to learning more about creating the images that are really going to resonate with your audience.

Always Go For Quality Above All Else

Canva really helps you find those quality images that are going to have the most impact on your audience. Their stock images are incredible, and so much better than just trying to fill the space on a blog or social media post with grainy, low-quality images.

Also, try to find the images that aren’t just high-quality but evoke a sense of emotion. Below are some of Canva’s available stock images, which are not only crisp and beautifully clear, but can also convey emotion without words.

canva screenshot of images being used

With digital marketing images, operate from the assumption your audience isn’t going to read all your text. Make sure your images can speak for you.

Incorporate Branding

With Canva, you can not only create stunning images, but you can also easily brand them by adding your logo with drag-and-drop design tools.

When you add your logo to an image, make sure it’s visible but not so visible that it’s a glaring distraction from the rest of your image.

We like the examples below, both made using Canva, from LoriBallen.com,:

loriballen example image made in canva

lori ballen example image of woman holding gift made in canva

Optimize Your Images

When you’re using Canva, don’t forget about something incredibly important: optimization.

When you optimize your images (of course, Canva makes this easy), your content will rank higher via Google Search and drive more traffic to your website.

You can optimize a Canva image by tagging anything from the product to the message.

Go Beyond Photos

We touched on this a bit at the start of this post, but it’s important to emphasize: you don’t have to limit yourself to photos when you’re using Canva. Explore graphics, illustrations and infographics, which are also easy to create using Canva and will completely expand your digital marketing strategy and imagery.

Infographics are of particular interest because they’re a great way to convey a lot of information in a simple, digestible way. They’re also inherently shareable and are a good way to repurpose existing content. Below is an example of an Airbnb infographic created using Canva’s illustration tools:

An example of an infographic celebrating a company milestone

Use Canva To Define Your Visual Brand Identity

Canva has a really great post on this which highlights the importance of creating a visual brand identity to define your audience and understand how you can offer them value. These concepts can then help you visually represent your brand’s personality.

Canva gives you the tools to continually experiment until you’ve honed your brand identity, and you can then save the important elements that represent your brand and use them again and again.

Consider the visual elements included in this page for the popular Color Run event. It displays an glowing brand identity that isn’t just about color, but also about energy, vibrancy and excitement.

color run event screenshot by canva

With tools like Canva, digital marketing is becoming easier and easier to implement. Rather than spending your marketing budget on designers, consider becoming your own designer to create images that reflect your brand, capture leads, and deliver sales.

P.S. — Want to find out if we can help grow your business though social-media-marketed quizzes? Take our own quiz below to find out how much YOU could benefit.

Build Your Email List By 100K This Year Using Quizzes

Get Started

Build Your Email List By 100K This Year Using Quizzes

Get Started