Create More Content: The Benefits of Using Templates in Your Marketing Strategy
We all know the importance of high-quality content. And the desire to produce a lot of it.
As a business owner or entrepreneur, creating and publishing content is a cornerstone of your marketing strategy. But being consistent with that process is harder than it sounds—it takes time, planning, design chops, and brain power.
Plus, there are so many channels in this digital age: your website, newsletters, webinars, advertisements, and of course, all the social media platforms.
Thankfully, templates have entered the chat.
If you’re looking to save time, cut down on costs, and stay consistent with your content strategy, keep reading to learn all about the benefits of templates for marketing.
What is the deal with templates?
Templates are pre-designed layouts that are used as a starting point for creating content for your business. They are easily customizable to your brand fonts, colours, and style, and you can find them for any type of content you’re looking to create.
Templates are designed for everything from infographics, presentations, and contracts, to social media posts and brand guidelines.
With the amount of content business owners and brands are expected to produce on a daily basis, it’s no wonder the process can feel overwhelming and stressful. Even with a team supporting you, it’s a lot to handle.
Templates lighten the burden. And you don’t have to be a designer to use them.
Templates give you a starting point—and save valuable time
We all know that feeling of staring at a blank page and having no idea what to write or where to start. The same can be felt when you’re looking at your email marketing schedule or your social media calendar.
You need an idea or a concept to launch your workflow, and templates are the done-for-you outline.
Instead of starting from scratch every time, you can use templates as the foundation to build your content on. With the ability to drag-and-drop your own images, and change fonts and colours to match your brand style, templates are the ultimate time-saving solution.
That blank page you were staring at becomes a world of possibility in minutes. And as an entrepreneur or marketing professional, you can get back to focusing on other aspects of your growing business.
Templates are the most cost-effective solution
Some small businesses and entrepreneurs aren’t at the point where hiring designers in-house is a possibility. Designers come with a wealth of knowledge and skill, and that also means they come with a higher price point.
By comparison, template packages can range from $10 to $500, a one-time cost that allows you to use the templates over and over again. The reusability factor of templates is also a cost-saver, reducing the need for more time and resources.
Templates also often include high-quality design elements that look and feel professional, which limits the necessity for you to hire a designer for custom work.
There is, of course, the risk that other brands and businesses are using the same templates as well—but with the ability to make tweaks and changes to fit your style, your content will still look unique and branded.
Templates provide consistency to your brand
We know how difficult it can be to stay consistent with your marketing schedule—posting multiple times a week on social media, sending out daily emails, building proposals and pitch decks…
The list goes on and on.
With content marketing especially, it’s easy to push publishing content to the side in favour of other tasks that give your business a clear ROI. But we also know that your marketing is imperative to the success and health of your business.
To stay on track and stay consistent, templates are your support system.
With templates, you can dedicate a certain bucket of hours at the beginning or end of your week to create and plan ahead. This means that you stay top of mind and relevant to your audience, while showcasing a consistent brand image.
Consistency is key for building trust and loyalty with your audience, and templates can help you achieve that.
The tools for using templates effectively
There are several online platforms that can help you with customizing templates and streamlining your content creation workflow.
At Happy Hour Digital, our favourite is Canva.
Canva is a graphic design website that allows users to create and edit visually beautiful designs, especially when it comes to content marketing. It’s like Photoshop or Illustrator for people who want a less complicated, easy-to-use option.
The interface of Canva is user-friendly with a drag-and-drop feature, and provides a library of pre-made templates as well as allowing Canva users to share their own template creations with the world to edit and modify.
The best part? Canva is free to use. And if you want to upgrade to additional features, it’s a low-cost option of $12.99 per month.
If you’re interested in using Canva to accelerate your content marketing process and discover beautiful new templates that will support your business goals, browse our shop!
Ready to take on the world of templates?
We can’t stress enough how much we understand the content creation process. If there’s a way to save you time and money, and increase your efficiency and consistency, we want to tell you about it.
Templates do all of that and more. Once you get started, it’ll be difficult to stop! Take the next step and enjoy exploring the world of creative templates. We can’t wait to see all of the content you create.
If you’re curious to learn more about how templates fit into your content marketing or social media strategy, see our services page and connect with us for a deep dive!
