Proud mama type moment here because I’ve recently been getting the question a lot that goes something like this email I received: “Dear Jenna, I’m on board with your strategies around batching content and it has changed my business. Where I’m getting stuck is in creating graphics for all of the platforms to share my work and I don’t have the money to outsource to a designer, help!” You guys are listening and I’m getting through to you about working smarter not harder, outsourcing where you can, working ahead and repurposing content for your business. Awesome! But since you’re creating intentional content, you need some pretty graphics to go with it and let’s be honest, we’re not all designers.
Let’s talk about the kind of graphics your brand needs
Graphics come in all shapes, sizes, and colors but they aren’t all created equal. Just the term might have you wondering: wait, is this something I need for my brand or business? In short, if you are creating content, the answer is: yes. In a given week we are creating graphics for: our podcast episodes, our blog, our Pinterest, our Instagram and Instagram Stories, email marketing images, Facebook ads and graphics to share the release of new content. That’s a lot of graphics, right? But if you create with intention you can batch create and repurpose one graphic on many different channels.
Creating a Consistent Brand through Graphics
When you hear the term “branding” you likely are imagining the fonts, colors, and imagery that accompany what you’ve created and while the visuals are just one aspect of branding, they are incredibly important in creating a cohesive vision that communicates who you are, what you do, and who you serve. We use PicMonkey for a lot of our brand graphics and one thing we absolutely love about it, is that you can create templates specific to your brand so that your visual piece is cohesive and recognizable. You can create your own brand look, like colors, fonts, and then apply them to all of your visuals to get a cohesive look instantly no matter what you’re creating. Cohesion is super important, so we love that PicMonkey helps you elevate that piece without recreating the wheel every time you sit down to create.
Outsourcing can take on many different forms
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you don’t have the budget and therefore can’t get help in your business. Even if you can’t hire a team member right now, think about other ways you can start small because outsourcing can take on so many different forms. Whether that’s working with someone on a project by project basis, hiring contractors, or turning to companies that can make a task easier (more on that in my next point!) – think outside of the box when it comes to outsourcing and go from there. I started off with a client management system, then hired an accountant, then a contractor and then was ready to add team members. It’s a process and there are options for you at every stage.
Look deeper into where you’re struggling and spending your time
I’m obsessed with evaluating where my time is being spent and trying to continually make sure I’m working on the things that only I can do. As the business owner, you need to take a hard look at your list and see if there are tasks that others could be doing better or more efficiently. I found I was spending so many hours each and every week creating images for social media, the podcast, ads, freebies, emails – the list goes on and this was an area I knew we could get off my plate. Maybe you’ll hire someone to do your graphics for you, or if it’s not in the budget like the reader who submitted the question for this post, maybe instead you’ll turn to a site like PicMonkey to help you create standout visuals to promote your brand or business. Using PicMonkey, you can create powerful designs for social media, marketing materials, advertising, and so much more.
If you’re struggling with design, start here
Even though we have a designer on retainer, we still have so much visual content needs for the brand. I’ll letcha in on a secret… The stuff you’re seeing all over that we’re putting out? It’s actually not professionally designed… you’ve been seeing a whole bunch of the PicMonkey templates on my social media lately. Yup, we use templates and we’re not afraid to share that.
If you’re stuck or design-challenged, templates can become your BFF. The PicMonkey templates are a great way to jumpstart your creative process. They can be used as-is for stunning visuals to promote a new blog post or podcast episode, or quickly edited to suit your brand colors and styles.
Save on our best-kept secret
PicMonkey is like having a design friend on staff! Just login, create your graphics, keep things cohesive, and push them out in to the world. With a PicMonkey subscription you get all the things — thousands of those templates, millions of stock photos, a live support team to help ya out, plus real-time collaboration capabilities so you can start a design and have your team finish it up. Give it a try, I think it will be the perfect solution to your problem of needing to create so many graphics while batching work for your business.
