Every business needs documents, and the way they look impacts how people see your business. If you want people to take you seriously and see you as a business they’d like to work with, you need to make sure your documents are presented well. With that in mind, here are 8 ways to create better branded documents for your business.
Branding
Branding makes everything you send out look the same and have a consistent feel. There are a number of benefits such as:
- People will always recognise your invoices, letters, emails, social media etc, not dismiss them as spam
- Good branding goes a long way towards making everything look good and consistent. The more professional your documents are, the more professional your business appears.
- Branding should be designed to appeal to your ideal customer. If it’s eye catching for the people you want to attract, they’ll notice you more often.
- It extends to the tone you use and the language you use. Formal or informal, casual or businesslike, should all be part of your branding strategy.
Templates
Templates make it easy to create documents that you use regularly – letters, agreements, invoices. There are many good reasons to use templates instead of a master document including:
- You never have to worry about not deleting something from a previous version. We’ve all received a document from someone with details of a previous client included. It looks unprofessional at best and can be a confidentiality breach at worst.
- It’s much harder to accidentally delete, or permanently change a part of a template. I’d never suggest it’s impossible, but it’s far less likely. When you open a template, it creates a new document and changes are saved there. Then you’re never actually editing the original template.
- Saving the new document won’t accidentally overwrite a previous version. If you’re using a template, you’ll have to save the new document with a new filename. If you’re just making updates on an old document, it’s very easy to overwrite something you shouldn’t.
- Templates save time in the long run. Creating a template can be time consuming and it may seem like a waste of time. But the time saved by having the exact document you need at your hands all the time is worth it. As is the time saved by not having to deal with issues around regularly editing a regular document.
Taking the time to brand documents well in the first place will save you a lot of time in the long run. It will also ensure that you look professional and attentive to detail. All qualities that you want to portray to your customers.
If you’d like some more ideas, check out my previous posts on branding.
Click here to book a complimentary 30 minute catch up to discuss how I could help you with your branding.
