The Pros and Cons of Using Templates on Your Brand

If you’re a small busi­ness own­er, then you know that main­tain­ing a pro­fes­sion­al pres­ence is key to suc­cess. But what if you don’t have the time or resources to design every­thing from scratch? 

Tem­plates can be a great way to cre­ate a cohe­sive look for your brand with­out spend­ing hours using com­pli­cat­ed soft­ware. How­ev­er, there are some things to keep in mind before div­ing in. 

In this post, we’ll look at the pros and cons of using tem­plates and how you can be strate­gic in using these for your brand­ing efforts.

The Pros and Cons of Using Templates for Your Brand

Think about your favorite brand. Odds are, you can pic­ture their logo and the gen­er­al feel of their mar­ket­ing mate­ri­als. That’s because these brands have tak­en the time to cre­ate a tem­plate for their brand­ing. But is using a tem­plate right for your busi­ness? Let’s take a look at the ben­e­fits of using tem­plates to help you decide.

The Pros 

1. You Save Time

When you use tem­plates, you can focus more on the con­text and val­ue of your con­tent over the visu­al appeal. And being able to cre­ate this on a desk­top brows­er or mobile device is a huge benefit. 

Cre­at­ing new designs every time is the biggest time killer. With tem­plates, you will save count­less hours, headaches and mon­ey. Whether you are a design­er or not, start­ing from scratch isn’t an effi­cient use of time.

2. Fast and Easy

The world is a com­pet­i­tive place. You can’t afford to waste time on slow and tedious tasks when there are so many oth­er things that need your atten­tion in order for you busi­ness or com­pa­ny’s suc­cess! Tem­plates make con­tent cre­ation fast, easy (and) afford­able because once you have them set up, all it takes is adding your copy with images.

3. Done for You 

Instead of start­ing from scratch, you can choose a tem­plate that’s already been cre­at­ed. With these tem­plates, all you need to do is insert your con­tent and make quick cus­tomiza­tions to the design. This is incred­i­bly ben­e­fi­cial if you val­ue the impact of design, but cre­at­ing con­tent from scratch isn’t your strength.

The Cons 

1. They Aren’t Exclusive

Brand­ed tem­plates can be a great way to save time and mon­ey when cre­at­ing mar­ket­ing mate­ri­als. How­ev­er, if you use any tem­plate that’s avail­able to the mass­es, some­one else will have them too! And when you are work­ing hard to build brand aware­ness, dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion comes at a cost when your brand iden­ti­ty looks like some­one else’s.

In order to avoid this prob­lem, it’s impor­tant to be selec­tive about the tem­plates you use. Choose tem­plates that are not wide­ly avail­able, or cre­ate your own cus­tom brand­ed tem­plate. By tak­ing the time to cre­ate a unique brand iden­ti­ty, you’ll be able to stand out from your com­peti­tors and build strong cus­tomer loyalty. 

2. Brand Consistency Issues

Some­times, too many options are NOT the best route…

For instance, let’s say you start with some tem­plates you found. But you did­n’t real­ly feel they helped you tell your brand sto­ry. There­fore, you grabbed oth­er tem­plates. And those didn’t excite you after a while. So, you looked for anoth­er new tem­plate, only to expe­ri­ence con­tent cre­ation over­whelm because your tem­plates cre­ate more con­fu­sion than consistency.

3. Letting Templates Define Your Brand

We under­stand not all busi­ness own­ers can hire a pro­fes­sion­al brand design­er, so nat­u­ral­ly, using tools to help you brand your busi­ness is a good resource. But cre­at­ing a brand from a tem­plate can backfire.

Many busi­ness own­ers and entre­pre­neurs have con­fessed to us that they just found a trend­ing tem­plate online, added their name, and called it a brand. There was no strat­e­gy or no audi­ence con­nec­tion. It was just a case of beau­ty but no brains.

When you start build­ing your brand from a tem­plate, you let it define your brand. The prob­lem that cre­ates, is that you end up think­ing about how to cre­ate con­tent that fits that tem­plate instead of focus­ing on con­tent that aligns with your brand’s mission.

Tem­plates shouldn’t lead the con­tent. They should sup­port it! 

how to make templates work for your brand 

The solu­tion isn’t about not using tem­plates. It’s about being strate­gic with what tem­plates you use. So, here’s what you CAN do to make tem­plates work for your brand:

1. Create Custom Branded Templates

Whether you cre­ate the designs from scratch or start from a tool like Cre­ative Cloud Express, make sure those tem­plates have your brand col­ors, fonts, brand­mark AND fit your brand per­son­al­i­ty. We love using Adobe Express for our clients because it’s effort­less to use and doesn’t require them to learn Illus­tra­tor or Inde­sign. This ensures they main­tain brand integri­ty and empow­ers them to take com­plete con­trol of their brand­ed content.

2. Using Templates Without a Purpose

Fail­ing to define a brand pur­pose for your tem­plates will make you waste time nav­i­gat­ing con­tent blocks. Set a goal for each brand­ed tem­plate design: sales, brand aware­ness, quote graph­ics, carousels, com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment, live announce­ments, etc.

When we design brands, we often include social media tem­plates for our clients. Our brand strat­e­gy process defines what type of con­tent they share, which we use to guide the design of the cus­tom tem­plates we design for them. Here is an exam­ple of brand­ed social media tem­plates we cre­at­ed for our client Ele­vate it Now using Adobe Express. 

3. Define How to Use Your Templates

Cre­at­ing your brand­ed tem­plates is just the first step. You need to have a clear strat­e­gy for using them. There­fore, we rec­om­mend you estab­lish a writ­ten guide and add it to your brand guide­lines or social media strat­e­gy — this is espe­cial­ly cru­cial if some­one else uses them.

There’s no deny­ing that tem­plates can be a huge time saver when cre­at­ing mar­ket­ing mate­ri­als. Remem­ber you can’t build a brand from tem­plates. How­ev­er, you should use cus­tom brand­ed tem­plates to cre­ate brand con­sis­ten­cy. Above all, you need to be strate­gic and cre­ate brand­ed tem­plates with spe­cif­ic brand goals. As a result, you don’t just speed up your con­tent creation—you build equi­ty with brand continuity. 

P.S. if you are look­ing to get start­ed with Adobe Express, check out our course on LinkedIn Learn­ing!

This post con­tains some affil­i­ate links and we may be com­pen­sat­ed if you make a pur­chase using them.