The Realtor’s Guide to Using Canva for Marketing
Apr 28, 2021
Back in the day, marketing for real estate was fairly simple. Pay a designer to make some flyers. Pay a printer to print them out. You’re ready to get out there.
Today, marketing has taken on an entirely new role in the industry. From social media to listing presentations to buyers’ guides, you need your marketing to stand out. You need to show your personality! Look professional! Post consistently! It’s a lot of unnecessary stress and pressure and can feel like a full-time job. And don’t you already have one of those?
Before you go throwing your money at every Instagram-advertised marketer out there or settling for whatever your brokerage is giving you — hear us out. Canva is a great tool for Realtors and deserves a closer look. Let’s dive in — and make sure to read to the end to download your free marketing templates:
What Is Canva
Canva is an online design and publishing tool with a ton of functionality and tools built into it. Think of it like a user-friendly Photoshop — without the high fees and complex features you’ll never use.
Within Canva, you’ll find thousands of templates for everything from Instagram posts to flyers to logos — all uploaded by designers from around the world. Canva’s drag-and-drop interface allows you to input your own images and information within the templates to make them your own.
3 Categories of Canva Templates Perfect for Realtors
Canva isn’t built specifically for Realtors, but its template categories are a perfect match for the most common marketing needs. Here are some of the categories you’re likely to use most often when drafting new materials:
Flyers
You’ll find a large collection of flyer templates that are perfect for creating everything from listing flyers to team/personal profiles to printouts of testimonials.
Social Media Posts
When it comes to social media, there is no shortage of options within Canva. You can search by post type: Instagram posts, Instagram stories, Facebook posts, etc. so that everything is sized properly to work where you want it to work.
Brochures
You’ll want to take a look at the Proposals category when it comes to creating more complex assets like Buyer and Seller Guides, listing presentations, and team brochures.
Using SellWell Pre-Made Canva Templates
Yes, Canva templates make designing your marketing much more straightforward than if you were starting from scratch. But it still takes a bit of an eye for design and some work to get your marketing looking like you want. That’s why we’ve already done a lot of the heavy lifting for you with our SellWell marketing templates. All the SellWell designs are created by our lead designer and are optimized based on what we know works specifically in the real estate industry.
When you download a Canva template from the SellWell program, you’ll be steps away from having completed, eye-catching marketing assets. Below are some step-by-step instructions for using a pre-created template. If you’re a SellWell student, be sure to bookmark this blog post for easy access!
- Click the link provided in the SellWell program to land on the preview page.
- Click ‘Use Template’ to proceed
- It’s time to swap out the text and make it your own! We’ve left placeholders in spots that might require you to add your name or personal information. Feel free to adjust any of the text to include your personal voice and tone. To do so, click on the text box you’d like to edit, and you’ll see the cursor appear. Simply delete the placeholder text and type in what you’d like to see.
- Finally, you’ll want to add imagery to your templates. In some cases, this might mean adding your headshot or a photo of a listing property, and in others it may mean adding stock images from the Canva library.
- To upload your own photo, click ‘Upload’ on the toolbar on the left-hand side of the browser window. Click ‘Upload Media’ and choose to upload an image from your device, Google Drive, Facebook, Dropbox, or Instagram. Then, simply drag and drop the image onto the design where you’d like it to go.
- To upload an image from the Canva library, click ‘Photos’ on that same toolbar on the left-hand side of your browser window. Before adding the image of your choice, you’ll want to pre-click on the area you’re looking to fill. Then, click on the image of your choice and the open slot will fill. You can search for images that fit a certain theme by using the search bar. There is also a filter option if you prefer to only choose from free images.
- When you’re happy with the final version of your design, you’re ready to put it into action! You can choose to download it (click the downward facing arrow in the top right of the top toolbar), publish it directly to social media (click SHARE), and/or save it as a template for you to adjust later.
Should You Choose a Free or Pro Memberships
If you’re looking to simply try out Canva, the free membership is a fantastic option. Additionally, if you only plan to use SellWell templates, the Free membership will work just fine.
That being said — as you use Canva more and more, you might quickly find that the Pro version is worth it. You’ll gain access to a much wider variety of templates, and a huge selection of stock photos which you’ll likely need often. It’s just $9.99 a month, which could quickly pay for itself if you’re using stock images regularly.
The Bottom Line
After using Canva ourselves for years, we feel confident in saying that Canva is a great marketing resource for Realtors willing to put a bit of legwork into their marketing materials. If you don’t know where to start, try out SellWell templates and let us know how you like them.
The bottom line is that most Realtors are either overpaying or spending too much time on marketing — and it’s worth making a change. After all, a client is much more likely to remember a conversation than a flyer — so make sure you marketing is complementing not substituting the relationship building work you put in every single day.
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