According to Demand Gen Report’s 2019 Content Preferences Survey, nearly three quarters of B2B buyers report having less time for reading and research. On a more encouraging note, the majority of B2B buyers are willing to invest upwards of twenty to sixty minutes with brands’ visual content.
Creating visual sales content has never been more important. Thankfully, it has also never been more accessible. Of course, this initiative can and should generally fall more into the domain of marketing and its design team, but those specialized resources tend to be stretched thin as it is. Salespeople who want to add visual spice to their social media posts or presentations might be surprised at today’s low barrier of entry, with drag-and-drop or templated tools that help with quickly creating assets like:
Quote tiles
Product specs
Inspirational graphics
Charts and graphs
Accompanying imagery for LinkedIn updates
If you’re worried about not having any sort of design background, don’t be, because the following DIY design tools lower the learning curve for basic visual content creation.
DIY Design Tools for Creating Visual Sales Content
The following tools and applications vary in purpose and functionality, but they all share this in common: they’re free (or have free versions) and they’re very easy to use, even for a total design novice.
Canva
Many similar tools exist, though Canva stands out in terms of sheer selection and start-to-finish ease. Canva’s wide range of images are ready for instant use for projects small and large, from social media posts to sales presentations.
Try using the presentation template to see if you can’t freshen up some of your staler slides. Comb through your most influential or helpful sales content and think about how you might inspire people – whether on social media or in your next sales meeting – using the quotes and stats within. To add branding elements to your creations, easily upload your logo or any other favorites from your company’s design library.
Desygner
While similar to Canva in that the tools do largely the same things, Desygner is another option that offers thousands of free templates to use for your designs. Whether you come to prefer Canva, Desygner, or another tool, it’s always good to have abundant options when it comes to free design elements, and Desygner offers free options aplenty.
Free Stock Photo Sites
Stock photos get a bad rap sometimes, and often for good reason. But when you learn creative ways to bring stock photos to life, a whole world of creative possibilities opens up. Suddenly, millions of free-to-fidget-with photos are fair game for cropping, layering, defocusing – whatever you want your social images and slides to look like.
Sites like Pixabay, Pexels, StockSnap.io, Unsplash provide searchable libraries of free stock photos from which to choose, and you don’t need to worry about running afoul of licensing restrictions.
Take Advantage of Templates and Slide Libraries
Have you ever noticed that lots of successful people in our profession have slide collections? When it comes to visual sales content, the slide is perhaps the most foundational element.
If you haven’t played around with PowerPoint or Google Slides for a while, you’ll notice that creating individual slides and entire presentations has become somewhat foolproof.
Start taking note of slides that inspire you. Whenever you see slides you like, save them to your slide library so you can keep them handy and customize them for future use. The more slides in your library, the easier it might be to fill your social calendar as well.
When your slides come together to form a gripping presentation, make the most of your work by uploading the presentation directly to LinkedIn, where people can scroll through your slides from their feed.
Better Sales Content, by Design
No one expects a sales professional to light the design world on fire, so don’t expect it of yourself. The important thing to remember is that you know how to communicate, and today’s tools make it super cheap and easy to create visual content that can elevate your odds of attracting B2B buyers. Video, audio, interactive — they’re all options for the taking, available to anyone who’s willing to learn.
So whether you want to simply spruce up some old slides or use free video editing tools to take those slides to a whole new level, the world is your oyster and these tools can help you create pearls without all the pressure.
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Topics: Sales basics
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