Using templates in your brand and how to create your own

Everybody knows what templates are, something that can be used as a pattern for future items.

Everybody knows what templates are, something that can be used as a pattern for future items. When talking about your brand, this sounds very useful and helpful in speeding up the process of future work. Unfortunately, the word template seems to have a slightly negative connotation in the brand and design world. Fortunately, though, we can get rid of that negative connotation by explaining how much better it is for you to use templates in your brand.

In this article, I am going to offer the business English definitions of templates offered by the Cambridge dictionary…

1. [A] method or system that can be copied and used by others.

2. IT. A particular model for arranging information or images in a document, etc. that you can copy and use for your own purposes.

3. Production. A design or pattern made of metal, plastic, or paper that is used for making copies of a shape or to help cut material accurately.

   
   Let’s add one more definition here linking to production, but keeping it digital…

4. Production. A design or pattern made in a digital file that is used to make other files appear the same way.

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TYPES OF TEMPLATES

The first thing to note here, before I split it into two different categories, is that templates can vary. They can be as complicated as forms where only the checkboxes change to an outline stating what goes where.

CONTENT

Content can include posts, articles, emails, social media posts, and more. Here are some quick examples of content templates that can help speed up your entire business process…

• Posts and article templates can outline a specific length, a number of paragraphs, the flow of information, or all end the same way.

• Basic email templates can consist of signatures or away-from-desk messages.

• More advanced email templates can include generic responses to clients or making sure emails are worded the same way.

• Social media content templates can include the specific length, hashtag location, hook location, and different options for CTAs.

Technically, any content that you create multiple times, can have a template. Videos, podcasts, reels, Lives, etc. And they can all be different depending on the platform they are meant for. For example, Instagram captions have a strict character count, while Facebook posts can be longer. You can use the same template for both, or create a new one.

In addition, I’ve written an article previously about The importance of style guides for your brand. In that article, I talk about content, design, and brand guides. Because having a styling guide can help you with the type of language used on all of your content and create a general template for pretty much anything.

DESIGN

Since I already mentioned it earlier, I will first refer back to the same style guide article as earlier. These style guides are the basis of your templates, both for content and design. Outside of that, though, your design templates can include business collaterals, social media posts, lead magnets or freebies, downloadable products, videos, and more. Here are some quick examples of design templates that can help you out…

• The easiest example of a useful design template is a business card for a company, by making sure all employees’ cards look the same.

• Same thing with any other business collaterals such as white papers, letterheads, and internal documents.

• Most social media posts come with some type of graphic to draw attention and keeping all of those graphics in multiple template styles will ensure that all of your posts link back to one another.

• Lead magnets are an easy way to get closer to your audience, and you can create a design template to make the process of creating these faster.

• Same thing we downloadable products, by ensuring they are all the same size, your name and contact information are always in the same place, etc.

• A template can be very useful if you want all of your videos to have the same entrance and exit graphics, transitions, flow, subtitle or text effects, sounds, and more.

As with content, any design work that you or your designer do can have a template. Videos, podcasts, reels, Lives, etc. Basically, all of the same stuff as content. They can be different depending on your platform, and you can even have one template that includes both design and content guidelines, or multiple templates for each design and content and then mix and match in between.