Do Companies Still Send Out Christmas Cards?

YES!!! Sending out personalized company Christmas cards offers a unique opportunity for businesses to strengthen relationships, build brand loyalty, and convey genuine appreciation. Here are the main benefits of sending personalized cards:

1. Strengthens Client Relationships
   Personalized holiday cards make clients feel valued and acknowledged. A thoughtful message or a custom touch can reinforce the relationship and remind clients of the positive experiences they’ve had with your company.

2. Boosts Employee Morale
   Sending personalized cards to employees is a small but meaningful gesture that shows appreciation for their hard work. It can contribute to a positive workplace culture by making employees feel seen and valued.

3. Enhances Brand Loyalty and Awareness
   A well-crafted Christmas card can subtly reinforce your brand identity. By choosing designs and messages that reflect your company values, you remind clients, partners, and employees what your brand stands for in a personal way.

4. Differentiates Your Company
   In the digital age, a physical holiday card can stand out amid emails and online messages. It shows that you’ve taken the extra step to connect and have chosen a thoughtful, tangible way to communicate.

5. Encourages Word-of-Mouth and Referrals
   Thoughtful, personalized cards may encourage recipients to talk about your company, leading to potential referrals. If a card is memorable or visually appealing, it could even make its way onto social media, extending your reach.

6. Humanizes Your Brand
   Sending a holiday card adds a personal, human touch, which can be especially beneficial in industries where interactions are often formal or transactional. It reminds people that there’s a team of real individuals behind the business.

7. Increases Retention and Repeat Business
   When customers feel valued and appreciated, they’re more likely to return. A personalized card serves as a subtle reminder of your company during the holiday season, which can increase the likelihood of future business.

A personalized Christmas card can become a key element in a company’s customer retention strategy while also fostering goodwill and enhancing brand perception.

I have a Christmas card special, email: caroline@thelimontree.com to get pricing.

The Benefits of Purchasing Canva Templates for Your Business

Canva Templates Customize to your brand, images and colors, easy to use and SAVE TIME!

In today's fast-paced digital world, creating visually appealing content is essential for any business looking to stand out. With platforms like Canva making design more accessible than ever, purchasing Canva templates can be a game-changer. Here’s a look at the benefits of investing in these templates for your business. Our templates work with Canva’s Free version

1. Time Efficiency

Creating designs from scratch can be time-consuming. Canva templates provide pre-designed layouts that save you hours of work. With templates tailored for specific purposes—be it social media posts, presentations, or marketing materials—you can simply customize text, images, and colors to fit your brand. This allows your team to focus on what matters most: growing the business.

2. Professional Quality

Not everyone has a background in design, making it challenging to create professional-looking content. Canva templates are designed by professionals who understand the principles of good design. By using these templates, you can ensure that your materials look polished and trustworthy, which enhances your brand image.

3. Consistency Across Platforms

Brand consistency is key to establishing a recognizable identity. With Canva templates, you can maintain a uniform style across all your marketing materials. Purchasing templates that align with your branding ensures that fonts, colors, and layouts are consistent, helping you to build a cohesive visual identity.

4. Cost-Effective Solution

Hiring a graphic designer can be expensive, especially for small businesses or startups. Canva templates offer a cost-effective alternative that allows you to access high-quality designs without breaking the bank. Whether you need one-off designs or ongoing materials, purchasing templates can significantly reduce your design expenses.

Works with Canva’s FREE version

5. Easy Editing and Customization

One of the standout features of Canva is its user-friendly interface. Even if you have limited design skills, you can easily edit templates to meet your needs. Adding your branding elements, changing colors, or altering layouts can be done in just a few clicks, making customization straightforward and accessible.

6. Variety of Options

Canva offers an extensive library of templates for various industries and purposes. Whether you’re in retail, education, health, or any other sector, you can find templates designed specifically for your business needs. This variety allows you to experiment with different styles and formats to determine what resonates best with your audience.

7. Enhancing Collaboration

For teams, Canva templates facilitate collaboration. Multiple team members can access and edit the same template, making it easy to gather input and streamline the design process. This ensures that everyone is on the same page and can contribute to creating effective marketing materials.

8. Up-to-Date Trends

The world of design is constantly evolving, with new trends emerging regularly. By purchasing templates, you often get access to contemporary designs that reflect current styles and formats. This helps your business stay relevant and visually appealing in a crowded marketplace.

Conclusion

Purchasing Canva templates is an invaluable investment for businesses of all sizes. From saving time and money to ensuring professional quality and consistency, the benefits are far-reaching. By leveraging these tools, your business can enhance its visual communication, engage audiences effectively, and ultimately drive success. Embrace the power of Canva templates and watch your marketing efforts flourish!

Shop our Canva Templates HERE

Lets Get Custom With Your Stationary

Are you tired of seeing the “stock” designed business cards that are floating around out there - and you know exactly what I mean? There are some great stock designs available thru ordering your business cards online and they look good but here is the reality: EVERYONE is using them! You will see the same stock design on business cards from a plumbing company to a dog grooming company. Now these two companies have nothing in common except for their business cards look exactly the same.

Clients tend to remember these details in the back of their minds and then may start to think you are not as original as I thought you were. You cheap out on a stock design cards to save a dollar, where else are you going cheap out in your services to me? 

“Spending the extra on a custom designed logo will not only make you look better it will make you standout against your competitors. ”

Your image and branding is what catches people’s eyes; your consistent branding shows professionalism and gives the consumer confidence that your company is a leader in your industry. Spending the extra on a custom designed logo will not only make you look better it will make you standout against your competitors. 

Where do you start? 

1) Hire a graphic designer that will work with you and will create a logo that represents your company. A good designer will take the time to find out what you like, what your company is all about and will ask questions to get to know you as a person and will design a brand that you will be satisfied with. A brand that is personalized to exactly what you have always envisioned.

2) Creating Brand Standards. You have a logo now; we need to start creating a brand style sheet that is a guideline on how your company is always represented in the same colors and design. 

3) Website. With your new logo and brand we want to design a website that is designed around your brand and sends a clear consistent message to your consumer. If you already have an existing website, then we want to update the design to reflect your new branded logo. It is also a great opportunity to get your existing customers aware of the new look and design but with the same great service - It can get your company in front of your customer’s line of vision. 

4) Brand Your Social Media. Now we can take your logo, branding style sheet and apply it to your business social media channels. We want to make sure that your social media reflects the consistent image that we have created for your business. This also includes that all your posts should have a similar look, layout and feel. With Social Media, you always want to be posting constantly on a regular basis. Each Social media platform requires different ways of communicating. If this task seems overwhelming then you can hire a Social Media Manager. 

5) Stationary and Marketing Materials. This is where we can design your business cards, flyers, annual reports, posters and any marketing material that you may need. The Limon Tree Design Studio offers all these services from design, layout to have your items all printed for you. You do not have to figure out how order online with your new design - we take care of this for you. We offer competitive prices that match other online services. 

6) E-mail and Newsletter Marketing. E-mail marketing is a great way to always keep your customers informed on all the latest that you have to offer. Your newsletters and layouts should also have the consistent branding that you have created. 

This is just not about stock designed stationary, this is all about bring your company to the next level and letting your customers know that you are a leader your industry. It is also a great opportunity to gain new customers that may have never notice you until they started noticing your brand consistently from social media to your website. 

All six points listed above is the services that The Limon Tree Design Studio offers. This is a great time to get branded!!! Contact us to get a quote and discuss what you need to bring your brand to the next level. 

A Makeover for Your Business

A makeover for the Synergy Health & Performance website

Here we are again at the end of another year; we reminisce about events over this past year. There are moments that standout more than others, there were the highs and the lows that fill our minds. We are glad to move past the chapter of this past year and turn the page to an exciting new chapter. 

Looking ahead in anticipation of another year. We wonder about what exciting adventures life will take us on, it’s a chance for us try again, a do over or even a makeover. Everyone loves makeovers, the transformation from the before to the after photos.

Going back a few years ago I had started designing websites, in particular I designed a website for a new gym at the time that my Sister-in-law had started. She opened Synergy Health & Performance Gym in the town of Barrhead, Alberta. She approached me to design her logo and website, and of course I was excited to create her branding and website at the time. I have been a graphic designer for many years but designed just a few websites at that time. I created all her branding and website and she launched her new gym with great success. 

As years go by trends in websites changes, what people want to see and how they want to interact with companies has changed. Adding in social media that has changed the industry, people want information more quickly, more images and fewer words but still have the same impact to their customer. Trends in how we organize information and still try to achieve a big impact to our customers are very important. We have less time now to make an impact on future customers, we need to get our message out quickly and more effectively. 

A few months ago my Sister-in-law approached me on updating her website and the information it contained, I was excited to do a makeover for website. I heard learned a lot over the years and new techniques since designing her first website. She was ready for a makeover in her business, and I successfully created new look for her website and social media. We kept the same branding, colors and logo, however we redesigned on how the information was presented and organized. Using more relevant photos that were from her gym, close ups of the equipment and overview images of the space. As you can see from the photo, we did her Before and After, what a refreshing change!

Is this the year that you want a makeover for your business, branding and website? Now is a great time as we start a new chapter, a clean slate, and a new year.

Happy New Year from The Limon Tree Design Studio. 

PMS#??? What?? Pantone Color of the Year 2019

Pantone Color of the Year 2019: Living Coral PMS#16-1546

Pantone has announced the Pantone Color of the Year 2019: Living Coral PMS#16-1546. In the design world, we also refer to this as a PMS#, my clients always have a good laugh when they hear this term for the first time. PMS stands for Pantone Matching System, You are now wondering what is the big deal about Pantone?

As a graphic designer we use the Pantone Matching System when designing a logo, we choose colors from the Pantone book. What makes this system perfect is when I give my printer the PMS#, he will have the PERFECT matched ink to use that matches the Pantone color that was designed for the logo. Pantone has different color systems for many applications such as printing for paper products, silk-screening onto garments, textiles, cosmetics, plastic and much more. When it comes to consistent branding for your company, its important that the colors in your logo are consistent from your business cards, to your promotional products to your logoed ball caps. Pantone has created this universal language in color that is interpreted to consistent branding.

“I believe Pantone Color of the Year sets the tone for the year and opens up the creative world to a fresh new look.”

This is always an exciting time for all of us designers, this color is the trending color. You will see this color on everything from fashion, interior design, kitchen products, paints, electronics, and the list goes on and on. These colors are always an announcement of what the up and coming trends are coming for the year. As a designer, we love this!!! We start infusing these colors into our designs and products. I believe it sets the tone for the year and opens up the creative world to a fresh new look.

“The power of color bring us back to a good time in our lives, brings feelings and emotions that we may have forgotten. ”

Why is the Pantone Color of the Year so important? It changes the look in the stores we walk into, it influences the products that we purchase. It changes the feeling in our homes to whisper a fresh change of hope, creating a new pallet in our lives. Looking back at previous years of the Pantone Color of the Year, it stirs reminisce memories of fondness to a favorite purse or garment. The color brings us back to a good time in our lives, brings feelings and emotions that we may have forgotten. Here is a look back to previous colors:

As I look over these past colors, they bring back memories of important events in my life. Some of the years reflect more than others of what was going on in our world around us. The power of color can never be underestimated, it makes our lives a lot more colorful.