Protecting Your Brand Image With Better Proposals
Every aspect of your business that clients come into contact with impacts how you're perceived. Your website, your ads, the documents you send - all of it has a direct influence on your brand image.
You want clients to see you as a professional, an expert in your field who they can trust. You want to build recognition and become your clients' go-to choice.
What you don't want is to confuse clients with inconsistency and undermine your credibility. With Better Proposals, you can match all aspects of your documents to your brand identity and send the perfect document every time.
Set up once and you're good to go
Properly setting up your brand inside Better Proposals saves you a lot of time and effort when creating documents for clients. Once you've uploaded your logo and set up the colors and fonts, they're automatically embedded in all your documents.
This means that you won't have to think about anything but the content as you're drafting your documents. It also means that you won't forget to include the logo. You won't accidentally add a slightly wrong shade of one of your brand colors. You'll always have the correct font instead of another one that looks similar. And so will everyone on your team.
Here's what you can do
To find your brand settings, click on the gear icon in the left sidebar. Then, click on Branding under Setup.
On the screen, you'll see cards with all the brands you've added. By default, when you sign up, you'll have one brand. If you're on the Premium or Enterprise plan, you can add as many brands as you want later.
If you've skipped over the onboarding wizard or you want to make changes to an existing brand, simply click on the one you want to modify. On top, you'll see seven buttons that let you customize different aspects of your document branding.
1. Name section
The Name section will be open by default when you start editing a brand. Here you can:
- Mark a brand as your default brand. When sending a document, your default brand will be automatically chosen. You can still change it in the dropdown.
- Put in your internal name for the brand
- Put in the brand name you want clients to see
- Choose your language
- Add your brand colors
- Choose your brand guidelines restriction level. You can choose between Moderate and Strict. The Moderate setting lets you choose from both your brand colors and allows you to use the color picker when editing. The Strict setting only lets you use the brand colors that you've added.
Why would I want to add more than one brand?
If you need different brand settings for different types of clients, it's easier to add multiple brands than change the brand settings all the time. For example, you could have a monochrome and colorful logo version and not want to use either every time you send a document. By adding multiple brands, you can simply apply the correct settings on the document creation screen without having to make all the changes manually.
2. Sidebar section
In the Sidebar section, you can upload your logo and choose the color of your document navigation bar. Both the logo and the navigation bar appear on the left side of your Better Proposals documents.
By default, the navigation bar is white with dark text, but you can also invert it. For complete customization, click on Advanced settings for additional options.
Once you've clicked on Advanced settings, you'll be able to add a HEX code for the color you want to feature in your navigation bar. Don't forget to also choose between light and dark text based on the color you've put in.
Another thing to keep in mind is the background color of the logo you're uploading. We recommend uploading a logo with a transparent background so that it fits with whichever sidebar color you choose.
3. Email section
In this section of your brand settings, you get to customize the email your client gets when you send a document through Better Proposals. The first thing you'll see is the Upload logo field. This is the logo that appears on the top of your email.
Just as with the sidebar, we recommend a transparent background. That way, your clients won't see an unattractive rectangle around your logo if they have their device set to dark mode or a custom email background.
Once you've set up the logo part, you can also set up your default email messages: one for every time you send a document and a 'thank you' message for accepted documents. You can edit the subject line, email body, and the button text. To make sure you're happy with the look of your emails, hit Preview to see what they'll look like to your clients.
If you want to add a nice, personalized touch to your emails, add the {{first_name}} merge tag into your send and thank you email templates. This will automatically add the recipient's name into the email, making it look like you typed it out just for them.
Last, but not least, on the Premium and Enterprise plans, you can toggle the Better Proposals badge on or off. If you don't want our badge to appear in your emails, simply toggle the option off.
Think of keeping the Better Proposals badge inside your emails as a referral. If your client uses the badge to choose a Better Proposals plan, you get their first month's subscription paid back to you.
4. Fonts section
Under Fonts, you can choose between six preset font pairings. When you click on a font pairing, the page will display what different text elements in your docs will look like.
That said, you don't have to use preset font pairings at all. If you want to use your own fonts, all you need to do is click on a text element on the Fonts page. On hover, the elements go orange and, once you've clicked on one, a sidebar appears on the right.
From there, you can choose between Google, Adobe, and custom fonts. You can also set up the font weight, size, and line height.
5. Finances section
In the Finances section, you set up your currency and tax settings. Choose your currency from the dropdown, and then mark whether or not you charge taxes on top of your prices.
If you pick Yes, you get two additional fields: what the tax is referred to as and what percentage you charge. If you do charge tax on top of your prices, this is a great setting to have. With your tax set up, your pricing tables will automatically display and calculate it on top of the initial price so you don't have to figure it out and add it in manually every time.
6. Custom Domain section
For a completely branded look, you can also remove Better Proposals from your document URL. Simply go to the Custom Domain section, then type in your subdomain. This could be something like docs.yourdomain.com, proposal.yourdomain.com, or whatever else you want it to be.
Then, click on Next and follow the instructions on the screen. You'll need to add a CNAME record to your DNS and verify it for your custom domain to start working.
If things like CNAME and DNS sound a bit technical to you, don't worry. You can get in touch with our support team and they'll know how to guide you to set up your custom domain.
You don't absolutely have to, but it is a nice touch. It makes your Better Proposals documents look like they're coming from your own website. It helps clients instantly know the doc is from you and it makes you look that much more professional.
7. PDF section
We're all about ditching the PDF, but we do understand your clients still might be keeping records the old-fashioned way. That's why you can let your clients download your documents as PDFs.
In the PDF section, you get to pick whether or not you want your documents to be available as a PDF download. If you don't want it, simply turn the option off. Your client will still be able to see the document, but they'll have to go through a link.
If you choose to let them download a PDF, you get to choose what kind of PDF gets generated. You can either go with full color with all the elements of your digital document (except the animations and videos because, well, it's a PDF) or a simplified, black and white version that's optimized for printing.
Set your documents up for success
Every impression you make on a client matters, and that includes the quality of your business documents. Why spend hours formatting and editing when you could use Better Proposals instead?
We've got all the tools you need to make sure every document you send is a true reflection of your brand’s professionalism and commitment to quality. In addition to custom branding options, Better Proposals comes with tracking, team management features, and much more. Sign up today and see for yourself.
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