Multiple Brands in Better Proposals: Why and How to Use Them

Anyone who's ever used Better Proposals knows that brand settings are a huge time-saver. Simply set up your fonts, upload your logo, get your colors in and all of it is automatically applied to all your documents. One less thing to worry about, with the added bonus of consistency across everything you send.

That said, there's more to brand settings than just aesthetics. When defining your brand parameters, you can also modify your emails, choose a currency, and add taxes. But what happens when you offer a range of services, operate in several markets, or have different client bases?

Do you skip the tax setting and manually add it into each pricing table as a separate line item? Do you send proposals in your own currency and let the client figure out the exchange rate? Do you modify your document colors inside the Editor as you're creating it?

If you answered yes to any of the above, it might be time for you to set up multiple brands. Here's why and how to do it.

1. You serve different target audiences

Different types of customers have different expectations and preferences. The closer to home you hit with your proposals, the higher the chances of winning new business.

By setting up multiple brands in Better Proposals, you can do exactly that. Instead of tailoring the visual aspects of your proposals to each target audience manually every time, simply set up brand variations. That way, you're immediately showing your clients that you understand their industry.

To take it a step further, you can also modify your messaging inside your proposal emails. Since you won't want (or remember) to switch those out manually every time you send a proposal, setting up another brand that automatically comes with the correct one makes perfect sense.

Example

Let's say you're running a marketing agency that works with tech companies, high-end hotels, and small businesses. The one-size-fits-all approach won't work because each of these clients has very different needs and expectations.

Your tech clients relate to innovation, your hospitality clients want to see luxury and sophistication, and your small business clients need you to be down to earth and approachable. By setting up multiple brands inside Better Proposals, you can easily create customized proposals for each target audience.

For your tech clients, you can opt for cool color tones, minimalist designs, and modern, sans serif fonts. With your high-end hotel clients, go for elegant design elements like deep color schemes and classic serif fonts. Finally, for small business clients, use warm, inviting colors, simple fonts, and friendly design elements.

The same goes for your messaging. When you're sending a proposal through Better Proposals, your clients get an email with a link. They also get a 'thank you' email after signing.

This gives you two more places to show clients you understand their market and their company. By using multiple brands, you can easily switch between these customized designs and messaging styles.

2. You offer diverse products or services

As your business expands, chances are, you're adding more products and services into the mix. As your portfolio grows, effectively communicating each offering can become increasingly complex.

With multiple brands, you can set up color schemes, logos, and fonts that best reflect the diverse products or services you offer. This is especially helpful if you're offering one product or service within two or more different niches.

Example

Imagine you're a videographer who specializes in corporate and animation video. Since these two styles vary significantly, setting up two separate brands is a no-brainer.

For your corporate video services, you'll want to reflect the seriousness expected in the corporate world. This means a straightforward logo, clean lines, classic fonts, and a simple color palette.

With your animation services, you can go all out on creativity and energy. A vibrant, dynamic logo, bold colors, playful fonts, eye-catching visuals - you name it.

3. You operate internationally

Remember how we said you can also set up your currency and taxes under brand settings? If you're doing business in more than one country, setting up multiple brands saves you time, prevents mistakes, and makes doing business easier - both for you and your clients.

The easier you are to buy from, the faster you'll get your deals over the line. And let's not forget the little things that make a great customer experience, like speaking their language (literally) and selling in a currency they're familiar with.

Example

Let's start with the most obvious, but easily overlooked thing - language. If you're a French company doing business internationally, chances are, you send proposals in both French and English.

Remember how clients get an email once you send a proposal and a 'thank you' once they've signed? With multiple brands, you can set those emails up in French for French-speaking clients and English for English-speaking ones. That way, you're not constantly going into brand settings as you switch between languages. Or worse, sending a proposal in one language with an email in another.

Once you've got the languages figured out, maybe you also want to adjust to the client's currency. While not absolutely necessary, displaying your pricing in your client's local currency is a nice touch.

In addition to making your proposals more transparent, this also speeds up the client's decision-making process. Since they don't have to worry about currency conversions, they can say yes to the deal sooner, which means you get to close the deal faster.

Last, but not least, your taxes. Depending on the country you're doing business in (or sometimes with), the tax rate you apply varies. Sometimes, the country itself doesn't matter as much as what it is you're selling.

With multiple brands, you can set those tax rates up once and never have to worry about them again. Or at least until a law changes, which happens much less often than you sending out proposals.

In any case, having all your applicable taxes set up in advance means they get automatically calculated with your totals inside pricing tables. Beats adding the tax into the pricing table as a separate line item over and over again if you ask us.

How to set up multiple brands

There are two ways of setting up multiple brands inside Better Proposals. You can either duplicate an existing brand or start from scratch.

Duplicating an existing brand

To duplicate an existing brand, click on the gear icon in the left sidebar and navigate to Branding under Setup. On the right, you'll see all the brands you currently have inside your account.

Click on the brand you want to duplicate. Then, navigate to the bottom of the page and click on the Duplicate button. A popup will appear asking you to confirm you want to duplicate the brand.

Your duplicated brand will appear in the list with all your other brands. To make it easy for you to know which brand is a duplicate, you'll see (Copy) next to its name in the brand name field.

Creating a brand from scratch

Alternatively, you can also set up a new brand from scratch. The first step is the same as above: click on the gear icon in the left sidebar and navigate to Branding under Setup.

This time, instead of clicking on a brand you already have, look to the top right to find the Create new brand button.

Once you've clicked on the button, a new, untitled brand with a blank set of settings is created. From there, you set everything up from scratch - from the name, all the way down to your messaging.

How your Better Proposals workflow will change

When it comes to your usual workflow inside Better Proposals, only one thing changes when you have multiple brands. On the Send page, instead of choosing only between templates, you'll also need to choose which brand you want to send it from. When you've chosen the brand, your brand settings will be applied to the document.

Do you need to start using multiple brands?

That's a question only you can answer as it depends on too many factors that aren't applicable to everyone. However, if you find yourself constantly adjusting your fonts, colors, financial settings, and switching out logos, it's time to at least think about it.