When it comes to brand equity, you need to be taking the right steps to increase your perceived value so customers and clients will want to buy your product or service. Investing in professional branding is an obvious one, but we aren’t talking about that today. Today we’re focusing on using brand mockups to increase your perceived value. Chances are your competitors are already using them in their own branded content. So what are brand mockups and how can you use them for your own business?
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WHAT IS A BRANDED MOCKUP?
A brand mockup is a graphic or photograph that you can customize with your own branding without having to have an actual tangible product.
For instance, if you own a coffee shop, you may wish to have a fun photo of your branded coffee cups to include on your website or social media accounts. Rather than hiring a photographer and getting the lighting set up just so, you can create a stunning visual in mere minutes on your computer.
I downloaded this free coffee cup mockup from Graphic Pear and customized it for a past client, Nomu Coffee. What product mockups do is allow you to have the stunning photo without needing the actual product. There are literally product mockups for just about anything — from magazines and menus to laptops and beer bottles.
"Brands that are consistently presented see an average revenue increase of 23%." -Michaela Fiasová
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF BRAND MOCKUPS FOR ENTREPRENEURS?
As a designer, I use product mockups all the time to showcase my client work in ways that help you visualize the brand in action. Rather than just sharing the logo design on its own, I apply it to a stack of business cards or a packaging mockup and it immediately changes how you experience the brand. It feels more real, it adds value and creates a positive brand experience.
Incorporating branded mockups into your content helps your customers visualize what they will get. And if you’re a digital entrepreneur like me, you don’t have the luxury of hiring a photographer each time you want to promote something.
The effort you put into your content creation is so vital in building positive brand experience, boosting your brand recognition, and increasing your perceived value. Brand strategist Michaela Fiasová says “Brands that are consistently presented see an average revenue increase of 23%.” This number has actually increased to 33% since 2016.*
If you can elevate your brand experience through consistent, high quality visuals and content that connect and captivate your audience, your perceived value will begin to grow.
USING BRAND MOCKUPS TO CREATE A POSITIVE BRAND EXPERIENCE
Like I said, there are literally mockups for just about everything. If you’re a small business owner and are looking for creative ways to boost your brand’s perceived value, here are some ideas on how to incorporate product mockups for your business.
1. If you’re launching a new website or course, use a laptop scene mockup to promote it with more appeal. Check out this reel on how to create an animated screen mockup in Canva.
2. If you’re an event planner, use stationary mockups to promote your upcoming invitational event. Use the graphic in email blasts or on the event’s homepage.
3. If you just started your own business, use a styled business card mockup to announce your new venture.
4 Are you trying to generate leads with a lead magnet? Use an iPad mockup or even a book mockup to show your potential leads what they’ll be getting. Share it on social as well as the lead magnet landing page. Entice them with a captivating visual!
5. Do you host a podcast? Customize a lifestyle iPhone mockup with your podcast branding to appeal to your listeners and expand your audience.
WHERE TO GET BRANDING MOCKUPS
Finding branded mockups to use for your business is as easy as searching Google. There are free branding mockups available and great paid for mockups. Personally, my favourite place for mockups is Moyo Studios and they just released a branded mockup template bundle for Canva!
Traditionally, you need Photoshop to make these especially beautiful mockups work. But Moyo Studio has made it easier than ever for anyone with a Canva account to create stunning visuals for their brand.
Most of the mockups I use for my own website and social media content come from Moyo. They offer stunning stylized scenes that are perfect for entrepreneurs. You can choose from bundles (that come with a series of styled stock photos as well) or purchase individual mockups. Keep an eye out for occasional promo bundles! Check them out here.
In my blog Creative Resources to Elevate your Brand Online I cover a list of other great platforms where you can get both free and paid mockups.
Graphic Pear offers a huge collection of product mockups. You can get limited free access but their pricing is pretty great considering their volume of assets.
Mockup Designs is also a great source for free mockups that include product mockups, device mockups, stationary and signage mockups.
Creative Market is another great platform for mockups and other creative resources. They even sell for other vendors like Moyo Studios. A great one-stop shop.
October November has a series of free mockups. Sign up to their mailing list to have new ones arrive in your inbox every other week.
Alex Paliotta has a great range of mockups all under $10 including a generous selection of free mockups.
And finally, MockupBee — get on their mailing list for free mockup collections mailed right to your inbox. Perfect for content inspiration.
If you’re looking for free product mockups, you can find some at RawPixel.com or simple Google “free [name your product] mockup” and you’re sure to find an array of mockups to choose from.
HOW TO USE BRAND MOCKUPS USING PHOTOSHOP
Most branded mockups you'll find online require access to Photoshop, but they are super simple to create. The branding mockup PSD file will have a Smart Layer set up over the image where all you need to do is double-click the layer and it opens a new Photoshop window. Inside the new window is where you’ll add your own design or branding. Simply Save and VOILA, your mock up is good to go.
Customize Elements in Your Mockups
Some mockups will allow you to customize colours of backgrounds, lighting, and other elements within the design. For instance, the coffee cup mock up I used for Nomu Coffee allowed me to customize the colour of each of the coffee lids, edit lighting and shadows and adjust the background colour.
Animate Your Mockups
Go that extra mile by animating a product mockup. In Photoshop you can even animate screens of computer, iPhone and iPad mockups to show more than the frame allows. You can watch this tutorial online to walk you through the steps for animating your branded mockups. Or for an easy way in Canva, use my design trick featured in this reel.
Animated mockups are great to grab attention from perpetual scrollers on Instagram or add some extra value to a landing page. For webpages you’ll need to save them as GIFs whereas social posts will need to be MP4s.
HOW TO CREATE BRAND MOCKUPS WITHOUT PHOTOSHOP
If you don’t have Photoshop or aren’t familiar with the platform, don’t worry, you can still create product mockups. Canva has a "smartmockups" filter inside your photo editor and it's amazing! They have a series of phone, laptop, t-shirts, business cards, frames, notecards, etc... all setup for mockups.
All you have to do is upload an image you want to be added to your preferred mockup. For example, if you want to promote your recent blog, here's what you do:
take a screenshot of your blog post page,
upload it to Canva and add to your blank canvas
click on your image and select Edit Image from the menu
find the Smartmockups filter option
find and select the mockup image of a laptop that feels right for you
It's soo easy to create a brand mockup without Photoshop these days. You can also just search "mockups" under their image library inside Canva and you'll find lots of styled images of screens, apparel, frames, etc. that can all be used as your starting point for branded mockups.
If you really want something more professional and original that can still be edited inside Canva, then be sure to grab Moyo Studio's Canva Mockup Bundle. This bundle includes 99 curated scenes with:
41 iPad mockups
23 Macbook mockups
35 phone mockups
Alternatively, there is a web-based platform called Smart Mockups that allows you to edit their library of mockups without needing Photoshop. They have mockups for devices, products, home decor, apparel and much more. You can even start with a free account which allows you to create 200 mockups. Definitely worth checking out.
Now that you understand the world of branding mockups, it’s time for you to bring your brand to life. How will you incorporate them into your business’ content creation?
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