In the US, there are 30.2 million small businesses. That means there are millions of business leaders trying to make their marketing and advertising efforts stand out from the rest. They may have an amazing product or service, but if they can’t properly market it, it could go unnoticed by the masses.

One way business owners can distinguish their marketing and advertising from the rest is through design. Business owners may think this concept only applies to their business logo and website design, but that’s simply not the case. Design applies to their landing pages, sales pages, graphics, and content.

Design, when done right, can make all the difference. Here are 15 tips business leaders can use to make their marketing and advertising efforts stand out.

Have A Distinguishable Logo

One of the first things you should do as a business owner is design a logo. Think of your logo as your global identifier. It should be used to identify your business and its goods or services. Anything with your logo on it represents a part of your company and the message it’s sending to the world.

You should keep a couple of things in mind when designing a logo. First, make it easy to identify. If your logo is designed correctly, consumers will be able to look at it and know that it’s your company. If it’s too complicated, people may get confused by it. You should also make sure it represents your brand and its story correctly. It should display the essence of your company in a compelling and memorable way.

It could take some time to design your logo, and that’s okay. You don’t want to rush your logo’s creation. If you do find you need help, you could hire a freelance logo designer or look at agencies that can help with multiple services, like crafting your business logo and website design.

Make Your Website Clean And Engaging

Speaking of web design, how your website is designed plays a crucial part in your marketing and advertising efforts. You can spend a lot of time and resources on promoting your business, but if you don’t have a nicely designed website you’ll lose traffic quickly.

You should have a similar process for crafting your business logo and website design. You want your website to tell your company’s story in a visually appealing and engaging way. You’ll need to decide what colors you want for your website, what font you’ll want to use, and how you want your website to be structured. You can use elements of design, like colors, images and text, to draw your website visitors in. However, you don’t want to use too many design elements, as this could make your website look cluttered.

There are companies who can afford to have their own custom website created, but don’t get discouraged if you’re a small business designing your website. There are numerous website hosting sites that have pre-built templates that you can use. You could also take some website design courses online and design it yourself.

Keep Your Design As Simple As Possible

The importance of a simple design doesn’t solely apply to your website. It applies to all parts of your marketing and advertising design strategy. The last thing you want is for your audience to get confused when looking at your website and marketing materials. Keep the design as simple and as clean as possible.

If your marketing material looks cramped, re-evaluate it. What do you want the goal of that marketing piece to be? Figure out what the goal is and take out everything that won’t help you reach it. If need be, you can break the material into two separate pieces to better achieve your marketing goals.

Know Who Your Audience Is

You must keep your audience in mind when creating your business logo and website design, as well as creating other elements of your marketing and advertising plan. Think about what design elements will attract your target audience to your company. If you have a target audience of men and women ages 18 to 25, think about the colors, images, and messaging that you can use to gain their trust and align with their values.

There are a couple of ways you can get this information about your audience. You can do research on what your target audience responds to. Or, you could conduct a focus group or a survey and get feedback on what your audience likes (and doesn’t like) about your marketing material.

Use Graphics For Your Content

Content creation is a pillar of digital marketing. When you create content, you should also create custom graphics to go along with it. If you have a YouTube channel, create on-brand and engaging thumbnails for your videos. If you have a blog, create graphics and use them as your main image. You can also create custom graphics to promote on your social channels.

Graphics serve multiple purposes. They grab your audience’s attention while also promoting your brand and giving your content a unique look. People may get easily fatigued when scrolling their feeds, but if you post a graphic they’ve never seen before, they may be more likely to click on it out of interest.

You don’t need a degree is design or fine arts to create engaging graphics. There are online tools anyone can use to create graphics. You can create your graphics yourself at first, and further down the line, evaluate if you need someone else to take it over.

Pay Attention To Fonts

The type of font you use isn’t only important for your business logo and website design. The fonts you use reflect your brand and its message across all marketing and advertising channels. When you’re creating your marketing materials, keep the font styles cohesive and complimentary. You can pick two or three fonts to use that you think best represent your brand and its message.

You should select fonts based on what you think your audience will like as well. For instance, if you do marketing or website design for a group of accountants, you may want to use non-cursive, clearly structure fonts. Using fonts that are easy to read and pretty straight-forward could make your message seem more professional and factual. You’ll also want to use fonts that aren’t cluttered and squished together. These fonts will make it difficult for your audience to read your message.

Get Colorful

Those in marketing, advertising and design know that different colors affect people in certain ways. There’s psychology behind color palettes, so when you’re picking your colors, be sure to do your research. You should have a main color palette for your business logo and website design, as well as some accent color pallets for your marketing materials.

When you’re choosing your color scheme, think about how you want your audience to feel once they interact with your brand. Do you want them to feel empowered, motivated, and ready to take action? Or, do you want them to feel relaxed and at peace? Once you know how you want your audience to feel when interacting with your message, choose a color palette that will emphasize that feeling.

Use White Space

White Space (also known as negative space) is the space that surrounds elements of your design. You may want to fill as much white space as possible in your designs, however it’s important that you actually leave white space and, more importantly, use it properly.

If used properly, white space can work to your advantage. It can provide balance for your design, limit distractions for your audience, and make something stand out. If you have a call to action on your web page or graphic, you could make the button larger and surround it with more white space to get people to look at it.

They key thing to remember with white space is that you need to use a healthy balance of it. If you use too much or too little, it can throw off your web page or any piece of marketing material.

Make Your Designs Mobile-Friendly

A crucial aspect of your business logo and website design, as well as your marketing materials, is to make sure everything is mobile-friendly. This means that your website, videos, images, and graphics can show up properly if someone finds them while searching on their cell phone.

Making your website and marketing materials mobile-friendly should be a top priority. According to statista.com, mobile devices accounted for 56 percent of organic search engine visits in the first quarter of 2020. If someone finds something from your brand on their phone but it doesn’t load properly, you could make a bad impression and lose a potential lead.

If your website isn’t mobile friendly, consider looking into web design services that will help you make it mobile friendly. Mobile is too important of a channel to ignore. If you perform better on mobile, you may see your traffic and engagement increase. You could also look into services that will help you create a responsive web design, which will allow your web pages to render on all devices.

Embrace Shapes

Similar to fonts and colors, using shapes in your overall design strategy can help draw attention to specific messages and calls to action. You could use a combination of shapes to create a design that leads visitors to a certain point. Or, you could make your message stand out by putting it inside a shape that’s different from the others in your design.

Whether you’re using shapes for your business logo and website design or your advertising initiatives, you should remember to not use too many at one time. Doing so will throw off your white space and make your design look cluttered.

Lead Visitors To The Call To Action

You should have a call to action that goes along with any marketing and advertising material you create. For example, if you’re marketing the service of plumbers in your area, be sure to include a call to action that urges your audience to call for their plumbing needs. Or if you create an article that outlines the top plumbing issues to look for in your home, include a call to action at the end that urges them to read more of your blog content. Don’t assume that your audience will look at your web page or social media image and automatically know what to do—tell them through a call to action.

Keep Everything On-Brand

One of the biggest concepts to remember when planning your advertising material layout, business logo and website design is to always make your designs on-brand. Stick with the color palettes, fonts, shapes and messaging you chose for your company. You could create the best graphic or web page, but if it doesn’t reflect your company’s brand, is it really doing its job? Aligning your design with your brand will help increase brand awareness and continuity within your company.

Always Keep Your Goal In Mind

When designing content or advertising material for your company, always have a goal for that design and keep it in mind. If you’re running a mobile office company and your goal is to sell 10,000 units by the end of the year, keep that goal in mind when planning your marketing and advertising strategy. Having a set goal will help you plan your design strategy more effectively, which will save you time and money in the longrun.

Never Stop Learning

Design is a major factor in marketing and advertising. You should stay up-to-date on what’s trending in the design world. If there’s a new design trend, see if you can apply it to your marketing and advertising strategy. If there’s a new tool for marketing design, take the time to learn how to use it. New techniques and design concepts are born every day. If you want to stay in the race, you should never stop learning when it comes to design.

As you can see, your design strategy must go beyond the business logo and website design. Design needs to be a priority if a company wants its advertising and marketing efforts to be successful. Your audience will know if you spent time on the design, and if it was done right, it’ll be well worth it.