Design for a Small Business Owner: Three Important Things to Understand

Maarten Westera

When creating and growing your small business, there are three important things to understand. One important aspect is design. Design covers many areas including visual appeal and ease of use. For example, you must design marketing material to promote your business. This is often an area that people fall short, but we have provided three simple tips below that will help improve your design!

Design is important for all aspects of your business

Many people may think that design simply applies to marketing material. However, it must be considered for many more aspects of your small business. These include your website, your emails, your physical marketing, and your social media profiles and posts.

For example, your business website must have a great design. It must be able to attract customers, but also be easy to use. Similarly, your email newsletters and even your standard emails must have design considerations. For example, you should create an email signature that promotes your business in a positive manner, and that contains important contact information.

Think about different aspects of your business, and how design can affect them.

There are many free, easy-to-use design resources online

As a small business owner, you may think that you have to outsource design work, marketing, and promotions to third-party companies. However, that is not the case today! Providing you have a rudimentary understanding of business and marketing, you can easily use a plethora of free online resources for design.

Examples include Logo Creator, GIMP, and Canva. Logo Creator is a free app for logo design. It has a simple interface and tools that anyone can learn. You can create a custom logo from scratch, and also import existing files. Also, you can use a variety of professional templates for inspiration or use them as the basis for your logo.

GIMP is an open-source graphics design tool. This software has similar features to Adobe Photoshop and is free to use. Using GIMP, you can edit photos, and create marketing material for your business. GIMP also has a large community and a huge repository of guides, tutorials, and resources.

Lastly, Canva is an online platform to create social media marketing. You can use this platform for free to create things for your business like Facebook headers, YouTube thumbnails, and Instagram infographics.

Always design with the end-user in mind and their experience

A main component of the design is to think of your customers and/or end-users. Oftentimes we simply design things that look great and are impactful. While this is important, things you create must also offer a great user experience, have a clear purpose, and be effective. For example, let’s say you are creating a new marketing campaign for your small business. A primary aim is to make your products/services look great and attractive to the customers. However, you should also consider the design of the marketing and how customers will use it. This includes things like calls to action, use of persuasive colors, and use of certain design elements to draw the customer’s attention to specific areas of the marketing. Don’t simply think of design as a stylistic thing. Design also includes usability and customer interactions. You must consider how design affects your customer’s experience with your business. Always strive to give them a positive experience, and use design to enhance the things you create. We hope you have found this article beneficial. It is important to look at the design and incorporate these three simple tips when creating and managing your small business and its marketing.