We live in an incredibly visual culture. Everything around us it almost entirely based on the looks and aesthetics of things. There’s nothing particularly wrong with that; it’s only natural that human beings would rely on the way things look in order to decide what to do. But this means that, if there’s one thing that businesses simply can’t afford to neglect, it’s their branding. If your branding isn’t working for you, then it’s likely that it’s going to end up having a markedly negative impact on your business as a whole. Fortunately, improving your branding isn’t all that complicated, there isn’t some secret formula to it. All you need to do is follow these simple pieces of advice.

Focus on design

It will hardly come as much of a surprise that, first and foremost, you should focus on the way that your branding looks. It’s not just about creating something eye-catching, your branding needs to get your customer’s attention but also keep it. It needs to draw them in and make them genuinely interested in your business. There’s no way that you’re going to be able to do this with lackluster branding. If the brand that your present for your business looks cheap, tacky, and amateurish, then that’s going to reflect very badly on your business as a whole. Think about incredibly successful companies like Apple. They have built an entire empire around simple, elegant design ideas and that has fed into their branding at every step of the way. That kind of consistency and strong design is the key to your own branding success.

Diversify it

Once you have your branding ready it’s time to start thinking about how you’re actually going to implement it. You need to make sure that it’s consistent across the business, but you should also make an effort to use it in as many different ways as possible. It should be consistent across all of your social media accounts, website, and blog. Not only that but you should also make sure that you’re doing the same for physical marketing, whether that’s flyers, vinyl banners, or your storefront. The key is to keep your branding consistent while keeping your delivery methods as diverse as possible. That way you can almost guarantee that it’s going to stick in your customer’s minds.

Make sure it’s protected

You want to make sure that your brand is completely distinct and that’s impossible to do if there are people out there taking your ideas and aesthetics to use in their own business. Make sure that you have solid trademark protection to prevent anyone from stealing your intellectual property and using it to make a profit. At best this circumstance could lead to a cribbing of design ideas and the worst case scenario it that this could be someone actively trying to pull customer away from you. Either way, if you’re not properly protected then your business is vulnerable to theft. Trademark and legal protection aren’t the most exciting aspect of your branding, but they are undoubtedly incredibly important.