When it comes to marketing, we all have a general idea of what to do, but it can often be counterintuitive when it comes to the details. Because marketing is such an instrumental facet of any business, it’s important to have an edge when it comes to advertising and marketing, so here are a few ways to get a leg up on the competition.

First and foremost, marketing, believe it or not, begins at your place of business, whether it be a physical location, a website or a social network that can go viral. You want your branding, such as signage and general design, to accomplish two important things. First, you want your branding to be inviting to draw in potential customers and clients. This can be accomplished by considering things like fonts and color schemes. For example, the color blue has a calming effect on people, hence the predominance of blue in the design world. Think Facebook and Walmart.

Next, there is the all-important advertising. When advertising, you need to consider the differing demographics of each medium you intend to utilize for advertising, as well as the medium or media you intend to use. For example, if you’re a small business and advertising in the local paper, keep in mind that newspapers aren’t as popular as they used to be and read mostly by older generations. Therefore, you want your newspaper ads to be respectful and traditional. On the other hand, advertising on the internet stands to be improved by irreverence, especially in the form of memes.

Lastly, there’s outreach. Small things like pamphlets and flyers can be distributed locally by mail, bulletin board, or any number of other ways to get the word out. You’re also going to want to make sure you’re as available as possible, in general, but especially with this strategy. So, make sure you have reliable phone service from a provider like Verizon to field incoming calls.