Make your business different if you want to succeed

In a crowded marketplace, standing out from your competitors is essential if you want to succeed. When you differentiate your business from others, you give your target audience a reason to engage with you and, ultimately, a reason to choose your firm over any other.

If you’re struggling for ways to stand out from the crowd, help is at hand. Take a look at these innovative ways to differentiate your business and use them to help you increase your market share and showcase your brand:

Become an expert

When you’re known for delivering a specialist service or product, word gets around fast. Plenty of people are prepared to travel further or pay extra for an expert opinion or a premium product, so use this to set your price points and streamline your target market. By establishing your expertise, you can serve a niche but valuable market.

Go green

Climate change is a major issue and many consumers are committed to buying from green businesses. With cost-effective solar panels and minimum solar battery storage system cost, you can transform your company into an eco-friendly business instantly. Remember – it isn’t just B2C businesses that can benefit from going green. B2B companies can pass their reduced carbon footprint on to other brands, which will make you a coveted supplier in your industry. What’s more, using renewable energy should significantly lower your own costs and increase your profitability.

Add a social enterprise

Although your company may be a for-profit organization, this doesn’t prevent you from incorporating a social enterprise into your business structure. Aligning your organization with a particular cause or enterprise will allow you to make impactful changes and highlight your integrity and charitable nature. With so many existing non-profits looking for partners, there is plenty of scope for you to support notable causes and add to your brand story at the same time.

Reward customer loyalty

Customer loyalty schemes may not be new but there are innovative ways to reward your longtime customers. If you operate an online business, for example, personalized digital marketing makes it easy to reward repeat customers with money-off coupons or exclusive VIP access. Turning existing customers into brand ambassadors won’t just garner their trust and loyalty, it will increase brand awareness and help you to acquire new customers too.

Deliver better customer service

No matter how good your USP is, you’ll find it hard to overcome poor customer service. Treating your clientele well might sound simple but it’s something so many companies forget to do. Instead of simply assuming your staff will naturally deliver great customer service, make it integral to your employee training. Once exceptional customer service is engrained in your brand identity, you’ll soon see just how much of an impact it has on your bottom line.

Be a community champion

Getting involved in your local community it a sure-fire way to increase brand awareness. In addition to this, you can establish your business as a stalwart of the community and become a recognized force for good in your local area.

Although this is beneficial for any type of company, it’s particularly advantageous if you run a bricks and mortar business. When you’re reliant on local residents to keep your company afloat, you want to be a visible member of the community at all times. Taking part in events, sponsoring local teams, and donating to fundraisers are effective and simple ways to promote your brand and build ties with your local customers.

Use bespoke packaging

If you run a product-based business, your packaging really is your time to shine. When you’re competing with other products on a shelf, it’s your packaging that can catch a potential buyer’s eye and make them engage with your product. By putting your branding front and center and doing something different to everybody else, you’ll gain more interest and facilitate increased sales.

However, it isn’t just your on-the-shelf packaging that counts. If you sell goods online, don’t overlook the opportunity to stand out from the crowd with the postal packaging you use. Instead of sending goods in standard, plain cardboard packets, boxes or envelopes, use your brand to create something memorable. As well as impressing the recipient, you’ll gain brand awareness as the package passes through multiple pairs of hands on its way to its destination. Creating branded and premium packaging is not an easy task. Fortunately, there are companies like Zenpack that offer expert advice on your entire packaging strategy, giving you peace of mind on this matter.

Understand your target audience

All businesses should engage in in-depth market research but only a relatively low number actually do. When you understand your target audience, however, you can solve their problems, gain their interest, and facilitate engagement. All of these things are crucial to increasing sales and building a long-term B2C or B2B relationship. If you want to make a difference in your customer’s lives, understanding them is the first step.

Learning more about your target market doesn’t have to be costly or time-consuming. With online platforms dedicated to pairing brands with people from specific demographics, you can gather the data you need easily and effortlessly. By doing so, you’ll learn everything you need to know about your potential customers and be able to use this information to tweak your company’s processes and performance.

Dare to be different

If you want to differentiate your business, then you need to dare to be different. Playing it safe may seem like the easy option but it won’t make your business stand out from the crowd. Being controversial or putting your head above the parapet is undeniably risky but it’s also a guaranteed way of getting people talking about your brand.

Whether you champion an unsung cause, are the first to introduce new delivery methods or you launch a disruptive guerilla marketing campaign, being controversial is one way to get people talking about your brand.

Beat the Competition

No matter what sector you operate in, you’ll always have competition. By continuing to introduce innovative new processes and initiatives, you can ensure your company is leading the industry. In doing so, you’ll increase brand visibility, gain the trust of new customers, and increase the lifecycle value of your repeat buyers.