Stand out from the competition

So, you want to win more customers. But did you know that more than 50% of all new businesses don’t even make it past the 5-year mark? And out of these, only a little more than 30% go beyond the 10-year mark.

This raises some serious questions if you have just started your business. What are the challenges that a growing business faces? Why are they not able to make it past these challenges? Why do businesses fail?

There are virtually countless reasons that explain a business failing. But the biggest one of them all is the inability to differentiate itself from the already existing names in the market.

In simpler words, businesses that fail to stand out from the crowd fail to make it in the long  run. Now, this raises another question: How can a business stand out from the rest of the crowd?

And, this is what we are going to talk about in this post.

So, let us begin!

Stand out from the competition

1. Service before self

“The secret to success is to treat all customers as if your world revolves around them.”

This is an age-old adage and is true to the core.

The biggest and the most successful brands in the world have always been the ones that make their customer feel special. The best example of this can be seen in the form of Apple.

Apple is one of the most innovative companies in the world, and their biggest strength is their service. They win more customers by making them feel unique and valued, and this has been the major reason that the company has been going strong for all these years.

These words from Jeff Bezos sum this point up fairly well: “The best customer service is if the customer doesn’t need to call – and doesn’t need to talk to you. It just works.”

2. Develop a niche

The worst thing you can do as a business is to promote yourself as a jack-of-all-trades. As the saying goes, “by trying to serve everyone, you are actually serving none.”

Therefore, in order to stand out from the crowd as a business, you need to develop a specific niche first and then try to make customers from that niche happy.

If you are good at something specific, that something should be the center of attention rather than blindly following what your competitors are doing. That’s the way to win more customers.

Interested in learning more about how you should go about choosing the perfect niche? Check out a post that we wrote a while ago but is still valid and shows you exactly what you need to do to find your niche. It will give you specific niche ideas that you can focus on right now to start winning customers fast.

3. Focus on what the customers want

Customer service is the seed that grows into customer loyalty. And, the best way to sow this seed is to figure out what the customer is expecting to get from your business.

No, we are not talking about just good customer service. We are talking beyond that.

This is where buyer persona building comes into the picture. Develop personas that will help you to identify how the customer is going to react to what you are selling in the market.

The trend has been going strong in the market, with many large as well as small-scale businesses being able to benefit from this in the current competitive market scenario.

Read this article about creating your ideal customer avatar and try Scriptly, a great online app that can help you define your ideal customer profile in a jiffy. Scripty has a lot of invaluable features, but with regards to buyer personas, it gives you a step-by-step wizard that helps create the ideal customer avatars in minutes not hours. Click here for a free trial!

Make your business Stand out from the competition

4. Market it right

The right marketing strategies can be your biggest asset in the game if you want to stand out from the competition and win more customers.

Take a look at the biggest names in the business. No matter what field you choose, the most successful businesses have their own unique marketing gimmick that helps people identify the brand.

From selecting the right brand ambassador or mentor to establishing an emotional connection by getting involved with a noble cause, you need to market your business in a way that people can easily identify it.

As they say in the world of marketing today, “it’s not what you upload, it’s the strategy with which you upload that matters.”

Focus on what goes out that represents your business and people will start to easily get attracted to it.

Looking to make an impact with your email marketing efforts? Try the one simple formula that will help you engage with your leads and convert them into buyers fast!

5. Be social, be quirky, be awesome!

Social media is the name of the game for businesses to stand out from the crowd in today’s time. If you can make an impact on social media, you can expect to get an explosion in your online presence, and easily have your business become a phenomenon.

However, in order to achieve this, you need to invest a lot of efforts.

From creating engaging posts to being witty and quirky enough to make the customers laugh with your online wit, you have to be able to do it all.

Not just this – you must have a strong team of customer support advocates who can instantly take care of any customer comments, reviews and similar things that they post about your business on social media.

Remember, the name itself says it all – SOCIAL – you must become social for people to know your business.

Are you doing it?

Conclusion

Now, this list comprises the top 5 things that you as a business need to do in order to win more customers and stand out from the crowd.

Remember, things have changed quite a lot from what they used to be. As a matter of fact, in today’s ever-changing marketing environment you need to keep innovating with your marketing strategies if you want to survive, forget about thriving in the field.

Therefore, employing whatever it takes to provide the best customer experience, along with making your online presence felt, is what it’s going to take to stand out from the crowd.

The only question that’s left to answer here is – are you willing to do it? If yes, then the sky is the limit for you.

Are you looking to try out some new marketing strategies to entice customers? Check out this done-for-you template now!