No matter what line of business you’re in, it seems that whichever way you turn, there’s competition so how can you make your business stand out from the crowd? What will persuade consumers to choose  your brand rather than your competitors?

Building trust to differentiate your business from competitors

Whether you’re targeting consumers or businesses with your products and services, people are always careful about how they spend their limited, hard earned cash and are increasingly scrutinising each purchase they make to ensure that it is a sensible decision. People want to buy from companies that they trust and believe in, it’s therefore essential that you establish trust with potential customers.

Ways to build trust:

• Professional, easy to navigate website
• Demonstrate your expertise with great content
• Include contact information
• Include testimonials and/or product reviews
• Fix any broken links
• Add a privacy policy to your website
• Add a secure checkout

Differentiate your business by offering added value

Added value can help businesses acquire and retain customers, increase brand awareness and differentiate your business, after all, everyone loves getting a little something for nothing!

The art of adding value to your customers’ experience begins with the ability to see your business through the eyes of your customers. If you want to stand out from the other businesses who are offering the similar products and/or services as your company you have to do something a special so your customer perceives you and your offering as being superior to that of rivals.

Ways to add value:

• Improve the packaging or design of your product
• Stay in touch with customers regularly - not just when you want to sell to them
• Be responsive to customer requests
• Offer a free trial or tutorial
• Add a few free samples of other products within orders
• Follow up with customers after they’ve purchased - where relevant

Convenience

We’re all very busy people, we don’t have time to trawl through pages and pages of text searching for the one nugget of information that we need. Consumers expect convenience which is partly why there has been such a surge in online shopping.

Ways to be more convenient:

• Streamline the checkout process on your ecommerce site with a one-page checkout
• Suggest recommendations for similar products - think Amazon
• Make product information easy to find
• Make returns information easy to find and complete
• Offer email and phone customer service options for customers who want immediate answers

Differentiate your business through innovation

Being in business requires constant innovation. Simply repeating the same methods over and over again will limit your results. By developing new and exciting ways of doing things, your business could gain a competitive advantage which can only help with business growth.

Steps to innovation:

• Analyse market trends and the needs and wants of your customers
• Talk to existing customers and employees for ideas for the improvement of processes, products and services
• Be open to new ideas and adaptive to change
• Develop a strategic, responsive plan
• Encourage your employees to think innovatively and submit new ideas

If you’re looking for new ways to differentiate your business from your competitors, talk to our marketing experts. From building trust and adding value to making your service more convenient and helping you to innovate, our team of experts can help you make your business stand out from the crowd.