Even if you are the very first to market in a niche, you can be sure that eventually, someone will copy you and you’ll have competition. Learning how to outshine those competitors can mean the difference between your company landing a client and your rival landing that client.
There are some key things you should focus on if you truly want to stand out from the competition. Follow these tips, and you’ll grab new clients and build your business. While there are no shortcuts, there are some specific steps you should take.
1. Know Your Competition
Before you can figure out how to outshine the competition, you have to know who they are. This requires careful research to figure out your closest competitors, keywords they are using, what makes them stand out and then figuring out how you can do all of that better than they do.
- Google search: Start with Google and search for your company type and location, such as marketing in San Jose. This should pull up both your site and the top several similar websites in your niche. These are your competitors. You can rule out those that aren’t a perfect match. For example, if you offer logo design and someone else offers book cover design, they are not your close competition.
- Reviews: Next, take those competitors you discovered and read reviews, both good and bad, for their company. This will tell you a lot about what they are doing right and what needs to be improved.
- Visit their pages: Take the time to fully explore the competition’s website and social media pages. What are they doing? How can you do it better? What aren’t they doing? How can you stand out in this area?
Understanding your competition is the first step toward outshining them.
2. Define Yourself
One you’ve figured out your competition, it is time to figure out your own business. What makes you stand out from the crowd?
Branding is sometimes difficult to figure out, but a good place to start is with a mission statement for your company. This will keep you in focus. Any service you add or any major decision you make should be filtered through your mission statement to make sure it lines up with your overall goals as a company.
3. Track Competitors With a Map
If your company is looking toward growth, then a competitor map is a must. In addition to knowing all the details of your competition, you also need to look at where your competition operates.
A competitor map will locate where the headquarters of each competitor is located. Even in a global economy, this is a plus, because you can see how far their reach expands, if it reaches into your local territory and how you might work your way into theirs a bit.
Some additional details you may want to layer into your map include transportation costs versus what you can charge, how close the competitor is to your top customers, and where their workforce comes from so you can compete for the best of the best employees.
4. Outshine on Google Search
No matter how many promotional campaigns you run, a certain percentage of your traffic will come from organic searches for the product or service you offer.
In an analysis of 18,000 stores on Yotpo, it was found that more than 30 percent of traffic came from searches on Google, Bing, Yahoo or other search engines. This means SEO is still important.
This is done through Google Ads, through smart content strategies and by strategically using long-tail keywords.
5. Get Mobile Friendly
Currently, in 10 different countries, there are more Google searches conducted on mobile devices than on PCs. The United States is one of those 10 countries, and the trend is growing for how many people access the internet via smartphones and other mobile devices.
If you don’t make your website responsive to different screen sizes, you can be certain your competitors can and will snatch that market share from you.
Imagine you are a working parent who has been tasked with finding a designer for the family business website. You get up, feed the kids breakfast, drop them at school and head to work yourself. You barely have time to grab a sandwich for lunch, finally, wrap up the workday and then head to pick up the kids. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could head home?
Not so fast! One child has to be a soccer practice at 5 p.m., and the other kid has a dance recital at 6 p.m. When you finally do make it home, both kids have homework, no one has eaten dinner yet and the kids still need baths.
Where will you find the time to look up a designer for that family business you are trying to grow in your spare time? Likely, you will pull out your phone while Kid No. 1 is at soccer practice, try to locate some designers and zip off emails to them. Now, do you see the importance of your website is responsive to mobile devices? This is a very typical day for most families.
6. Customer Service
Customer service has always been the key to building a loyal client base, and that likely won’t ever change. One easy area to stand out from your competition is customer service. Go above and beyond for your customers, and get to know them on a personal level.
Consider adding a live chat box to your website. If you don’t have time to cover it, then hire people to do so for you, or set specific hours when live chat is available. When you get a new client, communicate often. Drop an email upon completion and ask if they are fully satisfied with the job you did for them. If they say no, fix those areas immediately and then ask the questions again.
This results in a couple of things. First, the new client will know you really care that they are happy with the finished product. Second, your reviews will be far better than if you skip this step. Who would you be more likely to recommend — a designer that made sure you were completely satisfied or one who completed the job and disappeared?
Outshining your competition isn’t difficult, but it does require research, a vision for your company and perseverance. The result is well worth the effort.
