Sometimes, the sheer size of larger companies can overwhelm small businesses. You may be wondering what your business has that makes potential customers choose your brand over others. This is a key business differentiation that helps customers in the market to identify your brand and sets you apart from other brands.
It’s important to differentiate your company from others when building a brand. This has become more difficult over the years as it’s no longer enough to just be better than other companies. Although you may not be aware of it, small businesses are unique in their own right. You need to market them well and leverage it. This is how to identify the unique selling points of your small business.
Analyze your competition
Your competitors are different. This is the first step in identifying your unique selling points. To understand your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses, you must maintain neutrality and assess them. What are they offering? What are they doing better than you? What do they do for their customers?
These questions will help you identify your strengths and weaknesses, as well. This is the time to decide if you want to alter your business’ direction to be more competitive or market an existing aspect of your brand.
Get to know the customer experience
Being a small business owner has the advantage of having lived the daily life of a typical consumer. You can learn from the mistakes of large-scale companies and what you can do to improve your company’s customer experience. It’s important to map all aspects of customer experience when you are trying to develop differentiators. What are they most passionate about? What discourages them from purchasing?
It is important to find ways to make a consumer aware of the need your company can meet. Only when a consumer recognizes they have a need, will they look for brands that can help them. It is important to understand how your target audience makes purchasing decisions and whether your brand fits into that process.
Focusing solely on the product is a bad approach. Customers are more focused on other aspects of the product when they buy a product. It is better to focus on different aspects of customer experience and improve all of them.
Know your Strengths
Being a small business has the greatest strength: giving customers the attention that they deserve. Because you don’t have to manage branches all over the place, it is possible to care for a small customer base.
Each business is unique and has its own strengths. Your marketing skills, customer loyalty programs or customer service approach could all be part of your strengths. A small business is built on values so that they can understand the needs of the average person.
Get involved in the community
When expanding your reach, you should pay attention to the community where your business is located. Your brand will be able to make an impact in your local community and earn a reputation with other brands in the region. Your brand will be a positive influence in the community and will attract people to support it.
Differentiators are important
While it is true that every brand requires differentiators to give them an edge over their business competitors, your brand will need it more than a small business. Large companies are able to offer lower prices because they have access to more raw materials and manufacturing processes that are cheaper.
A fixed market differentiation will allow consumers to choose your brand regardless of the differences between larger brands and what you have to offer. But, a distinction is not the only thing that will set your brand apart. You’ll be able to see what your company can do better than others and will have a clear idea of the key areas you should concentrate on when you plan a marketing campaign.
Targeted marketing will increase your chances of promoting your products and services to people outside of your local community. You won’t be able to compete head-on with your competitors if you don’t have a distinct advantage.
You must also uphold transparency and honesty by not over-simplifying your brand. You risk losing customers if you claim to be better than your competitors in ‘everything’. You need to verify that all your differentiators are true, relevant, and proven.
You should only market information about your brands that you truly believe is true. To gain trust from the audience, you must prove it through quality testing or ‘look inside our workshops’ schemes. Your differentiators must be relevant. Customers will not consider a part of your brand they don’t like or that doesn’t help them. To conclude, you need to reflect upon your band’s personality and find something about your small business that differentiates it from the rest.
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