Must Use Tactics to Differentiate Your Company From the Competition


As a business owner, you can never take it for granted that the saying “if you build it, they will come” will hold true. You aren't the only person to have followed that advice, and if your business offers a product or service that is similar to yours, why will customers chose you? What do you offer them that the competition doesn't? Not all business owners adopt this mindset, which often times explains why they struggle to ever get off the ground.  

You are never entitled to a customer's business – you have to earn it. Following these three tips will go a long ways towards guiding your marketing and sales approach towards the customers you want to attract and retain.

1. Differentiate your products and services – create value by solving a problem

In a perfect world, the product that would dominate the market would always be the very best one. While many times this is true, the way you present your product or service has at least as much to do with your success as the product or service itself. This is especially true if what you and your competitors are offering isn't easily differentiated by the average customer.  

Advertising is typically thought of as a means and method of getting customers to buy your product after they have been made aware of it. Much less often to they present themselves as the ideal solution to your specific needs. Pay close attention to what a product is advertising – does it sell a product based on the fact that it's inexpensive, or does it market itself as the proper solution to your own problem? And furthermore, what are the shopping habits of your target customers? Are they impulsive or thoughtful? Lower or upper income? Indecisive or committed? Knowing these traits will prove invaluable in guiding how you differentiate your product to these people. The use of analytics is fast becoming a popular means of doing this (#3 below).

2. Use Customer-centric marketing

This refers to adjusting your brand and advertising to specifically target the demographic you wish to target without excluding any one demographic. Luxury brands do this all time – everything about their design and image is calculated to exude an aura of sophistication and wealth. These marketing techniques work for specific people who see the value in the lifestyle or brand.  

Businesses who use customer-centric marketing find a single segment of the population they wish to appeal to and make every effort they can to attract and retain them. If you are actively seeking young middle-income adults, then your advertising and marketing strategy should be specifically designed to appeal to that group. Pay close attention to what customers are saying via your various social media feeds, and adjust your approach as needed.  

And lastly, this alone is worth mentioning in its own paragraph: a rewards program. What better way to show your customers you care than setting up a system that not only rewards their continued patronage but offers perks specifically relevant to what they came in to shop for in the first place? A great example of this is Starbucks – their rewards program gives you free drinks and discounted products in return for spending a certain amount of money there. I've seen multiple customers try a new drink or food item with these rewards, and many times they come to like it and begin buying it regularly. Not only has this built up loyalty with that customer, but it has helped generate additional sales for Starbucks in the long run!

3. Leverage analytics

Analytics is defined as the logical analysis and sequencing of data. Put another way, analytics relies on the rigorous collection and interpretation of data to guide the direction a business needs to take when deciding how best to find, attract and retain their customers. Analytics can be used to pick apart even the smallest bits of information – for example, how long do customers spend on certain pages on your website? What advertisements are they responding to the most? How have their behaviors changed over time?

The type of data used can include some higher-level mathematical concepts, like derivatives (measuring the sensitivity of change in a function). Many businesses only have a rudimentary understanding of their customer's behaviors and buying patterns. They often keep track of traditional metrics like revenue, labor and fixed costs and expenses, but they often fail to look deeper into the patterns and trends of their customer's buying habits, depriving them of a valuable opportunity to adjust their approach to their needs and wants.  

There are plenty of software tools you can use that will do the heavy lifting for you – many businesses have yet to utilize these tools, so adopting them now will give you an edge over them. Play your cards right, and you could turn that edge into an advantage that will propel your business ahead of the competition.

Source: Must Use Tactics to Differentiate Your Company From the Competition

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