Your business faces a constant threat. An ever-present menace that’s snapping at your heels even when you’re at the top of your game. And every time you let a customer down, every time you miss out on an opportunity and every time your standards lapse, they gain a little more ground. We’re talking of course about your competitors. Competition is a good thing. It helps to keep you at the top of your game and deliver excellence to your customers. But if you give them just an inch of ground, your competitors won’t think twice about poaching your customers and putting you out of business.
Competitors are never going to let up, which is why your approach to them shouldn’t either. It’s up to you to keep delivering value, striving for operational excellence, delighting customers and generating great word of mouth. But there’s more to getting ahead of the competition than being at the top of your game. Here we’ll look at some ways in which you can stand out from the grows and keep your customers coming back time after time and fast track your path to business success…
Don’t bury your head in the sand… invest in competitor analysis
One of the worst things you can do is treat your competitors like they’re not there. Yes, it’s important to keep your eyes on your own work. Yes, it’s important to always think about what you can do to bring more value to the customer. However, it’s when you ignore your competitors that they’re able to get a head start on you.
Competitor analysis is absolutely essential to keep you ahead of the competition. The better you know what your competitors bring to the market, the better positioned you are to deliver more value to your target audience and develop strategies to beat them at their own game.
Know your USP
When you were developing your business plan, one of the first things you had to decide upon was your Unique Selling Proposition. The thing that was going to make your business stand out from all the others that do the same thing.
As time goes by, however, it’s easy to get lost in the day-to-day operational struggles that come with running your own business. You can become miopic and focused simply on getting from one day to the next. And when that happens, it’s easy to lose sight of your USP and the little things that make your business special.
Maybe it’s time to rediscover or re-evaluate your USP. Is it still relevant to the needs of your market? Does it still put you ahead of your competitors? Does it still represent everything you want your business to be?
If not, that USP (and the mission statement implicit within it) needs to change.
Combine paid and organic marketing for a devastating one-two punch
Marketing is, of course, one of the most important ways in which businesses can get the edge over the competition. But all-too often brands throw money at digital marketing in the hopes that it will bring motivated leads to their business and that these leads will convert into loyal repeat customers.
The truth, however, is that it’s rarely that simple. Yes, paid ads have their benefits, especially when compared to the old “spray and pray” tactics of yesteryear’s marketeers. They are highly targeted and can ensure that your ads fall only upon the eyes of those for whom they’re intended. Yes, they can raise brand awareness and build momentum for your brand… but unless you follow up with organic strategies, you can expect that momentum to dissipate fairly quickly.
One of the most effective ways to sustain that momentum is with content marketing. By generating your own unique content like white papers, blogs, vlogs, infographics, tutorials and webinars you can generate value in your brand as well as building trust and authority. If your content is of value to your target audience and helps them address problems and obstacles that they encounter in their day to day lives, they’re more likely to keep coming back for more.
This helps you to position yourself at the forefront of their minds at the expense of your competitors, ensuring that yours is the name they think of when they need your products or services.
What’s more, generating your own content can work wonders for your Search Engine Optimization. Which brings us to…
SEO… it’s still really important
When people in the 2020s want to find anything, they turn to search engines. Which is why SEO is still one of the most important strings to your marketing bow. Consumers are growing more and more fickle in an era where they know they have more choice than ever. And in this context, they’re unlikely to spend too long scrolling through Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) to choose an entry they like the look of.
The higher positioned you are on SERPS, the more chance there is that users will alight on your website rather than your competitor’s.
But SEO is a multifaceted discipline. Content marketing can help in a number of ways. It makes your website bigger, it drives traffic from outside sources, it encourages movement around your website, scroll depth and time on page- and these are all valued by search engine crawlers.
However, there are still a wealth of technical and non-technical, on-page and off-page strategies that go into a comprehensive approach to SEO. A white label SEO reseller can offer you a veritable buffet of solutions to help you to target the aspects of SEO that would be harder to tackle in-house. Supplementing your own efforts with outsourced solutions can be both powerful and cost-effective.
Listen to your customers
Your customers are a veritable font of knowledge which is why market research is so important throughout your business’ lifespan-not just while you’re trying to establish yourself. Only by asking your customers what they want can you keep up with their changing needs and get a comprehensive overview of what your market expects.
Keep all of the above in mind, and you won’t just gain an edge over the competition… you’ll leave them in your dust!
