Ways To Make Your Business Stand Out From The Crowd

In a competitive environment, it’s now easier than ever for businesses both old and new to fall at the waste side if they’re not careful. Standing out from the crowd is important whatever the industry so here are just a few ways to help make your business stand out.

It’s All About The Customer Service

Your business likely relies on customers, keeping your current ones and reaching out to new. Word of mouth can be a powerful thing, so it’s important you worship the ground your customers walk on. Customer service and the way you treat your customers can be important in any industry. Customer service and care, in general, can tell a lot about a company and if a customer senses that they’re not valued and merely another number, they are more likely to walk away to a competitor.

Admit mistakes if you’ve made them and work towards building a relationship with each and every customer. If you don’t at least acknowledge any wrongdoing, this can end up frustrating a customer, especially if they’ve been loyal to the business for a long while.

Be Honest And Transparent

Your clients and customers can see through a company if they’re not being honest about their product or service being provided. Honesty is really the best policy so when you can’t deliver by a certain date, let the relevant party know. Have that tough conversation with a customer or client, and they may be willing to respond to your different because of you’re honest approach.

Being transparent will also show everyone that you have nothing to hide. Unfortunately, the truth will always come out, especially as your business grows so be sure to be as clear with customers and clients as possible.

Look For New Opportunities

A business can only grow if hard work to find new opportunities is done. In such a competitive world, the key to standing out is finding a gap in the market that no else has found or covering. Unique ideas and clever marketing approaches are what will get you noticed.

Cater For A Specific Niche and Specialise In Your Field

Niches are important because they are pockets of the market that are less catered for than others. Catering for a specific niche can really grow your following and also means that your following will be directly related to what you’re providing.

You might be in the beauty market where you are competing with hundreds of thousands of other brands. So what can you do to help you make a sale instead of your competitor? Specialise in a certain product or service. Much like finding a niche in the market, focus your product by specialising in something specific. It might be a range of anti-ageing products where you find new ways and ingredients to help improve it.

Be Consistent With Your Brand

Brand consistency is important as it helps those customers both old, new and not yet on board, to recognise your brand when they see it. It’s all well and good having the name of your business on the front of a building, but if it doesn’t match the logo on your business card or the colour scheme of your website, people might get confused or not put two and two together. Brand consistency can do three things:

• Steps up the marketing level – Excellent brand consistency can make your customers think of your brand just by saying the name of it. This takes your business to a new level of marketing. There’s no great need to convince customers to buy your product because they’re already considering it without even doing anything.

• Consistency helps with trust – When a brand is consistent both with their look and with the products or service it sells, the company becomes more trustable. Appearance is everything so avoid sending out mixed signals.

• Customers trust brands that they recognise – Customers that recognise a brand are trustworthy in their eyes which means they are likely to stay loyal and return to buy more products and services. As individuals we love to know everything about something, so allow your customers into your world.

Transfer this consistency in the physical space you occupy too from the type of space you have right down to all the furniture, decor and accessories. A reclaimed wood table top store is just one example that provides unique furniture and might be just what you need if you run a rustic bar or restaurant as a business.

Set Out Short Term And Long Term Goals

It’s essential to have both short term and long terms goals in your business. Your long-term goals should be things you hope to achieve in the next year or more, and it’s good to be ambitious because you can up surprising yourself that way. Short terms goals are very effective because you are giving yourself the motivation to work towards the long-term goals. This can be as simple as closing off a deal that’s near to completion or going to a training or networking event to improve yours or your employees’ knowledge or skills.

Promote Yourself And Celebrate Your Success With Others

With so much power at the end of our fingertips, social media has become a powerhouse in helping to promote businesses and reach out to a new and wider audience. Platforms like Twitter and Instagram can provide you with the tools you need to execute a marketing campaign, and with handy analytical tools that come with most of these platforms, they can help you learn more about your audience so you can tailor your strategies to help with future campaigns.

It can be very beneficial to share your successes with others. People like being around successful people, particularly when those people are motivated to succeed too. So take advantage of networking with these individuals as they may just be the catalyst you need to succeed with the next goal.

Work With Influencers

Influencers are a great way of tapping into new audiences and are an elevated form of word of mouth. Bloggers and YouTubers can be great to work with as they can offer a great working relationship and boost your presence on social media. When working with them, you’ll want to assign a budget and access what you are after in an influencer. It’s all very well working with 100 bloggers, but if only 10 of those have the target audience you’re after, you’ll be wasting a lot of money and not maximising the potential.

Get Recommendations And Testimonials

You may be providing an excellent service with many happy customers to boot, but if you don’t encourage those customers or clients to provide recommendations and testimonials, then you’re potentially losing out on attracting new work. As mentioned before, word of mouth is important and probably the best form of advertising that’s free. So next time you close a sale or deal, get an honest review that you can share out loud and proud.

Money Back Guarantees and Free Trials

Whether you’re selling a product or service, offering a free trial can sway a customer when it comes to returning it. It’s why you’ll find a lot of products like teeth whitening, for example, will offer a free week or two worth of samples to help test out the product. If it offers them instant but temporary results, they’ll be more likely to want to buy it.

Money back guarantees can also help with securing a sale. When a customer knows that they could definitely get their money back when buying a product, they are safe in the knowledge that they can return it if it’s no good for them. The likelihood of that happening though is very slim, providing you have a good product or service that works. Otherwise, it might end up with you losing a lot more money than making any.

Believe In Your Employees

Growing your business comes from within, in particular with your employees. Your staff can make the difference in whether it fails or succeeds. So, be a good listener when it comes to the people you employ. When they’re happy, it makes their work more productive, and that can help with boosting the business’ growth. It’ll also help with your reputation as being a business that cares both about its customers and about the staff.

Surprise Your Customers With Rewards

Everyone loves a good freebie so don’t be a Scrooge! Regularly reward your customers and surprise them with offers throughout the year. There are certainly times where you make more profit than other months, so maximise those moments to not only benefit your own pocket but those of your customers. It could lead to boosting sales in other quarters of the year.

It’s always handy to regularly find ways of keeping the business at the top of its game, staying on trend and relevant within the industry. It’s having this in mind that will help you stand out in an already busy crowd.