Setting Your Business Apart from Your Competitors
As a business owner, you know that you need to separate your business from the rest in order to make sales and become the leader in your industry. It doesn’t matter if you are selling physical goods, services, or digital products, it is important to have something that sets you apart from your competitors and makes customers want to come to you. Without that, you’ll be fighting for clients while the true leaders in your field easily get new business.
The hard part is finding something that makes you different from everyone else out there that is competing with you. Depending on your industry, you may have a tough job of doing this, especially when there is a ton of competition in a saturated market. However, there are several ways that you can use to quickly set yourself apart and establish credibility.
One of the best ways to get a leg up on your competitors is to offer a product or service that is better than everyone else’s. This may sound obvious, but you should work to offer the best product at the best cost and you’ll naturally gain sales as people start talking about you. This may mean taking a bit extra time to design an extra feature into your product or you could offer a free package deal to add value.
Offering exceptional service is extremely important these days as more and more companies flood the marketplace. Think about the service provided to you the next time you buy something… was it a good experience or bad? You could offer an identical product as your competitor, but if you offer better support and service, customers will come back to you. People won’t buy products again from you if they have a poor experience with your staff or if they can’t get support after a couple weeks. If you can’t improve your physical product but need a leg up in your marketplace, try offering exceptional service and you’ll see the loyalty from your customers.
The other aspect of setting yourself apart from your competitors is to look different and be visually appealing. Two companies may offer the exact same product for the exact same price, but 99% of people will buy from the company that has a professionally designed website instead of the one that has an outdated site. Marketing your business differently means having a different style from your competitors, using different advertising methods, and putting a twist on your standard marketing.
Start with your website and give it a good look to see if it is actually serving the purpose of selling your product or service effectively. Does it look modern and does it function how you intend it to? Do you have a prominent and eye-catching logo to help brand yourself? Are the colors you use pleasing to the eye or are they hard to look at? Modern websites should be responsive so they show up on all mobile devices and they should have a clear call-to-action on the front page to motivate visitors to take action.
Look at your competitors in the search engines and see how they rank and what their websites look like. If they have outdated websites that are hard to read and navigate, you would have an instant advantage by using a better website template. If they have good websites, you’ll need to spend a little time improving your site to compete with them and then add some twists.
If you have a few technical skills, there are a few features that you can quickly add to your website that will help you stand out from the crowd. Animations are huge since they catch visitor’s eyes and can help force them to click on whatever you want. They don’t have to be complex animations, but simple movements, jumps, or accents can go a long way to giving your website life. Embedding actual videos is another great way to grab a visitor’s attention and show them in detail what you are offering. Don’t forget to look closely at your headlines since your headline can either make or break your success.
It’s not always easy to separate your business from your competitors, but once you do, you will enjoy much more success. Try offering a quality product or service that is better than everyone else’s, and then make it look different than their products. Once people start seeing the difference, they will keep coming back for more and will share it with their friends. Good luck!
Article by Blaise Walker
Blaise is an online marketer and programmer helping businesses succeed. He created RapiSites (http://rapisites.com), which is a rapid website builder that simplifies the design process and makes it possible for anyone to stand out from the crowd. For more information about setting your business apart through effective web design, visit RapiSites.com.
