Differentiation Strategy: Standing Out From the Crowd

Your business is unique. You have put your time and passion into building a company that is distinguished in its services and customer experience. But sometimes it can be difficult to show this distinction to those looking from the outside in. So, how do you use your digital strategy to showcase what makes your brand special? Let’s examine a few tactics.

Identify Your Strengths

Before capitalizing on any particular product, service, or design, it’s important to consider what your customers love about you. What two or three things keep them coming back and choosing your business over others? Maybe there are things that you hear consistently from your repeat customers about why they always choose your business. These are the items to emphasize in your social media. They make you stand out from the competition and will catch the attention of new potential customers.

Keep Your Friends Close…

Your current customers are one of your most valuable assets. Temkin Group has shown that 77% of customers will recommend a brand to a friend after having a positive experience. Doing regular research into what your customers’ expectations are of your brand and how you can exceed these expectations can only help with your overall success. This is especially so if you encourage these customers to mention you on social media by sharing their posts. Signal boost by sharing mentions, reposting tagged posts, and featuring positive attention in your stories. Be careful to not be pushy about asking for reviews, however – that stands out as well, in a negative way.

And Your Competitors Closer

The best way to stand out from the crowd is to know what the crowd is doing, and what you can do differently. Everyone has something that they bring to the table, even businesses that are closely related to yours. Learning from their successes and errors can benefit your business and save you from making the same mistakes. An added benefit of keeping competitors in your sights is that it makes what makes you different even more clear. You can then show this off on your social media and website. It should be fairly central to your branding, giving patrons a clear picture of what they can expect when interacting with your business. There may even be ways to partner up with competitors in the future – you never know what the business world might bring your way.

Be Aware of Your Messaging

As you craft your posts and content, it’s important to keep a few key things in mind about what it is you are saying and what the perceived messages might be.

Relevance

First, does what you’re saying matter to your target audience? The best way to know is to ask them directly. Consider utilizing interaction through social media, a survey, or analyzing the demographics that come to your website or social pages. Second, what does what you are saying add to the conversation in the community? These days, consumers and social media users are looking for content with perceived value, not just blatant advertising. Are you delivering value to patrons, potential customers, and the overall business market? Answering this question can help you craft the tone of your messaging.

Truth

It can be easy to fall into the trap of sensationalizing; we’ve all been there. Still, customers enjoy content that is organic and relatable. We all know big corporations that made big promises as a way of drawing people in, only to show that what they promised was too good to be true. When it comes to showcasing your voice, creating the perception that you are bigger than you really are may not be as beneficial as you think. That’s what makes small businesses different. Because we are neighbors, the connections are genuine and real. Make sure to stay true to yourself and your business when deciding how to present yourself.

Be Ready to Adapt

The world is always changing, and success tends to favor those that change with it. This is one of the areas where being a small business is beneficial over being a large company – with small size comes the ability to adjust to changing market conditions and consumer demands far quicker. Being agile and ready to adapt to feedback as your customer base grows shows that you are in touch with and care about what patrons think. This is a differentiation strategy in itself. Sometimes, customer feedback and changing conditions is met with inaction. Showing you are able to adjust, adapt, and overcome will help fuel loyalty and show that you are the best option among your client base.

In a world where a lot of businesses make snap decisions, refuse to change, and information travels faster than we can keep up with, building a strategy to differentiate oneself becomes an important part of your digital strategy. Need help getting started?