There are approximately 30.7 million small businesses in the United States employing approximately 1.8 million people. If you want to stand out you need to focus on outsmarting your competitors.
- Try to offer multiple services. An example of offering multiple services to meet consumer needs is grocery pickup and delivery from leading brands.
- Always segment your customers. Once you’ve created a few separate segments, it’s much easier to reach those shoppers’ needs and personalize your messages. Create specific offers for each segment.
- Mapping your business. Business mapping allows you to monitor the performance of sales reps or see where a competitor covers a territory. Finding underrepresented sections in your area and serve people that other businesses may have overlooked.
- Show your online presence. Whether selling online or not, a website is a must in today’s online world. Even if you don’t sell anything online, you need a website that stands out from the competition and draws people to your shop.
- Build customer-oriented model. Consider how customer oriented each element of your business is. Take inventory of everything from your online presence to ordering by phone to the in-store experience.
- Use your marketing budget wisely. Think about what has the most potential to reach the specific target audience you want to reach. The key is to try different tactics, keep track of the results, repeat the ones that work well, and abandon the ones that don’t work.
- Offer better customer service. Customer service is important. When all other things are the same, people will show loyalty to your business if you go out of your way to keep them satisfied.
- Enhance your content. You can also outsmart your business competitors when it comes to online content by providing better information than them.
- Improve relationships. As soon as a person buys from you, you have created a customer relationship with them. But what happens next? If you don’t follow these people, you are missing out on an opportunity to improve relationships and develop loyalty.
- Find your unique value proposition. Your unique value proposition is your distinctive quality. UVP can be anything from the best customer service around to a product or service that no one else offers.
- Discover the value of remarketing. Competition is likely to target the same people. If you’re smart with your remarketing, you can take them as customers and outsmart your competitors before they catch up with them.
- Use your competitors’ emails against them. First, you need to subscribe to your competitors’ mailing lists. Create your marketing plan as your competitors launch any ad.
- Establishing your authority gives you an edge over the competition because your customers will know that you will not only solve their problems, but go further.
- Find your niche. If you try to be the best at everything, you probably won’t. Find out what your niche is as a company and focus on becoming the best in that area.
- Network with others. The more you network with others, the more ideas you will get to promote your business and outperform your competitors.
Fortunately, there are a few key ways to gain an edge over similar businesses. Outsmarting your competitors doesn’t just mean working harder, but also working smarter.
