6 Ways Your Brand Can Stand Out From The Competition

How Your Brand Can Stand Out From The Competition

Your business can stand up against the competition using well-planned strategies. That said, here are some of the best ways that your brand can leverage to stand out from the competition.

1. Share A Brand Story That People Will Love

Brand stories are helpful to provoke an emotional response and connect with your target audience.

Remain honest and tell authentic stories based on your brand persona. Brand storytelling is an art. You should convey your brand’s mission, vision, values, and beliefs in your story.

Use PR, blogs, and social media posts or your site to spread your business story to a broader audience.

For instance, Warby Parker shares their brand story on its website. The story captures the essence of how founders got the idea of starting Warby Parker after one of them lost his expensive glasses on a backpacking trip and couldn’t buy another because he couldn’t afford it.

It worked well since the story was real, and they had an aim: to solve the issue of expensive pairs of glasses. Therefore, your story should instantly connect with your audience, have an emotional appeal, and solve your target audience’s problems.

Brand stories help to build customer trust. Trust is critical for business success. Your competitors will find it harder to catch up with your business if you share a descriptive, engaging, and relevant story to connect with your target audiences.

Related: Most Websites Don’t Convert. Here is How to Boost Success With a Brand Sprint.

2. Perform comprehensive competitive research

You can’t stand out from the crowd if you are not aware of your competitor’s strategies. By research and analysis, you will find out the factors that can make your business unique.

Emirates, a Dubai-based state-owned airline, is an excellent example of a business that used competitor analysis to establish itself as a leader in the airline industry. While the rest of its competitors chose the cost leadership approach to lead the market, Emirates used competitive research to find other ways to create a differentiation strategy.

Firstly, Emirates worked on providing exceptional customer service to their passengers. They focused on taking great care of the passengers throughout their journey.

Here are some of the things they did to establish a unique selling proposition:

• Regionally inspired dishes were served based on flight locations.
• Complimentary beverages were offered to all passengers.
• In-flight digital entertainment was provided with more than 4,500 movie options.
• Free access to Wifi was given to every passenger.

Here is an example of an advertisement where Emirates promoted itself as an airline that serves different world flavors.

Also, the company never compromised on providing the best facilities and invested a considerable chunk of money in the latest technologies to improve the flight experience.

Related: 5 Things to Know Before Launching An Ecommerce Business

3. Create a company logo as a symbol of your brand identity

One of the best ways to distinguish your business from your competitors is by creating a unique logo that symbolizes your brand identity.

Visual elements leave an impact on the audience’s mind, especially when they see them quite often. Almost 70% of people can remember things they watch over and over again.

Utilize this human nature in your business. Select a logo for your brand and use it on your website, marketing campaigns, or social channels.

4. Use influencers to spread brand awareness

Nothing beats word of mouth when it comes to spreading brand awareness. People trust recommendations and personal experiences while selecting a brand.

Therefore, you can collaborate with influencers to maximize brand awareness and start defeating your competitors. Around 89.2% of marketers have found influencer marketing to be highly effective.

You can invest in an influencer marketing campaign to connect with influencers on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. A recommendation from an influencer will help your business improve trust and visibility.

For example, Adidas is one of the most popular brands to promote their products using influencer marketing. In one of their campaigns where they wanted to target youths, they collaborated with Instagram influencers like Iga Wysocka and Selena Gomez to introduce the #MyNeoShoot contest.

The campaign was a super success because nearly 70% of Instagram users were aged below 35. They got over 12,000 entries for the contest, and their hashtag received a tremendous number of mentions. Moreover, the number of their Instagram account’s followers increased by 41,000.

Hence, you can use influencer marketing as an excellent strategy to beat your competitors.

Related: How to Increase Your Blog Traffic – The Easy Way (28 Proven Tips)

5. Provide outstanding customer service

Customer service is the most overlooked element of every business. Companies that take customer service seriously can grow their revenue by 8% above their competition. Besides, 84 percent of consumers find customer service a key factor while making a purchase decision.

Improving your customer service is a great way to defeat your competitors. Ensure you provide quality assistance to consumers before, during, and after they carry out a purchase. Keep waiting time for customers to a minimum and increase the problem-solving rate.

Related: 3 Ways to Handle an Upset Customer That Actually Make Them More Loyal to Your Brand

6. Define your values and stick to them

Amazon is a great example to consider. Back in 2002, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, created a brief list of the company’s core values after the brand gained traction.

Soon the principles were applied to every single employee of Amazon, including on-the-floor workers and upper warehouse management. Now everyone knows the story.

The largest retailer across the world attributes much of its success to its core values. Take a look at  Amazon’s leadership principles that are visible in its working style:

• Customer obsession.
• Invent and simplify.
• Are right, a lot.
• Hire and develop the best.
• Insist on the highest standards.
• Think big.
• Bias for action.
• Earn trust.
• Dive deep.
• Have a backbone; disagree, and commit.
• Deliver results.

A great way to beat your competition is to make your business special by applying values and principles that your competitors find hard to imitate.

Summing up

Standing out in a crowd of competitors is not easy. With each passing day, it is becoming harder and harder.

The key to success in the market is to differentiate your brand from others. It will help people notice you and give them reasons to choose your business over others.

Utilize the above tips to gain an edge over your competition and start creating new opportunities for your venture.

Related: The 11 Commandments of Online Marketing

About the Author:

Over the last 11 years, Sarah Lefebvre has led the digital content strategy for two of Australia’s largest real estate brands and has worked with local real estate offices and agents to supercharge their content and lead generation programs.

Having seen first-hand how content marketing can transform real estate businesses at a corporate level and drive leads into a business, Sarah now wants to help all agents and offices down the same path to success. Localiz offers bespoke, multi-touch inbound marketing programs and unique content marketing solutions for agents and agencies right across Australia.