Business Leadership Series: Build Your Competitive Edge
Established companies tend to have the best connections, social proofs, and experts promoting their marketing. Such businesses already invested the time, money and other resources necessary to become leaders in their industry. New or small businesses, however, often lack the resources to advertise their offerings and gain a bigger share of the market. Due to time or budget constraints, such businesses may not have the same advantages as their competitors. Therefore, startups and small businesses need to do what they can to promote their products and services with the resources they have. Here are five ways for companies of any size to build a competitive edge.
Create a Competitive Analysis
Analyze your competition to see how they got to where they are. Learn all you can about what did and did not work for other companies and replicate accordingly. For instance, find out which strategies worked for them, mistakes they made, trends they are capitalizing on, individuals and organizations they network with, and marketing approaches they used and are currently using. Then, place your business model next to the facts you gathered to create a roadmap of strategies that may work for your company. Continue trying new approaches until you find what works. Redefine the process to make it even more beneficial.
Implement Business Trends
Be the first to implement business trends. Because the business world is constantly evolving, marketing trends rise and fall. For instance, when infographics first came about, not many businesses could easily create them. Companies that used them provided entertaining content while marketing information about their business. As their audience grew, so did their conversions. When you follow industry experts on social media, stay on top of press releases from business publications, and remain informed through other sources, so you can capitalize on business trends and stay competitive.
Focus on Branding
Effectively communicating the quality of your products or services and your company’s mission, values and beliefs draws customers to you. Highly satisfied customers will become loyal buyers and refer your business to others. Because word of mouth is the most effective form of advertising, you will continue to build your customer base. For instance, create an attractive business logo, creative tagline and website so current and potential buyers remember you. Produce content and case studies using relevant data points and statistics to become a top resource in your field. Encourage employees to become brand ambassadors who write articles for industry publications and speak at industry events.
Communicate Effectively
Effectively communicate throughout your company. Clearly and concisely explaining and implementing a great idea is important when showing value for customers. Transparent communication demonstrates what you do and why you do it. Having customers understand your offerings builds trust and encourages them to continue doing business with you.
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