The primary goal of any marketing strategy is to stand out from the crowd, be visible to your customers, and attract the attention to your business – we all know that everyone wants to distinguish themselves from their competitors.
In the meantime, however, competitors will not stand still, wait, and watch. They want to do exactly the same thing. But how can you make yourself unique and take your brand, your product or your services to a much higher level?
Do you need a better design? For sure. Should you offer more varied products? Maybe. Should you get into the price competition? Not necessarily.
In fact, there are many ways to differentiate yourself from your competitors and fortunately, these methods do not mean that you have to lower certain standards. Today, we’ve brought you some marketing tips to help you improve your business and these tips will bring about dramatic changes in the competition. Let’s see them then!
1. Web design
Creating a professional website will not only make your business a lot more visible but can also take your brand to the next level. This is probably the ‘easiest’ way to get noticed, to make people pay considerable attention to your business and your brand. So how can you win the competition with a professional web design?
First of all, the quality is incredibly important! Whatever photos or images are included on the website, they must be of high quality. It’s a common fact that much more attention is paid to images on a web page and they also convey a stronger message to people. Again, the balance which is so important in online marketing in general should not be overlooked. When talking about balance, I mean that the images need to be used in an effective way. While not compromising on the quality of your images, you need to optimize the file size in order not to slow down the web page. Remember that user experience is the most important factor here. If the file size of your images is too large, it is unlikely that too many visitors will wait 7-10 seconds for your page to load. Even if you use the most beautiful images in the world nobody is going to care. Simply because nobody is going to wait.
Another important feature of websites is the ability to build trust. Try to imagine what people think when they first come across your website. Do they think ‘this website is too simple’. Or ‘why has it been so poorly designed?’ Or would they immediately understand what message you are conveying?
If you have doubts about your web design in your mind, you can be sure that these thoughts will also be there in your visitors’ minds. And once negative thoughts are formed, it’s hard to put them down, and as a consequence – more often than not – trust falls apart in people’s heads. Trust really needs to be earned. You don’t have to think about complicated things to win. As an example, make sure your SSL certificate is OK (you wouldn’t believe how many websites are missing it) and that potential customers can easily reach you if they want to contact you. These two things already mean a lot for your visitors.
Let’s do a little detour about SSL certificate and see why it is so important. SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer, which is used for secure communication between parties by encrypting data. The existence of an SSL certificate is extremely important in the case of online shops where credit card information is provided, or basically on any other site where a form is filled in and users provide personal information. Websites that start with https: // definitely have this certificate. Otherwise, SSL certificates have a limited validity and need to be renewed periodically. Having an SSL certificate is a key to trust.
And there is one more thing we need to talk about regarding web design: Aesthetics. Look. Style. Let’s confess, we love beautiful things, we also love to surround ourselves with attractive items in our daily lives. In some ways, marketing has always been about beauty and taste. Therefore, you must make every effort to make your website look beautiful and attractive to the users. The appearance, the images – everything is important. And due to that enormous pressure from our competitors, it may have become even more important recently. Make sure you have the right style and look online. If you need any help, feel free to contact us.
2. Video Content
Why is video content so important if you want to stand out and differentiate yourself from your competitors? Because it’s videos that will help users remember you and your brand the most. When they are ready to make a purchase, they will remember you and they will also know where to find you.
Online marketers are also trying to use more and more videos to promote their products and services. Not only do they upload videos to YouTube, many people use these wonderful online marketing tools on their landing pages and emails. With each video, you can better showcase your brand to potential customers and build lasting relationships with existing clients.
HubSpot research shows that entrepreneurs publish 18 videos a month on average. This data accurately reflects the growing demand for videos and their value in the online marketing process. If you haven’t done it yet then obviously it’s time to incorporate videos into your online marketing strategy. If you postpone it, you run the risk of falling behind your competitors.
But why can video marketing boost your business so much? How does it differentiate your business from your competitors?
Remember that high-quality videos increase viewer engagement, potential customer engagement, and traffic to your site. If your website gets a lot of traffic, it will definitely improve your ranking in Google’s search results list. Google’s algorithm is increasingly favoring pages with video content uploaded. Therefore, it is especially important that you use videos as an integral part of your online marketing strategy so that you can increasingly distinguish yourself from your competitors.
In order to get the best SEO (Search Engine Optimization) results, you should make short videos. Videos shorter than two minutes get the most attention but even a length of four minutes is fine. It also means that you need to explain your point to your audience as soon as possible. As with blogs, optimization should not be overlooked in the case of videos either. Use relevant titles, descriptions, meta tags to help search engines crawl your videos as effectively as possible.
Another great benefit of video making, which can help you out against your competitors, is the fact that videos keep users on your site for a long time. The average user spends 88%! more time on a site where videos are embedded. What is the reason for this? Obviously, videos are a lot more fun for people than reading a text. Plus, we usually remember the information we saw and heard in a video. Video content captures viewers’ attention much better as we hear it and see it at the same time. To put it another way, a video brings together the two things that easily captivates one’s attention: noise and movement. An average user remembers 95% of the message when they see it on video. For text content, this rate is only 10%.
3. SEO – Search Engine Optimisation
Every entrepreneur who has ever touched upon the world of online marketing has heard of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Still, many are afraid of SEO because they only see it as a complicated and time-consuming set of tasks. However, SEO is still the best way to increase your website’s traffic for free. Even the simplest things like a business name can contribute to ranking a website in Google’s search results list. Instead of developing a long-term SEO strategy, many companies tend to start with paid advertising, which will not produce long-term effective results. You must pay outstanding attention to SEO if you want to differentiate yourself from your competitors.
There are a lot of things to keep in mind: in SEO, we can talk about on-page optimization, off-page optimization, link building, and all the subcategories such as the use of keywords. While there is much to learn, mastering and implementing SEO gives you much more visibility in search engines.
Obviously, you do not have to be an expert in search engine optimization. You can allocate the tasks to an online marketing agency like SHAPE Online Marketing Consulting. However, it is absolutely worth learning the basics of SEO, so you can understand exactly what to expect from an SEO expert.
It is definitely worth hiring an SEO and online marketing consultant to assist with SEO audits, perform the necessary analysis, monitor how users interact with your site, and possibly help you develop some social media strategies.
It is important that you never expect instant miracles and increased traffic from SEO. It can happen but it is very rare. In the case of search engine optimization you will get the real results after 6-12 months.
4. Competitor Analysis
We have created a constantly competitive world for ourselves which is why a thorough competitor analysis is a skill that every entrepreneur needs to master. If you have no time to do it as a business owner, you have to rely on marketers. If you don’t know what your competitors are doing, how do you want to differentiate yourselves from the competitors?
A couple of years ago it was almost impossible to lose customers if you had a well-established brand name and reputation. This was before the internet and social media sneaked into people’s lives with the intensity we see and experience today. These days, customer loyalty is influenced by all sorts of factors including price, shopping experience, negative feedback, opinions, or simply a change in the current trends. If you want your brand to survive and even stand out from the competition, you need to be aware of what consumers think and feel, and how that affects a particular market segment. This is why it is so important to see what tactics your competitors use to achieve success.
Competitor analysis is more than just analyzing the biggest companies. Remember, if you only look at the biggest, you will only do one-third of the work. If you are really on the lookout, your audience can lead you to rivals you don’t even know yet. Competitor analysis compares topics, tactics, and channels that have the potential to increase your market performance. The main focus here is to explore opportunities where you can outgrow your competitors and distinguish your brand from the crowd.
For a competitor analysis to be truly successful, it must be continuous. The analysis can never stop. Trends change quickly so you can’t close your eyes for a second. It is worthwhile to run regular competitor analysis reports, set new goals, and keep an eye on all the details.
The competition never stops.
5. Find your place in social media
Most business owners know they need to be present on social media. If you weren’t sure before, here’s the answer: Social media should be an integral part of your online marketing strategy. However, start-ups often make the mistake of doing too much at once. Yesterday, the company didn’t even have a social media account. Now it wants to be present on all platforms, from Facebook to Instagram and TikTok. And this is the perfect recipe for a disaster for many brands and new businesses.
All businesses, especially start-ups, should strive to find their place in social media. This means that initially it is enough to focus on just a few platforms where people are comfortable moving around and, of course, where the target audience is most active. It is worth continuously checking the degree of interaction we achieve with each platform. If no one has been interested in anything you post on Instagram for months, probably it’s time to change and move. If you want to give it one last chance, put together an Instagram marketing strategy, maybe there are some untapped opportunities. For Instagram Marketing Tips for 2020, click here to read our previous blog post on the topic.
The goal is always to find the social media platforms that provide the highest level of interaction and engagement considering the number of likes, shares, and comments. And the most important lesson is: Don’t waste your time on a platform where your target audience is almost nonexistent. Do some research, find out which interface your target group is most active on, and you can build a loyal social media following for yourself.
Closing thoughts
As you can see, the best way to beat your competitors is to make the most of the tried and tested methods of online marketing. Your competitors will make the same mistakes over and over again while you can grow your business.
Do you need help with online marketing or search engine optimization? Don’t hesitate to contact us. We can help you build your online presence and you can leave your stubborn competitors behind you soon.
Sources:
https://websitedepot.com/stand-out-competition-professional-web-design/
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/333562
https://www.lyfemarketing.com/blog/digital-marketing-tips/