There are a lot of businesses out there. Post-pandemic, American entrepreneurs have been launching new ventures at the rapacious rate of several million new enterprises every year. Quickbooks estimates that this uptick in business ideation and creation won’t slow down any time soon, either.
With so much competition out there, it begs the question: how can business owners help their companies stand out from the crowd?
Competition is fierce in most areas of business. Here is how you can take a holistic approach to … [+]
The answer is that they have options. In fact, it’s possible to differentiate a brand from the competition at multiple points. Here are three of the biggest areas to keep in mind when trying to help your company stand out.
1. Stand Out With Your Offerings
The easiest way to stand out from the crowd is by offering the best products and services. This isn’t rocket science. It’s Business 101. And yet, it’s easy for business owners to forget this critical aspect of success, especially over time.
It’s easy for a fresh startup with seed funding and a buzzy upward trajectory to focus on innovation. However, over time, your brand can get bogged down with the logistics of providing your offerings to a larger crowd. When this becomes your primary focus, it can lead to stagnation. You become the bloated, uninspiring target that younger, fresher-minded enterprises seek to surpass.
If you want to stand out, you need to keep that spirit of creativity and innovation alive and well over time. Apple is the poster child for this concept.
The tech giant famously (and only kind of) started in a garage in 1976, where the first batch of Apple 1 computers were assembled. Fast forward a quarter of a century, and the company shifted to music via the iPod. Jump ahead another twenty years, and the company is still announcing cutting-edge technology in the form of its upcoming AR glasses.
From day one, Apple wasn’t just a company that made a product. They were a creative hivemind that was always innovating. This gave them a unique and impressive edge, even in an industry that is defined by splashy and exciting developments on the regular.
2. Stand Out With Your Experience
Your products and services are the main reason you have a business. When you have quality offerings, they answer your target audience’s pain points and are the motivating factor that keeps people coming back. But they aren’t the only thing that a customer will remember. The entire experience that an individual has with a brand can help them remember (and just as easily forget or even actively avoid) the business.
Creating a quality customer experience starts with knowing the customer. Chances are, you’ve done your research to understand your target audience and their needs. This is what you use to inform and direct product development. But have you dug deeper?
It’s important to fully understand your target audience, not just when you launch your business but over time. What makes them tick? What are they looking for right now? This is the information that will help you speak to them not just with your offerings but with the entire marketing and customer journey experience.
Rewind Greens is a good example of a brand offering an informed and comprehensive experience to help it stand out. The health food brand creates nutritious super greens powder, and its marketing focuses on three clear competitive advantages: health, taste, and family.
Rewind Green’s products check all of the boxes that health-conscious consumers are seeking. The brand’s marketing emphasizes the lack of things like fillers, sugars, and artificial colors and flavors. On its own, though, that merely puts it on par with countless other health-focused supplement brands.
At the same time, the health food brand also highlights the delectable taste of its products (something that is far less common in its industry). It also maintains a family-friendly approach to its marketing. This broadens its potential customer base and helps it stand out in a nutraceutical field that is known for simple, uninspired supplement packaging and messaging. The end result is a customer experience that speaks to multiple customer pain points and ensures that the brand stands out and leaves an impression.
3. Stand Out With Tech
Perfecting your offerings and experiences is always the best starting point for differentiation in your industry. You want to have a strong product and a clean customer journey at the core of your business. Once those are in place, you can use technology to give yourself that added element that helps you stand out from the crowd.
Tech is already an integral part of business activity. Companies use various forms of technology to do everything from paying bills to creating schedules and even managing entirely remote offices from the cloud. But your use of tech should never stop with the mundane. If you want your brand to pop, look beyond the basics for ways to integrate tech in new and creative ways.
RXR Realty is a great example of a brand that is applying technology in unique ways as a core part of its business philosophy. The residential and commercial real estate developer was already investing heavily in tech before the pandemic and, since then, has increased its staff of data scientists, engineers, and designers to an innovative workforce that is over 100 strong.
The forward-thinking group is always developing new technological capabilities within the relatively mundane real estate sector. Its software offerings include help with everything from scheduling a move to paying the rent and even walking the dog. Technology can streamline a business and make it more profitable. But never underestimate its ability to help your brand stand out, too.
Thinking Holistically to Stand Out From the Crowd
Standing out from the crowd doesn’t have to take place at a specific point or stage of business. It’s important to consider every area where you can invest in improving your target audience’s perception of your brand — especially compared to your competitors.
Consider the three areas listed above. Start with your offerings. Then evaluate your customer journey. From there, look at how you’re integrating tech into your business. These are three points with the most potential to help your brand stand out, even when you’re operating in a crowded market.
