Every business owner wants to be sitting at the top of their industry’s food chain; they want to stand out against competition and entice customers into buying from them. But why should customers choose you?

This blog is going to break down how you should be positioning your business in front of potential customers to successfully make you stand out from the crowd.

Competition is unavoidable

Unless your business is wholly unique, there will be other similar businesses to yours – in other words, you have competition.

As an advertising agency, the number one issue we face on Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords), Bing or Facebook is: why do people buy from you? How do we advertise your business to successfully set it apart from the competition?

Find your identity

To make yourself stand out, you must identify your USP (unique selling point) and make it your primary focus.

To establish your USP, you compare your product or service with your competitor’s, determining one feature which you possess that no one else can offer. Bear in mind that you should be similar to competition, but not identical – look at what makes your competitors strong and come up with a unique twist so you can offer something different. Be careful not to alienate your customer by straying too far away from your original service.

In your research, you might discover that your customers do not perceive you in the way you would like them to – once you’ve identified that, it’s your job to change their perception to align with your business ideas.

It’s an issue we faced ourselves; there are a plethora of digital marketing agencies out there, and we weren’t standing out boldly enough to capture the attention of potential clients. We got the whole team together and came up with what we perceive to be our strongest points.

What did we find?

We narrowed down a few key points which helped us stand out from the crowd.

Click Convert’s number one USP is that we know, without a doubt, our experts are the best at Google Ads in the country. This may sound bold, but we can make that statement with confidence, knowing we’ve nurtured this as our core strategy over many years to make it the backbone of the business.

Our research also revealed something unsettling; looking from the outside, most marketing agency websites exhibit strong company values with visual aides, such as glossy videos showing excited people who offer big promises. Through interviewing prospective candidates that have worked previously at said agencies, we’ve learned that AdWords teams often aren’t teams at all, with just a single expert working away on a high volume of accounts. Even in the biggest agencies, we’ve repeatedly found that our candidates have been the only one doing their job.

Don’t be a Jack of all trades; become a master of one

This can be related to both of our key findings and brings me back to my original point: without a USP, you can risk blending into the background, or worse – you fall into the trap of offering more than you’re capable of.

To overcome the first problem, we’ve decided to reposition Click Convert (currently underway; watch this space!) to position ourselves as a digital advertising agency, not a digital marketing agency. We focus all our energies on advertising your business – and that’s it. Our team is extremely comprehensive in what they do, and we have regular meetings to shake out ideas between ourselves and our clients.

This relates to the second finding, too – other agencies are trying to offer too much, therefore diluting each service and reducing its quality. Without a team of people working on the same thing, there’s no one to confer with – there should be a constant flow of conversation to help the team can develop and grow together, pushing each other to be better. Even the best candidate can’t grow properly without a team, and one person is often left to struggle with too many accounts to handle.

The image portrayed of having strong company culture and values is often false; having an individual in each department allows for an agency to offer a service, but it will not be a complete service and will inevitably be of poor quality.

This is a clear example of a business not identifying what makes them different, blending into the blur of all the other digital marketing agencies out there.

Make your business stand out

American philosopher William James once quoted a carpenter: “There is very little difference between one man and another; but what little there is, is very important.”

Your challenge is to find what sets you apart from your competitors; find what you’re best at and make that the driving force of your business. Stay true to your core skills and focus on what people love about you.

This could be in the form of fine-tuning and narrowing your product or service offering, allowing you to focus on your most popular product, or cutting your service offering down to whatever your business is best at. Position yourself so you stand out in your industry.

Here are some memorable examples of companies exhibiting their USPs:

Finger lickin’ good (KFC)

The mint with the hole (Polo)

Cleans your breath while it cleans your teeth (Colgate)

None of these products are particularly groundbreaking; however, sometimes the secret is to say what others say, but more persuasively or fully. Compare yourself to your competition and discover more about what you can offer.

What do I do with my findings?

So, you’ve found your USP; now you have to abide by it. By making sure everything you say and do fits with your industry positioning, you begin to occupy a clear space in the minds of both current and prospective customers: a place from which it will become difficult to dislodge you (much like the strapline examples above).

During our own research, we repositioned Click Convert as a digital advertising agency and not a digital marketing agency like everyone else. To reiterate: we only do ads, and we do them very well.

Positioning can be expressed through a short, simple statement: on our new website, we will be branded as ‘The Digital Advertising Experts’. This is now part of everything we say and do, and reflects our core brand values.

Moving forward

It’s vital to believe in what you do and to make sure other people find it believable, too. The worst thing you can do is over-promise and under-deliver.

Do what you do best, and do it well.

If you’ve struggled to advertise your business successfully, get in touch – we’re just a phone call away from a free consultation!