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DQ News: 4 Tips to Help Differentiate Your Small Business from the Competition

Let’s face it. Notwithstanding the fast pace of change in 21^st century technology, products and services aren’t a whole lot different from each other. While competition does drive innovation, when you enter into a saturated market, the only thing that will make you stand out is how you differentiate yourself from your competitors. Since products are essentially the same, and they probably cannot compete with the resources that some other big company products and services benefit from, you’ll have to scope out different ways to make your business make a bold unique statement. Here are some tips:

Use the mom-and-pop approach

Selling yourself as a mom-and-pop type of establishment makes a lot of sense, especially if you are running a small business. While it may sound a bit corny, pretty much any company can do this, and market research shows that consumers love this particular narrative of main street Americana.

Pay special attention to “content”

In a landscape in which differentiation is so difficult to attain, it’s now much more important to sell not just the product or service, but to sell the way you present your product or service. When I say “content” you are probably thinking something along the lines of a company blog, but content means so much more than simply text.

Web content can include video, audio, and graphic design. And promotion can also be accomplished beyond the web in the “real world.” Just be sure to establish a set of values and motifs, and then have all your content and marketing strategy follow from these core principles.

Follow the 18-34 year old crowd

Why? Because this is the group that consumes, and sets the cultural tastes of America, and some would say, the rest of the world. Even if your product or service is as far-removed as possible from that age group, be aware of as many trends as possible.

“Cool” is no longer a buzzword. It’s something that every business must think about if they want to survive in a market dominated by young, hip, and hyper-aware consumers.

Always emphasize quality over quantity

I once attended a small business conference, and one of the speakers made a long list of why small businesses routinely fail. The number one reason he listed was that small businesses try to compete with bigger companies on their own ground.

In other words, the speaker suggested that we be proud of being small businesses, and we must consistently offer what the bigger dogs can’t. And for many small enterprises, we can still beat out the corporate guys with the quality of our products and services.

Having a smaller output and clientele, we can afford to lavish time. Placing quality as a high priority in your business will definitely help differentiate you from the rest.

Author Bio: This is a guest post by Nadia Jones who blogs at online college about education, college, student, teacher, money saving, movie related topics. You can reach her at nadia.jones5 @ gmail.com.

Photo Credit: shahsjunkie

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