How to Make Your Small Business Stand Out from the Competition

Tips to Help Build Your Brand and Grow a Stand-Out Business

Small businesses are a great opportunity to live your dream and create positive experiences with customers. These types of businesses often provide niche markets with the products and services they are looking for locally in their own communities. Because of this, small business owners can take advantage of limited competition and work to create a strong brand image among their consumers. Although small business budgets are sometimes tight, there are some inexpensive yet effective ways to grow the company’s brand and business within a community and help stand out from others.

Offer Great Products and Services

One of the easiest ways to stand out from other, similar businesses is to offer superior products and services. In order to communicate this point to consumers, make sure to do research to determine what exactly makes your business’s offerings better than the others. Think of things such as quality, product longevity and customer service. Once these unique factors have been identified, make sure to work them into the business’s overall messaging so customers know what to look at when comparing organizations and give them valid reasons to choose your business over others.

Put a Face to Your Business

Too many consumers only know a business by its branding or product. Being a small business owner gives you a unique opportunity to connect with customers on a more personal level and have them know the business by your name and face or the names and faces of your employees instead of just a logo or company slogan.  Making these types of connections shows customers that the business owner and employees are passionate about what they do and truly care about their customers. Customer service of this kind is so important to consumers and will have them coming back again and again.

Build a Positive Community Around Your Brand

Building a strong community around your business and your brand is crucial for attracting new customers and continuing strong connections with current customers. This type of positive energy around the brand should be made both online and offline and often cost little to no funds to create. A great way to get started in building this community is by launching a Facebook or other free social media page. This is a great stage to interact with customers and help promote your business events within the community – these online promotions then translate to offline promotions when the event takes place and the community is invited to participate in a positive way.

 Standing out from the competition, especially in small business, is crucial to the organization’s success. By really caring about customers, offering superior products, and building a positive community around your brand, it can show potential customers why they should choose your company over others. Building a stand-out brand does not have to mean spending a lot of money on advertising and marketing – by making personal connections with customers and having them know your business by you and not your logo or slogan is a simple and cost-effective way to stand apart from other, similar businesses.

Need more tips on how to make your work at home business more successful? Stacy O'Quinn can help! To find out how, click here.

*Photo Courtesy of Phil Wood Photo via Creative Commons License