10 Ways to Make Your Brand Stand Out When You Have a Ton of Competition

In today’s competitive markets, your brand needs to really stand out. You can’t blend in with the crowd and expect to be successful.

Find some way to differentiate your brand from the competition, and let it be seen!

Here are some ways to pull ahead of the curve.

Create a Name That’s Easy to Say

The name of your brand is not a minor detail—it is critical to your success. There are a handful of ways to name your brand very, very badly.

One way is to include awkward digestive processes, such as Poopsie’s Pizza located in Pembroke, Massachusetts, or Passmore Gas & Propane in Arizona.

Another way to name your brand badly is to utilize an unfortunate last name, such as Paine Dentistry or Dumass Taco, in Texas.

Finally, it is a bad idea to give your brand a name that is difficult to pronounce. For one thing, you will constantly be correcting people as to the right pronunciation, which can get tiresome.

For another, people are hesitant about sharing a brand they can’t say with their friends. It makes them feel stupid.

Instead of worrying about telling their friend to meet them at Café Patachou, with no real clue how to say it, they might opt for a brunch place that they can pronounce.

Create a name for your brand that is memorable, short, and easy to say.

Maintain a Consistent Brand Identity

As your brand grows, it will be featured in a variety of formats, from social media and printed ads, to video advertisements and written reviews, to flyers and signs. Your brand needs to remain consistent across all formats.

One way to ensure brand consistency is to train everyone with any impact on your brand, from product designers and marketers to influencers and reporters, to represent your brand correctly.

This should include all aspects of your identity, including your values, culture, voice, and goals.

Additionally, wherever your brand is represented, your official brand name, slogan, logo, and design should be used.

Think through every detail before determining your brand identity, because once it has been established, it is almost impossible to change it in people’s minds.

Develop Core Values

The core values of your business will shape your brand identity and merge with your brand in the public eye. More importantly, your core values should influence every decision you make regarding your brand.

Develop your core values by asking yourself the following questions: What do I hope to accomplish through my brand? Who am I striving to serve with my brand? How do I want my brand to be perceived by others? What am I most passionate about when it comes to my brand? What qualities are important to me, personally? What do I want to be known for?

The answers to these questions will inform you as to what your core values are.

Some examples might be sustainability, providing opportunities for the underprivileged, integrity, expanding awareness to a cause, or promoting better health.  

Become Renowned for Your Customer Service

Your customer service has the power to either make you or break you. While poor customer service will cause you to lose customers, excellent customer service will win you loyal customers for life.

You can become renowned for your customer service by following customer service best practices.

These include responding quickly, developing a relationship with them, truly listening, offering empathy, fixing mistakes, and committing to 100% customer satisfaction.

Build a Loyal Following

When you are building your brand, start with a loyal following. This will generally be formed from the customers who share your passion and are quick to jump on board.

Find your target audience and begin there. Go to the people, don’t make them come to you. Determine which demographics will be likely to share a passion for your brand and figure out where they go, what their interests are, and the things they care about.

Social media is a great place to do this. Nearly 90% of consumers buy from brands they follow on social media platforms.

Once you find your target audience, give them what they want. People want more than a great product; they want a company that they believe in.

People want to feel like they are making a difference with their choices in consumerism.

Finally, most people want to come away with an experience. Find some way to turn your brand into human connection, personal growth, or a lifestyle change.

Create Brand Awareness

No matter how great your brand is, it will sit on the shelf unless you create public awareness of your brand. Develop a strategic marketing plan with your target audience in mind.

Advertise on social media. Develop a brand profile on popular platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and post or publish content regularly.

Develop a fun and user-friendly website to promote your brand and draw visitors in with relevant creative content. Involve your brand in community events, offer promotional deals, and give out free merch.

Finally, partner with popular influencers. Just be sure that your influencers align with your values and that they will reach your target audience.

Connect Your Brand With an Emotion

People are not emotionless automatons. People are emotional creatures, which means that a powerful way to reach people is by appealing to their emotions.

Most of us would like to believe that we make decisions based on output from our thinking brains, but many of us are more influenced by our emotions, which are the brain’s first, raw way of reacting to the world.

When you associate your brand with an emotion, people are more likely to be drawn to it. Depending on your product, you could associate your brand with love, freedom, exhilaration, peace, compassion, empathy, justice, and even less-positive emotions such as anger, sorrow, and envy.

Strong emotions create a powerful pull that makes people want to get on board. There is additional power in showing your authentic self to the public, along with your passions, values, and strong emotions.

Keep to a Particular Niche

Don’t over complicate your brand. It is easy to get so caught up in the myriad possibilities available to us that we try to run in a million directions at once.

However, your brand will be more successful if you narrow your focus to a specific niche. The more specific you go, the fewer the competitors. You can find your niche by using some of the questions proposed earlier.

Figure out what you are most passionate about, who you want to serve, and what kind of people are aligned. 

For example, if a clothing brand wants to sell every type of clothing to every type of person, they are trying to reach around 7 billion people. Narrow the niche to American women, and you still have an audience of over 100 million people.

These massive markets are so over saturated, it is nearly impossible to insert your brand and compete.

However, let’s say that this same clothing brand narrows its niche to only providing clothing for women in the US who are over 6 feet tall, which accounts for about 1 million women.

This is still a large niche, but it is specific enough that most women over 6 feet tall, many of whom struggle to find clothes that fit them, are relatively likely to purchase clothing from this company.

Narrow your niche as much as you can to limit competitors and to laser-focus your marketing.

Understand Your Customers

Take the time to really understand your customers. If you can put yourself into their world and their lives, you can better know what they need and want.

At the same time, the efforts you put into connecting with and understanding your customers will be reciprocated in beneficial ways. When people feel heard and understood, they are more likely to seek you out.

One important facet of understanding your customers is to speak their language. If your target audience is girls, ages 12-14, don’t talk down to them. Get on their level.

The same thing goes for any audience of people. Use layman’s terms with laymen, professional terms with professionals, and casual terms with kids and adolescents.

Develop a Slogan and Logo

One way to make your brand instantly recognizable is to develop a catchy slogan and a logo that pops out.

Many brands are known by their slogan or logo alone. When your slogan and logo resonate with your audience and accompany all marketing platforms, they will become indelibly imprinted on the mind of your customers.

This can help when it comes to product selection, because people tend to choose brands that they are more familiar with.

Don’t get left behind in the crushing masses of heavy competition. Your brand deserves to be seen and known.

Find ways to make your brand stand out amidst the crowd so that your amazing products can get into the hands of the people who love them, but just don’t know it yet!

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Check out this article for more information on starting your own business!