Distinguish
Your Business From The Competition
by Biana Babinsky
You followed time-honored online marketing techniques to the letter:
you have a great web site, the site has a high search engine rank,
and you created a compelling marketing message that showcases your
unique selling proposition. Unfortunately, your competitors are reading
the same playbook and are implementing the same marketing strategies.
The net result is that a potential customer found your web site, but
also found the sites of your most savvy competitors. How can you get
a marketing edge in this situation?
Distinguishing your business from the competition
is essential for growing your customer base. Here are three techniques
that will give your business crucial marketing sparkle:
1. Distinguish your web site. Many entrepreneurs
get a web site template and content from their parent company and
use it as-is, without modifying anything at all. Since all of the
representatives get exactly the same site template from the parent
company, how are you different from all of the other representatives?
There is nothing wrong with either the template or the content,
and it is perfectly acceptable to use a cookie-cutter web site for
selling to your existing customer base. However, to attract new
customers, you must distinguish your business.
2. Provide superior customer service. Your customers
might not be ready to buy the first time they visit your web site,
but they are likely to have questions or concerns about your products
or services. Make time to reply to their questions within 24 hours
so that you can showcase your customer service. If you are not paying
attention to them when they are potential customers, how much attention
will they get once they are actual customers? Note that you must
provide excellent post-sale customer service as well — stellar pre-sale
service that becomes non-existent after the payment has been processed
is a great way to lose the customer you just acquired. Customer
retention should be the cornerstone of your business strategy —
acquiring a new customer is an order of magnitude more expensive
that retaining an existing customer.
3. Have a clear and simple message.
How many times have you met someone during a networking event, heard
their 2 minute speech about their business, and still had no idea
about what they were promoting? Worse yet, how many times have you
visited a web site and had absolutely no idea what the web site
was promoting? Do you know how to "leverage synergy of client-centered
intellectual capital to achieve strategic dominance in the interactive
state-space"? Neither do we. Make sure your web site states
clearly what you offer and how to order your products. (We recently
spent several minutes on a site wondering where the "buy"
button was). If you offer a wide variety of products or services,
list a few of the most popular ones on top-level pages, and link
to additional items. It is better to tell your customers about two
products and have them remember what they were than to tell them
about 2,378 products and have them remember none.
Distinguishing your business from the competition
is essential when you are marketing to potential clients. It will
mean the difference between closing a sale and losing that sale to
a competitor.
Avocado Consulting, Inc offers a complete range of
innovative consulting services that enable businesses to leverage
the full power of the Internet. We help your business thrive by providing
superior online
marketing services, user-friendly web design, and innovative technical
consulting.
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