Americans can’t seem to ditch the entrepreneurial bug. About 17 million new businesses are going to start in 2022, which will set new records for entrepreneurship.
It’s an exciting endeavor, but starting a business comes with many challenges. You’re a newbie facing at least one strong business competitor.
Some of the business competition dominates the market, like Amazon, Wal-Mart, and Target. There are dozens of small businesses like yours that have been around for years.
They have name recognition and a client base. It makes building a brand new business tough to do.
Does that sound familiar? Digital marketing does make it easier because it levels the playing field.
You can reach more people about your new business and take market share from your competitors’ businesses.
How can you do that? Read on to learn the top digital marketing tips to beat your business competitors.
Research Your Business Competitor
What is your business up against? That’s the first question you need to answer by researching your competitors in business.
Make a list of the top competitors in business. These are businesses that offer the same services or products as you do. They could offer similar products in your region.
Examine the strengths and weaknesses of each business. Note how much market share each business competitor has.
Look at how they market themselves online. Do they use social media? How often do they post and what kind of content? Do people engage with their content?
Search for each business online and see how they appear in search results. You can use a tool like SEM Rush or Ubbersuggest to do some of this work for you.
This will enable you to identify opportunities to set your business apart.
Set Your Business Apart
Have you ever run a race and tried to keep up with the other runners? A lot of the time, you’re just copying what they’re doing just to keep up. You end up keeping up for a short while and then find yourself at the back of the pack.
Startups fall into the same trap with digital marketing.
You have to run your own race.
Sure, you want to know what the competition’s doing, but you have to find your positioning in the marketplace. You need to know what your business stands for and how it’s different.
There are two primary ways to compete in the marketplace. You can compete on quality or compete on price.
New businesses think that they can compete by being the cheapest option in the marketplace. That can work to a certain extent in the beginning.
You’ll get clients who want to try your products or services. They won’t stay loyal because they’ll always look for the cheapest option. These clients tend to take up a lot of time and energy because they have unreasonable expectations.
Your startup will get stretched because you have to sell more volume to make up for reduced profit margins.
Set yourself up as a high-quality business and you’ll be able to charge higher prices.
To do that well, you need to know your target market. You have to communicate that you understand their challenges and frustrations. The foundation of your digital marketing message is that your products and services solve those challenges.
This has to be unique to your business. You can’t copy what your business competitor does and assume it will work.
Create a Digital Marketing Plan
How will you market your business? It starts by knowing the best ways to reach your audience. You have to be where they are.
If you know that your target market spends a lot of time on Facebook, you’ll want to create a Facebook group. It’s a better option than building a Facebook page.
There are a few dozen ways to use digital marketing to promote your business. At the onset, pick one or two things and do them well.
For instance, you might want to use SEO and Instagram to reach your audience.
The next step is to plan your content. Your content shouldn’t go for the hard sell. You need to provide value with every piece of content.
This builds trust with your audience. The more they trust you and see your authenticity, the more likely they will buy from you.
Execute the Marketing Plan
You have a couple of options to create and execute your marketing plan. You can do these steps on your own or hire a marketing partner.
Is your first thought that you don’t want to spend the money on outsourcing? That’s one way to limit business growth.
With the right marketing agency, you can have them do everything or work on one thing. That allows you to build your business and then scale up as you grow.
You can outsource the one thing that takes the most time and energy. Outsource it to a company like Get Found Fast and you can grow and focus on your core business at the same time.
If you do everything yourself, you’ll save money, but not time. You’ll need to be an expert in all things marketing. There’s a learning curve to SEO and social media.
You’ll need to understand how they work and have the time to produce content consistently.
Smart Digital Marketing Tips to Beat Competitors in Business
The business world is highly competitive. It’s hard for a new business to make an immediate impact in the marketplace. If you want to beat your main business competitor, start with a smart foundation.
These marketing tips showed you how important it is to do research and set yourself apart. No matter what digital marketing strategies you use, be sure to provide value.
Don’t oversell and you’ll get new clients before you know it.
For more startup tips, check out the other articles on the blog.
