It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there. Competition is lurking around every corner. So how can a small business like yours stand out in a crowd of competitors?
Build A Connection With Your Customers
In the age of artificial intelligence and bots, personal experiences play a major factor in customer loyalty. It’s simple. Treat your customers like royalty and they will love you in return. That can be as simple as remembering names or special occasions, sending out hand-written thank you notes, giving out company merchandise or samples, or even putting out water bowls for the neighborhood animal walkers. Anything that puts a personal touch and creates a positive experience for the customer will keep your business thriving and bring you repeat customers.
Get Creative
People are constantly being bombarded with ads for products and services, if you want to get noticed you have to get creative. Social media is a great tool to inspire creativity and reach consumers by giving them visual information. Whether that’s enticing them with a new dish that you’re serving, or grabbing their attention with an exciting promo video of goods and services.
Simply put - people respond positively to visual content, more so than email blasts and lengthy newsletters. If you’re concerned about creating content, we have experts here at DS&P that can help you with your visual marketing needs.
Learn To Take Feedback
As a small business owner, sometimes hearing criticism from a customer can feel like a personal attack. It’s hard to keep emotions out of your business - especially if you’ve invested blood, sweat, and tears into it, but it’s important to remember “it’s not personal, it’s strictly business.” Listening to your customers may not only offer up valuable information, but it can also greatly improve your business as well.
Besides, bad reviews and negative word-of-mouths can often spread like wildfire. It may be hard at times, but handling an unsatisfied customer as gracefully as possible might even build an even better relationship with your customer than before.
Embrace Your Uniqueness
Originality is one sure way to stand out. If you have a unique product or service make sure you’re marketing it as so and letting your consumers aware of it. When you have something new and different people will often share that information with their friends, family, and coworkers. Not only increasing your brand recognition, but hopefully bringing in new customers as well.
These are just a few ideas. Which one will you use to make your business stand out?
