Help Your Brand Stand Out: 7 Proven Strategies

You know that your brand is special. Your success will depend on ensuring that your target market knows it, too. In this day and age, you may find more avenues for reaching out to prospective customers than ever before, but you’ll also find more competitors than ever before. Getting your brand’s voice heard can be a challenge when there are so many other companies shouting from the rooftops.  In this post, we’ll run through some effective strategies for helping to make your brand stand out in the sea of competition. Take them all on board, and you should notice an increase in sales before too long!

Tactics to help your brand stand out

1. Create a strong value proposition

You might get your brand’s voice heard, but if what your potential customers hear is the same old rhetoric they’ve heard from every other brand in your industry, then they won’t have much incentive to become customers. Remember, it’s not merely about getting your voice heard — it’s about standing out from the crowd.

Your business will have unique elements, and those should be reflected in your marketing campaigns. A value proposition reflects what’s unique about your business, but more than that, it tells prospective customers why they should care about what makes you unique by matching with their wants and needs. Many companies make the mistake of creating copy that they think their customers want to hear when, in fact, the copy should clearly state your value proposition.

2. Work with branding experts

It’d be nice if every potential customer would give you an hour to show them all that’s great about your brand, the products/services they need, how they’ll help you, and so on. In reality, what they’ll actually give you is a few seconds. No one’s quite sure exactly how much time you have to make a positive impression, but it won’t be long.

When you’re given the opportunity, you need to make the most of it. The best way to do that is to work with branding experts who can ensure that your brand is designed in a way that both reflects who you are and grabs the attention of potential customers. In fact, we’d go so far as to say that this is essential; we just can’t see how an emerging business could find success in the modern world without robust branding.

3. Define your brand personality

Just like individuals have personalities that serve as a shorthand to define key characteristics, a brand’s personality is a key element drawing customers to it. Most iconic brands have a clearly defined personality, as you can see in the image below.

Just as your value proposition should match your target market, the personality you build must match that market. That means you must work toward understanding your target market(s) beyond simple demographics. Learn not only their wants and needs but their lifestyles, what’s important to them, and how they see themselves.

4. Make yourself memorable

Just as you don’t make a new friend the first time you see them, it’s unlikely that someone who’s interacting with your brand for the first time will become a customer on the very same day. The prospect needs to get to know your brand and its personality and feel confident about your value proposition. It’s also possible that existing customers ultimately end up forgetting about you, no matter how much they may enjoy your products.

An intelligent way to combat these issues is to ensure that your brand stays top of mind for customers and prospects. There are a number of ways to do this, but the most effective is to provide free merchandise embossed with your name and logo, especially products they use in public spaces, so others see their tacit endorsement of your brand. If you give personalized coffee mugs or tote bags to your customers, then your brand is never too far from their minds. Even if they don’t become a customer today, they may do so several months down the line when they look at the merchandise you’ve given them and remember that you exist.

5. Be inventive with social media accounts

Every business is told that it must have social media accounts. While that’s generally true, what really matters is how many people actually follow and engage with those accounts. Simply having an account doesn’t mean that anyone will follow it. The first trick to using social media to help your brand stand out is to use the right platforms. Choose ones that match your brand personality and where your target market likes to engage with brands.

To help your brand stand out on social media, brands must have inventive, original content with bold images that attract users’ attention. You also need to publish valuable content on a consistent basis, based on the platforms you choose (see the image below for recommendations). Without that, there’s really no reason why someone would engage with your accounts. If you don’t have an appealing angle (say, you work in a scenic environment and can post ‘behind the scenes’ photos), then it’s best to hand the job over to an agency that specializes in social media marketing. They’ll be able to come up with exciting content that appeals to your target market.

6. Branch out

Businesses tend to do the same old things when trying to get the attention of potential customers. So, why not do something different? One overlooked way to get your name out there is to host a street event that allows you to meet with the public face-to-face. This works best if you’re a local business. Still, it can also be effective for digital companies, provided they host the event in an area that’s populated with people within their target market.

Also, you don’t have to talk about your brand constantly. Instead, focus on your company values to build content that shows you operate a company that cares about the things your target market cares about. For instance, Dove doesn’t sell soap and lotion; they sell the values the company cares about. In their “Campaign for Real Women”, they focus on the value of accepting women who don’t fit the type usually seen in advertising.

7. Remember: quality products/services matter the most

Finally, keep in mind that while there are plenty of strategies you can use to build brand awareness, what will ultimately determine your success is the overall quality of your products or services. Some brands do all the hard work of getting the public’s attention, only to waste it all by having products that weren’t all that in the first place. Before you begin shouting from the rooftops, it’s best to ensure that you have a genuinely good product that will lead to a viable business. It’s also best to have a respectable amount of reviews before you undertake a full-scale marketing launch since your potential customers will likely look for the options of previous purchases before becoming customers themselves.

Conclusion

It can be overwhelming to learn just how much competition there is for customers. And while we think of the internet as a finite place, the truth is that there are only a few places where your potential customers hang out, and in any case, customers only have limited interest in brands anyway. To ensure that your business is a success, you have to find ways to make your brand stand out. Take the tips we’ve outlined above, and you’ll be giving your business the best possible chance of reaching your future customers.

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Hausman and Associates, the publisher of MKT Maven, is a full-service marketing agency operating at the intersection of marketing and digital media. Check out our full range of services.