2021 is just around the corner, and sustaining a successful online business is harder than ever. You have a plethora of competitors, big and small, that you have to contend with. Your customers are all over the globe, and all of them want personalized services. Becoming the top name in any niche is easier said than done. Various factors affect your brand, and if you are not on top of them, you might find yourself at the bottom of the ladder. This means that your competitors will be able to outdo your efforts and take a bigger piece of the pie for themselves, while you will have to do with the crumbs they leave behind.
But outsmarting your competition is not impossible. It can be done if you take care of a few things. Since we’re talking about competing in the digital realm, you need to ensure that your digital marketing strategies are up to date to ensure success. And it’s not like you have any other way to go. If you don’t do it first, your competitors will do it to you.
In such fierce competition, smart brands stay ahead in the industry by finding out what their competitors are doing and coming up with better ways to reach the target audience. How can you do that? Read on to find out.
1. Know Your Competitors
The first thing you need to do to leave your competitors behind is to know precisely what they are doing in terms of their online presence and marketing. This is true for everything, from social media to SEO and everything in between. Why is this important? Because you have to know what is working for your competitors and what is not. You can easily learn from their successes and mistakes and create a digital marketing strategy bound to get results. Think it is hard? Not at all. You can use tools like the competitor analysis tool by SEMRush to find out exactly what your competitors are up to.
At a macro-level, look at their websites and social media pages to find out what you need to do. This might include targeting the same keywords as your competitors, learning from their website’s architecture, how they are using a local SEO strategy, and more.
At the micro-level, you will go deeper into your competitors’ digital marketing strategies and study the subtleties and the attention to details that they have given. This means finding out how their web pages and blogs are structured, how they have utilized internal linking, what websites are linking to their website, and the anchor text they are using, etc. It is crucial to be thorough at this stage.
2. Find Sub Markets
Another way to ensure you build your brand better than your competitors is to find submarkets in the industry where competition isn’t as cutthroat. This way, you will be able to acquire a unique competitive edge. For example, if you are a clothing brand, you can find a niche with a specific need for a type of apparel or style. Branching out would help you stand out from the competition and add to your brand value on the internet.
3. Don’t Rely On One Mode of Marketing
Many brands face this problem; they focus on one part of their digital marketing strategy instead of taking a 360-degree approach. Some brands will focus solely on Google ads, while others never consider social media an integral part of digital marketing. If you want to win the endless rat race of online rankings and sales, you need to create a holistic strategy that encompasses numerous digital marketing channels. A multi-channel marketing approach entails creating different types of content based on the channel that you are using. This will give online users multiple ways of interacting with your brand and significantly increase traffic to your website and your ROI.
4. Innovation Is The Key
The only thing that is certain in business is change. You can be sure that things are going to change soon and keep on changing. Take, for example, the events of 2020. No one foresaw a pandemic and a sudden surge in online traffic and digitalization. We have so many ways of reaching the customers than we used to have. You need to make sure that you are ready to change and innovate your brand, products, and services according to the times and the needs of the customers.
This is not something that can be done overnight. Change takes time. If you ensure that you are ready and willing for it, it will become easier for you. What does this all mean? It means using the latest technologies and offering your customers something that your competitors aren’t. This could be in the form of more value-added services or, like we pointed out earlier, branching off into niche, untapped markets. This could be a virtual reality or augmented reality experience. It could be using machine learning to automate your marketing processes or better customer service through chatbots.
5. Use Storytelling To Build Your Brand
It is well and good to dream about having no competition, but that is all it is; a dream. In the real world, you have to work to build your brand and leave the competitors behind. The internet is already a crowded place, and it will only get even more crowded in 2021. To make an impression on your target audience, you need to do something to make your brand, products, and services stand out.
You can do this with the art of storytelling. You can create compelling and attractive stories around your brand, products, and services to make them more relatable to your customers. Emulate your target audience’s lifestyles, likes, habits, and preferences. Empathize with them. Stories make your brand more human and interesting. In a sea of competitors, this is the one thing that can truly set you apart.
Final Thoughts
The digital space is a cold place. Competition is fierce and the stakes are high! If you really want to outsmart your online competitors and make a name for yourself, you’re going to have to step up your game. Be aware of what your existing competition is upto, and come up with out-of-the-box strategies to excel in your industry.
