Edging ahead of the competition with your publicity efforts can be tricky; however, you can further your chances of success by thinking more carefully about your niche. This is the area in which your business competes or, at least, should compete; however, if you don’t sufficiently understand the niche, your attempts to make the right impression could be hamstrung.
Regardless of where exactly you currently are in your promotional journey, we have compiled various pieces of advice for getting ahead in what could be a very crowded marketplace.
Precisely define your niche
This is more fundamental to your promotional success then you might have realised. While you might have a good idea of what market your company is competing in, this is not strictly the same as the niche; you might have overlooked offerings that your firm has but rivals don’t.
Patrick Barnhill, a co-owner of badge accessories distributor Specialist ID, Inc., advises that you put this right by analyzing the competition. In a Personal Branding Blog article, he adds: “After doing so, use this analysis to your advantage, and market your personal brand from that angle.”
Position yourself as a specialist expert
Once you have narrowed down your area of specialism, learn as much as possible about it. Of course, if you have reached the point of exactly defining your niche, you probably already know a lot about it; however, your further objective is to develop yourself into a publicly recognized expert.
You can gain that public recognition by showing – such as through regular blog posts or TV or radio appearances – that you know things competitors in your niche don’t.
Take advantage of interaction opportunities
Another bonus of attracting attention as an expert is that it can bring you opportunities for interacting with other people in your niche. Naturally, those people could include customers, but also influencers who could shine a spotlight on you and so increase your firm’s exposure.
Ways of reaching out to such people could include attempting to strike up conversations at conferences and on social media – public channels where influential chatting could ignite.
Offer products that are truly cutting-edge
What many of the world’s most successful companies, including Apple and McDonald’s, have in common is that they tend to offer products unmatched by others in innovation or quality. There’s a key lesson to learn in this: differentiating yourself is hard when your firm’s products aren’t unique.
In fact, without more unorthodox offerings, you might feel the need to compete strictly on price – but then, you could end up simply racing to the bottom. A better tactic for long-term success would be watching for emerging trends and then getting early to the market with something innovative.
Thomas Smale, who co-founded FE International, has pointed out one risk, however: that of relying on manufacturers. As he states for Entrepreneur, “if you can develop your own custom products, you can dominate a market for longer.”
Take out public liability insurance
The proof of the pudding is in the eating, so you can’t expect to get too far with your marketing if you don’t back up its claims. To that end, you need to make sure that you are genuinely looking out for your customers – and one way of doing that can be taking out appropriate insurance.
If your business is UK-based, you could turn to Be Wiser Business Insurance in looking for what is called public liability insurance. This can cover the expense of compensation that customers seek if they inadvertently pick up injuries at your workplace. By advertising your holding of public liability insurance, you can reassure customers that you take their health and safety seriously.
Even if you largely interact with customers online, public liability insurance could still help if, for example, you accidentally damage a customer’s property while conducting work there. Obviously, this could be significantly beneficial if your business offers home improvement work.
