Have you started a business during the Covid-19 pandemic (whether by choice or necessity)?
Launching into entrepreneurship is never easy but doing it while much of the world is in meltdown definitely denotes courage.
However, there are more people than ever in your shoes, making the perpetual problem of differentiating your offering even more acute. So when you don’t have a billion pound budget, how do you stand out from the crowd and secure your future as your own boss?
Fear not – we’ve collated several smart moves for differentiating your business in 2022 and you can read them right now. Treat yourself to some peace of mind.
1. Be bold
Personal branding is powerful – whether on business platforms like LinkedIn or sites like Instagram which are rich in B2C opportunities, regularly publishing positive and genuinely useful content on your own page can be much more effective than churning out generic posts from your company profile.
But in order to be memorable, you’ll have to be prepared to be both provocative and vulnerable. This doesn’t mean that you’ll suddenly become the social media equivalent of a radio shock jock. Instead, you’ll be willing to share your well-thought through opinions on contentious topics and allow a (controlled) glimpse into your life outside of work. By humanising your offering, you’ll filter out the type of clients you don’t want and attract those you do. If you’re struggling to get started, a content coaching service like The Real Life of Brands can get you unblocked.
2. Be visual
Words might be the foundation of all successful marketing but the success of platforms like YouTube and TikTok proves that for many of your customers, visual content is king.
Whether you want to become au fait with making pro-level social media videos on your mobile, leverage explainer videos for your website, print glossy brochures or flyers or go the whole hog and invest in a TV ad campaign, making your brand more visual is definitely a wise move. When you’re ready to kickstart your visual presence, SNS Group can help with photography, video, design and more.
3. Check your website copy
Wait a minute, what do you mean you don’t have a website?
As recent outages of Facebook and Instagram prove, having a well-designed and professionally produced website, as well as a carefully nurtured email list, helps your business stay afloat when others enter panic mode.
If you do have a site, when’s the last time you checked its copy? Unless you’re a professional copywriter, chances are that it needs some work. And if it was written a few years ago, it might not even be relevant anymore. One error commonly made by small businesses is using ‘we’ constantly in your onsite copy instead of swapping it out for the much more business-savvy ‘you’. For more terrific tips on pro copywriting, check out the mind-blowing VeryGoodCopy – you can thank us later.
And voila – a few savvy tips for differentiating your business in 2022. We can’t guarantee a smooth ride next year, but when your brand looks and feels ‘different’ you’ve got a better chance of surviving and thriving.
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