Many of you own small businesses in a saturated market. By saturated market, we mean marketers where there are a lot of businesses offering the same products or services as you. If you’re unsure of what a small business is, go to this site and read all about them. Just because your small business is in a saturated market doesn’t mean you can’t thrive.
Do research on your competition
The internet makes everything easy these days. You can quickly check the feedback of your competition online. Google My Business has reviews and also places like Yelp. You should check out any site that allows people to place reviews.
The reviews will give you a lot of information about what people like and don’t like about the business. Maybe the customers like the restaurant’s food, but they feel that their portions are a little stingy. A landscaping company might always be late and that gives you insight as to how important it is to always be on time.
Those reviews are worth more than a pan of shiny gold to a gold miner because they’ll tell you how you can either improve your small business to be like others or the mistakes you avoid to be better than the competition. Spend a few minutes every week looking at the reviews of your competition to see if there’s any way you can one-up them.
Set your small business apart from the rest
How do you make sure that people know that your small business isn’t like any of the others you’re competing against? That’s not always an easy thing to do, but it’s possible. The way you do it is either through price, quality of service, or by building your reputation. Building a reputation is a long way to go, but not everyone has years to get this job done.
It’s easy to be the cheapest business in your niche, but sometimes, being cheap is a downside. Some potential customers will think that since your prices are cheap, you must not be as good as your competition. After all, if you’re cheaper, there’s probably a reason, which is what their logic will be.
Quality of service is a great way to separate yourself, but it’s hard to get known right off the bat for something like that. It takes time for people to know about your business. How will they know about your business without using it first?
Invest in highly targeted marketing
Advertising is tricky, and you can lose your money faster with ads than you would in Las Vegas. That doesn’t mean you can’t skip advertising altogether. Always look for where you can get the most bang for your buck and pursue those avenues rigorously.
Local advertising on places where functions are held is always a great idea. Some might call it a sponsorship, but whatever you call it, people will see your ads. Places where Little League is played are a good idea, along with areas that host community events; they’re all spots where you can buy advertising and be seen.
The biggest mistake you’ll make when buying advertising is paying for ads that are shown to people who aren’t in your area. If you live in Maine, there’s no need to show your ads to someone living in Texas. You can even take that one step further and say that it’s a waste of money to advertise to people outside of a certain radius of your business. If you own a restaurant, advertising a hundred miles away probably will yield little to no results.
It’s sink or swim in the world of small businesses
You can either sink to the bottom or swim away in victory. Small businesses come and go every day, and yours is no different. It doesn’t matter how big the crowd is; if you can’t find a way to stand out from the crowd, your business won’t survive, let alone thrive.
