You’ll notice I said “the” competition, vs “your” competition in the heading.
That’s because many times you won’t know who your competition is, or where they come from.
In today’s connected world, your competition is not always direct competition that is easy to find.
And, in order to succeed in today’s ultra-competitive world, it is imperative for you to differentiate your company, even if you aren’t sure who your competition might be.
Here are three ways to differentiate your company.
Market Research.
Customer Insight.
Prospecting.
Market research will help you differentiate yourself by having a better understanding of what the market and your prospects want and need. Once you have this information, you can adjust your web presence, social media, digital marketing, sales process and presentation, to better align with those needs.
“But we know our market.” No, you do not know your market anywhere near the level you think you do. And if you don’t know your market, they certainly don’t know you.
How do we know this? Because we do market research for many of our clients.
Our scripts introduce our client by name and what they do. Many of those scripts then ask the contacts if they know the company. Here’s what we found about how well known some of our clients are. These are their main markets, and we speak with the primary decision makers regarding our client’s products:
In food manufacturing: 11%
Medical clinics: 7%
Industrial manufacturing: 8%
Municipalities: 70% aware of the company name. That’s good. However,
only 14% aware of the major product line we were calling about.
Obviously these are not universal brand names such as IBM, but these are companies that have been in business anywhere from 10 to 50 years.
By conducting Market Research, you can learn a lot about what any of your markets are doing, and how you can change to meet the needs of that market. We can help you with this, but you can do it yourself too. More on that later.
Customer insight is performed with specific customers you want to have and keep. This helps you understand their needs and wants, to see if you can deliver these or not, and what you have to do to improve your position with each customer.
It is information that enables your company to determine why your customers behave the way they do, with regard to your brand. With this information, you are able to use this insight to affect purchase behaviour. It is the “WHY” of customers and brands.
Many times it is performed by 3rd parties, so your customers can be insightful and completely honest, and not worry about hurting your feelings if you do it internally.
Research delivers data, facts and statistics. Customer insight delivers this as well, but also delivers an additional layer of recommended actions that can help improve the bottom line.
Research tells you WHAT is happening – whereas insight tells you WHY it is happening.
To create greater insight and value, about and for your customers, you need to have a greater understanding of their broader business challenges. This requires going beyond the problem articulated, to understand your customer’s business, their challenges, and even their unarticulated needs. This can give you the depth of understanding—and ultimately the partnership—that your company can uniquely create for each customer.
Prospecting consists of contacting possible new and past customers to do business with you. You can do it many ways;
Email is relatively inexpensive, but with a typical response rate of 0.3%, not very effective. While social media is engaging, it’s time consuming to keep producing fresh content. Although the social media platforms have many millions of B2B people there, the majority are not particularly active to see your message.
Calling programs can fill some of the above gaps, but not everyone picks up the phone. Enough do pick up the phone to deliver 27 times the response of email, according to Salesforce. Research has shown that about 55% of executives would rather have a phone conversation than receive another salesy email.
In addition, nothing engages a prospect better than a one-on-one conversation. One phone call can give you an accurate picture of your prospect’s concerns, initiatives, priorities, plans, timelines, and budgets at a depth not possible with any other medium, including electronic marketing and social media.
So let’s talk about how you can be different from, and better than, the competition.
In fact, we have done all three of these functions, as they all fit within our areas of expertise.
Also, we have found that you get better results and more depth of information by doing research on the phone, instead of online.
We reach out to your market, your ideal clients, and your prospects so that you have a better understanding of how to grow your business better, with the right information.
If you’ve thought about getting a better understanding of your market and customers, maybe you have some questions in mind – or you’ve even drafted a list of questions. Let us review that with you, and get the benefit of our experience. No charge for this.
Let us help your company be different, and stand out from the competition.
Don’t wait. ACT NOW
Send us an email at inquiry@yorkc.com or, to go directly to our contact page, click here: yorkc.com/contact/
