How Small Businesses Can Compete With Bigger Brands Online

Image credit: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-person-using-digital-tablet-6214156/

Introduction: Online Opportunities for Small Businesses

The growth of online shopping and the power of digital marketing have created golden opportunities for start-ups and small businesses looking to compete with big brands. Social media marketing, content marketing, paid ads and SEO are a few excellent examples of techniques you can use to put your company on the map and gain a competitive advantage. 

In this guide, we’ll explore effective strategies small businesses can employ to gain ground and get ahead. If you’re on a mission to make it to the top, follow these simple steps to blaze a trail and leave bigger brands in your wake. 

Why Small Businesses Can Still Compete Online

Before the days of digital marketing for small businesses, there was often a chasm between established brands and household names and start-ups and small firms. Today, the playing field is much more even, provided you understand how digital marketing works, what benefits it offers and how to capitalise on its reach and influence to achieve your business objectives. 

Statistics show that over 42% of consumers in the UK use social media for search purposes daily. Almost 50% of people use TikTok for shopping and discovering brands and products and over 45% of adults use search engines as their primary base for locating products. Gen Zers favour social platforms. 

These figures underline the importance of a tailored, cohesive small business digital marketing strategy. If you know which platforms and methods to use to reach your audience and impress customers, you can make sure your brand stands out in the crowd while maximising your ROI. Social media and local SEO offer amazing opportunities to get your business noticed and connect with prospective customers, no matter how big or small your company. 

Picture via https://www.pexels.com/photo/people-discuss-strategy-documents-7688106/

Find Your Competitive Advantage

Competition is fierce among brands across all sectors. From retail and eCommerce to hospitality and healthcare, you’ll always face a battle to get your business seen and attract customers. It’s also important to understand the value of holding onto buyers amid attempts from other brands to lure them in. Finding your competitive advantage means identifying your USP and the strengths and distinctive identity traits of your brand and running with them. 

Once you’ve identified your USP, spread the word. Shoppers want to know more about brands today. They have a deeper interest in company values and culture and they’re eager to learn about what makes a business stand out. More than 80% of consumers now prefer to buy from companies whose values align with theirs. Consider this when up-selling your USP, building your business, branding and creating and sharing marketing content and materials. 

It’s beneficial to think about your target buyer and what matters most to them when working on a USP and exploring ways to gain an advantage over competitors. In many cases, the best ways to separate yourself from other brands include:

1. Solving problems and making life easier for buyers and clients
2. Offering better value for money
3. Creating a swift, seamless buying process
4. Adding personal touches to enhance customer experience
5. Elevating the quality of products or services
6. Supporting good causes

How to promote your USP

There’s no point in working hard on branding and USPs to gain a competitive advantage over big, established brands if nobody knows who you are, what you offer and why you’re different. Figuring out what makes you unique is the first part of the task. The second is to shout it from the rooftops and encourage potential customers to buy into it. There are many ways to do this, including,

• Email updates and promotions
• Digital newsletters
• Blog posts
• Social media posts, including video content
• Information about initiatives and campaigns to support charities and good causes
• SEO-friendly content
• Targeted ads

Focus on a Specific Target Audience

Defining your target audience is one of the most critical jobs when you draw up or adapt a small business marketing strategy. Every aspect of your strategy and component of your marketing campaigns should cater to the ideal customer. If you adopt a scattergun approach with no real direction, you run the risk of missing out on opportunities to connect with customers and create high-quality leads. You may also waste a lot of money. Being clear about your target buyer from the outset will help you reach the right audiences, generate top-quality leads, boost conversion rates, optimise your ROI and ensure your campaigns are relevant. Your marketing strategy should outline who the ideal customer is and highlight groups that fall outside your target client base. 

Undertaking market research is an excellent way to determine which client bases and demographics to target. It will help you understand who buys the types of products or services you offer and which companies are already operating within the space. Once you know which groups you want to target, you can use specific research methods and narrow your focus to gather useful information. The data you collect can help you make decisions related to everything from pricing and packaging designs to marketing methods and the best types of promotions.

Popular research techniques include:

• Online surveys
• Social media polls
• Email questionnaires
• Focus groups
• Asking for feedback on marketing materials, posts, product and packaging designs, branding, website experience and customer service

The importance of personalisation

A recent survey by Zendesk suggested that almost 70% of consumers expect personalised online experiences. Personalisation can help you increase sales, but crucially, it also lowers the risk of losing customers to competitors. You can’t truly personalise marketing campaigns and materials, such as email and social media posts, without knowing your audience. This is why it pays to do research, ask for feedback and engage with followers, buyers and customers continuously. 

Build a Strong Local and Online Presence

Building a presence is all about reaching out to customers within your target client base, giving them information about your brand and making it as easy as possible for them to engage with you, buy your products and become part of your community. It’s helpful to build a strong local presence as well as working on boosting your presence online. Even if you don’t sell products from a physical base or location, you can generate leads and attract customers using methods like local SEO. 

Local SEO

Local SEO is an incredibly powerful element of small business SEO (search engine optimisation). The goal is to create a buzz around your brand and get clicks, enquiries and orders by making your company or store more visible online. When prospective customers or shoppers search for terms or products that are relevant to your brand, you want to occupy the top spots on page 1 of the search engine results. 

Key local SEO stats:

• Around half of Google searches now have a local intent or focus
• 97% of consumers check reviews for local businesses
• Over 75% of people who conduct a local search on their smartphone will contact or visit a business within 24 hours, according to Google data

How to enhance your online and local presence

Top tips to enhance your online and local presence include:

• Target location-specific keywords within your SEO marketing strategy
• Add location-based keywords to ads, social media posts, blogs and web copy
• Make use of local online directories
• Use Google Business Profile
• Encourage customers to share feedback and reviews on trusted local sites and social media forums and groups
• Join community social media groups
• Update your contact details
• Join forces with other local businesses to share links and engage with target social media audiences

Image by https://www.pexels.com/photo/notes-in-a-calendar-15635240/

Use Content to Establish Authority

Content marketing is a brilliant way to introduce people to your brand, give them information about the company and what you sell and promote products and services, but it’s also a mechanism for building trust. You can use content to establish authority, create positive impressions and encourage prospective buyers or clients to choose your brand.

Quality is essential when using content marketing to build trust and authority. It’s crucial to follow best practice guidelines when creating and sharing content to promote your brand. Examples include:

1. Research extensively
2. Use reliable sources and websites with authority, for example, government websites or sites run by recognised health or education organisations
3. Add verified, up-to-date, accurate facts and figures
4. Review posts regularly to ensure relevance
5. Check your grammar, spelling and punctuation
6. Avoid duplicate copy
7. Check all your posts for issues such as broken links and outdated information
8. Focus on value: The content you share should always serve a purpose. Look to solve problems, help customers or offer fresh perspectives. How-to guides are a great option for practical products, for example.  
9. Use case studies, testimonials, before-and-after photos and data to back up your claims
10. Use category pages to group linked posts together
11. Use clear language: Try to avoid jargon unless you’re writing technical pieces about specific subjects for well-informed audiences. 
12. Add backlinks to pages with authority

Compete Through Customer Experience

Customer experience has never been more important for small businesses looking to gain a competitive edge. In the age of social media, viral posts and online reviews, even the smallest firm can hit the big time by prioritising customer experience and impressing target buyers. 

Over 90% of consumers check reviews before buying products or contacting businesses online. While positive experiences often contribute to glowing reviews and repeat custom, bad experiences have the opposite effect. Another key challenge for businesses is that customers are more inclined to share feedback if they have a negative experience. If you’re a small business that doesn’t have many reviews, a single bad comment can be devastating. Many people have low tolerance when it comes to customer service. According to a Zendesk report, 50% of consumers will go elsewhere after just one negative experience. 

Ways to enhance customer experience

Providing the best possible customer experience is a surefire way to boost your brand image and reputation, generate strong leads and retain loyal customers. Here are some tips to help you enhance customer experience:

• Offer personalised recommendations and offers
• Make the process of browsing your website and looking at products fun with added features, such as virtual try-ons and product comparisons
• Provide responsive customer support: Live chat is a brilliant option to deliver advice and answer questions quickly
• Create an FAQ section or help centre
• Use high-quality images and detailed product descriptions: Adding videos is a fantastic way to boost conversion rates. HubSpot data shows that over 60% of users are more likely to buy a product after watching a video. 
• Use feedback to identify weaknesses and make improvements
• Optimise your website for slick, seamless browsing
• Provide a range of payment options that caters to your target buyer
• Make sure the checkout process is simple and stress-free
• Provide updates after customers place an order
• Add personality to emails and social media posts
• Share real-life testimonials, reviews and product try-ons

Take Advantage of SEO and Long-Tail Keywords

Search engine optimisation is one of the most effective marketing methods for small companies, provided that it’s used properly and you have a solid, tailored strategy. If your business doesn’t have a marketing department, or you’re a solopreneur with no experience in digital marketing, it’s beneficial to consider working with a digital marketing agency. SEO may seem simple, but it’s a complex marketing technique that involves much more than stuffing keywords into weekly blog posts. 

The ultimate SEO goal is to appear at the top of page 1 when web users search for products or services that are relevant to your brand online. Studies suggest that 75% – 90% of people won’t look past page 1 of the results. If your links are languishing on page 2 or even further behind, the chances are that you’ll lose out to competitors. 

Simple SEO tips for your small business include:

1. Identify relevant keywords, including long-tail keywords

Focusing on relevant, specific keywords is crucial for your SEO strategy. Research keywords, use search engines to see what target customers are typing into the search box, make use of online tools to help you identify suitable keywords and take advantage of long-tail keywords. These are multi-word phrases that can supercharge conversion rates. Here is an example:

• Short-tail: Trainers
• Long-tail: white Nike running trainers for women

Research shows that long-tail keywords with 6 or more words have an average conversion rate of 1.94% compared with 0.17% for 1-word search terms. 

2. Use keywords naturally

Quality and readability are pivotal when creating content that features keywords. Keywords should be used naturally, rather than slotted in as an afterthought or wedged into sentences with no context. Avoid stuffing keywords into blog posts or adding them to text that has no relevance. This will impact how search engines rate your content as well as affecting reader experiences. 

3. Optimise your website for mobile use

There’s nothing more frustrating for people who are used to scrolling for hours or ordering products online in seconds than pages that take ages to load. Optimising your website for mobile use is a simple way to enhance customer experience and avoid losing prospective buyers to competitors with slicker, faster mobile-friendly stores. You could also create an app to improve speed and convenience. 

4. Enhance local SEO

Local SEO can have an amazing impact on small business reach and success. You can enhance local SEO by choosing location-specific keywords, adding local focus to your blog and social media posts, creating location landing pages and taking advantage of online business listings and directories and local social media groups. 

It’s also a great idea to make sure your Google Business Profile is up to date and contains your contact details. Sharing reviews can also help you attract attention. 

5. Track your performance

Tracking your performance can help you run more effective and impactful SEO campaigns. Use tools like Google Analytics to highlight areas for improvement, assess key metrics and build on strengths.  

Build Relationships and Community

Times have changed in recent years, and there’s been a noticeable shift towards consumers buying from brands they admire and trust. It’s hugely beneficial for small business owners to be mindful of the importance and value of client retention and creating a community of customers. Repeat customers spend an average of around 65% more than new clients and over 60% of people want to buy from socially responsible brands, according to Zendesk. 

Getting to know brands online is now part of the buying process for many consumers. It’s common to research businesses, read the About Us pages, watch videos, read reviews and get more information about corporate social responsibility and company values before deciding what to buy or which firm or brand to choose. According to Sprout Social, approximately 90% of consumers prefer to buy from brands they follow on social media. 

Building relationships and creating a community can help you compete with big brands in multiple ways. Examples include:

• Encouraging repeat purchases
• Turning new customers into loyal clients
• Encouraging positive reviews and customer referrals and recommendations
• Creating positive impressions of your brand
• Gaining valuable insights into what your customers want through online interactions and feedback
• Making customers feel valued
• Boosting your brand image
• Building a solid client base to support growth and stabilise income

Tips to build positive relationships

Simple steps to build positive, long-term relationships include:

• Prioritising responsive, helpful customer support
• Offering VIP perks and benefits
• Personalising communications
• Engaging online
• Responding to comments and questions promptly
• Rewarding loyalty
• Taking feedback on board and listening to clients
• Involving customers in decisions
• Featuring customers in social media and email campaigns
• Inviting opinions and ideas

Use Paid Advertising Strategically

Paid advertising can be advantageous for businesses of all sizes, but if you have a limited budget, it’s particularly important to use this method strategically. Making the wrong decisions can be costly in terms of your ROI and missed opportunities to reach target customers. 

Best practice guidelines for paid advertising for small companies include:

1. Gather information and data about your target customer, how they use digital sites and platforms and what they search for. 

2. Start small and be prepared to test the waters and collect feedback before increasing your ad spend. 

3. Focus on the platforms that are most relevant to your target audience. 

4. Take advantage of built-in tools to help you identify the best keywords and automate task management. 

5. Optimise landing pages that correspond with your chosen keywords: Ensure all pages load quickly and are mobile-friendly. 

6. Use conversion tracking tools to monitor performance.

Track Competitors and Identify New Opportunities

When you’re competing with other brands, it pays to keep a close eye on them. Tracking competitors can help you identify strengths and weaknesses, modify plans and strategies to embrace new trends and impress customers and understand what drives consumer decision-making.

It’s helpful to be aware of everything from website features and the promotions your competitors run to how they interact with followers online or market products using SEO or paid ads. You can capitalise on data to help you improve or adapt to attract new customers or encourage brand loyalty and see what works and what doesn’t. 

Tracking competitors is beneficial for getting insights into how they operate and what they’re doing to entice and retain customers, but it can also help you identify new opportunities for your business. Perhaps customers are responding positively to new marketing methods, for example, or they’re going crazy for particular types of promotions. You can use this information to improve your marketing strategy and make your brand a more appealing option for target customers. 

Create a Sustainable Growth Strategy 

Many business owners have ambitions to grow, but it’s not always easy to expand successfully and sustainably. There’s a risk of missing opportunities or going too hard too fast. It’s wise to focus on sustainability when you’re developing a growth strategy for your brand, firm or store. Key considerations include:

1. Your finances: Monitoring cash flow is essential when developing and growing your company. It’s also beneficial to analyse revenues and profits. If you’re not generating profits and you’re in debt, moving too quickly could pose significant financial risks. 

2. Customer demand: Growing a business will only work if there is a demand for your products or services. It’s great to strike while the iron is hot, but tread carefully if the demand has peaked, sales are decreasing, or the general demand within the market is falling. Diversifying and identifying new trends and opportunities can help you grow if you’re in this situation. 

3. Focus on loyal customers: Focusing on loyal customers can help you transition and grow smoothly while increasing your chances of generating profits. Repeat customers spend more, but they also play a pivotal role in promoting and championing your business. Positive feedback and recommendations have a lot of clout in the age of online reviews and social media. 

4. Test before you take the plunge: Testing out ideas, concepts, new strategies and plans can help you spot weaknesses or problems and make changes before you take the plunge. 

5. Ensure you have the required resources: It’s critical to plan in advance and ensure you have the required resources to expand your business. This covers everything from stock levels to staffing and logistics. You’ll need to make sure you can continue to deliver the highest possible standards for your customers during the growth phase.

Image from https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-group-of-businesspeople-working-in-collaboration-6592690/

Final Thoughts

Small businesses can compete with big brands online. The growth in popularity of online shopping and discovering brands and companies via social media and search engines means that the Davids of the business world can take on the Goliaths unfazed. The key to success lies in creating the right strategy for your business based on your target customer, your campaign objectives, your brand identity and values and your USP. 

You can utilise digital marketing methods to get your business noticed and encourage buyers to choose your brand over bigger companies. The steps in this guide are designed to help you gain a competitive advantage by using targeted, tailored marketing strategies and following best practice guidelines.