Brand differentiation is one of the key methods for achieving sustainable business growth.
After all, today’s consumers have almost limitless options of products and services from which they can choose. Furthermore, with brands regularly upping their marketing budgets, standing out online can seem like an unattainable goal—particularly in competitive markets.
Yet, differentiation is worth investing in. It’s one of the most effective ways to set your brand apart as the best choice for your target audience.
A strong identity can help boost brand and product awareness. It can elevate content engagement rates. It might be beneficial in terms of allowing you to price your solutions higher. Finally, a distinct brand identity could be the key to retaining more customers than your competitors.
The best part? You can do all this while keeping your marketing budget down.
So, how do you stand out online? Here are the seven most effective strategies for building a distinctive brand presence guaranteed to help you make more sales.
Create a Unique (and Instantly Recognizable) Visual Identity
How you approach your brand’s visual identity will inevitably affect how your target audience perceives (and interacts with) your business. Why? Because people remember visuals better than words.
In fact, research suggests that most consumers remember brands by their logos. And creating a recognizable visual identity isn’t just a strategy to help you stand out. It may even directly impact your audience’s buying behavior — especially if you can capitalize on the mere-exposure effect, which causes people to develop a strong preference for the things they’re familiar with.
So, if you want your prospects to immediately recognize your organization and solutions (and choose them over the alternative options), do your best to create and maintain a cohesive, likable, and appropriate visual identity.
In addition to creating a unique logo that aligns with how you want your prospects to perceive your brand, consider alternative ways to use your brand’s visual identity to create that effect of familiarity.
For example, if you check out SpyGuy, you’ll see that the business incorporates its illustrated mascot into all its consumer touch points. This fosters a feeling of familiarity (which boosts purchase intent). It also elevates brand recall among consumers in the top stages of the sales funnel, making it more likely that they will think of and opt for SpyGuy once they’re ready to purchase.
Source: spyguy.com
Use Visuals to Appeal to a Highly Specific Target Audience
Another excellent method of employing visuals to help your brand stand out is to produce and utilize content that will appeal to your ideal customers.
After all, the best method for converting new clients is to produce unique content and target super-specific audience segments. That way, your prospects will have a positive reaction to your brand’s posts and a higher likelihood of recognizing the value that you offer.
So, how can you incorporate this tactic into your brand differentiation strategy?
Well, one of the best things you can do is to be very intentional with how you choose images, illustrations, and videos that are meant to engage your target audience.
By employing visual content to depict your prospect’s frustrations or aspirations, you’ll draw an emotional reaction out of them. You’ll also build an instant connection between your audience and products, elevating brand recognition and purchase intention.
For example, OrthoBracing sells cold therapy and bracing devices. But its target audience isn’t the (expected) fitness community. Instead, the brand’s ideal clients consist of elderly patients looking for medical solutions to help them live a high-quality life despite having limited mobility.
With this in mind, OrthoBracing does its absolute best to only use visuals that align with its target audience’s experience. The models in most images are more advanced in age, which maximizes the chances of future customers recognizing themselves as a good fit for the brand’s products. Plus, the brand regularly utilizes imagery with a strong medical association, further establishing itself as a business that caters to injured individuals, not CrossFit enthusiasts.
Source: orthobracing.com
Differentiate Your Services With Distinctive Social Proof
Trustworthiness is a huge plus when trying to outperform your competitors. Not least because 89% of consumers consider it before choosing what brand to buy from.
So, if you want to stand out as the best in the business, it might be a good idea to dedicate as much attention as possible to earning your prospects’ trust and establishing yourself as a dependable brand.
The best thing about this differentiation strategy is that you likely already have its core elements—social proof and client results—on hand. Thus, all you have to do is utilize this content to establish and maintain a dependable reputation.
For example, if you check out Re Cost Seg, you’ll see that the brand dedicates a solid portion of its online presence to establishing its trustworthiness and efficacy. The brand highlights the number of clients it has served, states the amount of money it has saved them, and even shows off positive customer feedback that mentions the brand’s work process, all to position its services as the best in the business.
Source: recostseg.com
You could take this strategy to the next level as well, with detailed case studies. However, while this type of content is an excellent tool for elevating purchase intent via trust, it works best for the lower stages of the sales funnel.
If you’re trying to focus on differentiation and standing out, you might see better results by doing it early on during the buyer’s journey. For this purpose, simpler formats of social proof tend to do a better job than more in-depth, evaluation/purchase-stage resources.
Show How Your Services/Products Perform in Real Life
Traditional social proof works best in getting your audience to notice your brand. Nevertheless, you can play around with more advanced social proof-based differentiation tactics.
In fact, it might even be necessary—especially if you operate in a niche or low-trust industry.
With this in mind, to stand out as the most logical choice for your prospects, don’t hesitate to go into detail regarding what your customers can expect.
By showing how your services and products perform in real life, you can establish their uniqueness and superiority and position them as the ideal choice for your target audience.
Of course, there are numerous ways to accomplish this effect (which is great, as it gives you plenty of flexibility).
For instance, you can invest in detailed explainer videos that will help potential customers better understand how your solutions work.
You could invite prospects to schedule a product demonstration, giving them hands-on experience with your solutions.
You might incorporate UGC into your online presence, which provides an authentic glimpse into your solutions’ real-life presence.
Or, you could do something similar to Vidpros and present potential clients with a detailed portfolio, which is a marvelous way to highlight versatility and consistency.
Source: vidpros.com
Produce and Share High-Quality Educational Content for Free
One of the most common reasons people go online is to learn how to do things or find information related to their pain points.
So, if you want to attract their attention and position your brand as a great choice to remove their pain points, your best chance of doing so is with how-to content.
What’s great about high-quality, unique educational content is that it plays such a distinct role in the buyer’s journey.
It’s a marvelous awareness-stage resource that can build brand and product awareness. It serves the purpose of elevating brand trust and establishing your authority. Plus, it can help you create a market for your solutions — especially when selling complex products or services that most people don’t inherently know about.
However, there’s an important consideration to make when producing these types of resources to stand out online. And that is accessibility.
Ultimately, the only way educational content can help differentiate your brand is if it’s the best and most convenient way for your prospects to resolve a pain point. So, pay attention to accessibility. Invest in highly engaging formats like video. And don’t limit yourself to only posting on your website’s blog.
Instead, look up to brands like Golf Cart Tire Supply. Knowing its target audience regularly uses YouTube to consume educational content, this brand heavily invests in user-oriented video marketing. The brand’s online presence is almost entirely based on helpful videos. And what’s great is that the content genuinely aligns with what the brand’s target audience wants and needs, which is evident from the overwhelmingly positive feedback Golf Cart Tire Supply gets on each of its videos.
Source: youtube.com
Boldly Communicate the Extra Value You Bring to the Table
When thinking about brand differentiation, it’s important to understand the moments when standing out as the best possible choice is crucial to converting new customers.
If you look at the typical buyer’s journey, you’ll find that the majority of consumers spend some amount of time populating the evaluation stage.
During this phase, they won’t just try to confirm whether your solution could potentially be the answer to their questions. Much more importantly, they’ll start comparing your brand and products to your competitors’. So, unless you’re okay with losing business to your competition, it’s crucial that you differentiate your offer as the best one on the market.
One of the easiest ways to achieve this goal is, of course, to be bold with competitor comparisons.
Sure, even mentioning alternatives to your product may seem like the wrong move — after all, you don’t want to be sending business to your rivals. However, if you can frame your offer as the best choice for your target audience, this tactic could easily help you stand out as the best (and potentially only good) option for your prospects.
So, don’t be afraid to put your solutions against other options in your industry. For instance, if you check out SURI, you’ll see that it does precisely this, and with great success. Why? Because this brand knows that its target audience wants effective oral care without sacrificing sustainability. Thus, a comparison table presents it with the unique option to state all the extra value SURI brings to the table (and its competitors don’t).
Source: trysuri.com
Give Prospects Instant Solutions
Lastly, if you want to stand out and convince your prospects to choose you rather than your competitors, it’s not a bad idea to approach the brand differentiation process through a CX-oriented lens.
After all, research clearly shows that consumers want effective solutions. Moreover, they seek personalized brand experiences. And they demand next-level support throughout the buyer’s journey.
So, if you’re aiming to position your brand as the business that offers all of these, why not explore methods of providing these customer experience elements with instant solutions?
Easily accessible free trials, product discovery quizzes, or even tools like calculators can be marvelous methods to resolve your prospects’ pain points and distinguish your business as an entity that prioritizes solving customer needs over profits.
Or, you could even do something similar to RapidDirect. Knowing that its audience appreciates speed and efficacy, the brand created an advanced online tool that allows potential customers to start developing prototypes without having to go through the lengthy (and often frustrating) process of pre-purchase communication.
Source: rapiddirect.com
Final Thoughts
Helping your business stand out online is never a simple task. It requires a multifaceted approach and lots of attention to detail.
However, it’s not impossible either. The brand differentiation strategies covered in this guide are all great methods for capturing your audience’s attention, convincing them that you offer excellent solutions, and moving them toward the lower stages of the sales funnel. So don’t hesitate to implement them in your online presence.
And, of course, do your best to track how these tactics perform and make any adjustments you need — especially if you think that a tweak might help you awe your target audience and convert them into loyal customers or even brand ambassadors.
