Today’s competitive business landscape makes it tough for ecommerce retailers and online services to stand out.

That’s not to say it’s impossible though. It may be difficult and challenging, but discovering your competitive edge and using that to your advantage so your ecommerce business can stand out can be done.

How? Check out our tips on how you can get your business noticed:

1. Create hype on what makes you different

A clear and effective way of standing out from competition is by offering innovative, relevant products or services. Obviously, if you’re offering the same thing as your competitors, you will find it difficult to differentiate yourself.

There are numerous ways to ensure that you remain distinct from others in your industry. The easiest way to do this is by putting the spotlight on your unique qualities as a business.

One way to do this would be pricing. But that’s a slippery slope that can lead businesses to a race to the bottom. So instead, try keeping an ear to what your customers really want.

This will help you highlight key features of your offerings that your customers would respond to the most. From there, you can develop your line, make improvements, or even introduce new ones and create custom products. Doing so helps create buzz, spur excitement, pique curiosity and generate interest for what you’re selling, while highlighting the elements that make it a superior product.

Ultimately, this will help you dominate your market and stand out from competition.

2. Don’t neglect branding

Your business identity is important. If the competition in your niche or industry is fierce, standing out by focusing on your company’s identity is something that is very hard for competition to copy.

Look into the distinctive qualities that make your brand unique. Do you offer exceptional customer service and support? Are you more focused on environmental friendly and ethical practices? Are you capable of delivering products that are custom and hand-made? Can you incorporate your own personality into branding? On the flip-side, can you communicate gravitas into your identity? Is it possible for you to offer distinctive packaging, so that it’s incorporated in your selling point?

The best way to approach this is to make sure that you are focusing on something that your audience will respond to. So as always, be sure to listen to what your target customers have to say.

Another critical component of branding is to have a recognizable business name. Think of the famous startups in the last decade. Uber. Grubhub. Slack. They all have names that flow off the tongue and easy to ‘get’. This is backed up by the fact that modern customers today make decisions based off brand names.

You don’t have to come up with a Pulitzer-winning name to attract customers. Something simple, easy to say, and is relevant to your business is good enough. You can also utilize business name generators to do the work while you focus on more important things in your business.

3. Focus on visibility

In an increasingly competitive business landscape, visibility online is important. This is why marketing continues to be a big part of any ecommerce strategy. But marketing shouldn’t just be focused on what you say about yourself. It’s also important to consider what others say about you. This is where third-party channels come in.

Third-party channels provide a valuable marketing platform, especially if they are authorities in the industry. Try engaging websites by allowing them to try your product or service for free in exchange for a review that you can publish on your own site. Invite guest personalities to speak about your product on your website via guest blogs. You can also take advantage of relationships built with authorities in your industry by guest blogging for them. Link back to authority sites to help you with your SEO and build your credibility.

These strategies help deliver valuable content and increase your online visibility, which contribute to a growing online profile that is credible.

4. Build social proof

Ecommerce business face a difficult challenge when trying to sell online—your opportunities to establish credibility and rapport with your customers are limited. Brick and mortar establishments have a clear advantage when it comes to building trust and rapport with customers. They have one on one interaction with people. This means they can reach out and communicate directly, interact face to face and adjust your pitch according to how they are reacting. Online, you have no choice but to offer static proof of what makes you different and worth their time and money.

That said, providing audiences with multiple references to highlight that you are indeed a credible, reliable business become critical as you try to build trust with your users.

In a lot of cases, a customer or user hesitates to complete a purchase or sign up for your service because they don’t trust your site. In such cases, providing social proof, highlights that you are indeed a trustworthy establishment, with unquestionable reliability.

Testimonials are a good way of establishing this, as are customer reviews. For the latter, keep in mind that while good reviews are great, bad reviews offer an opportunity to communicate a balanced perspective of your product or service; so don’t get too stressed about having a few on your site as it helps build credibility.

Display how many people follow you on important social media sites like Facebook Twitter and Instagram. A healthy social media following, shows that you are a real business that prioritizes customers.

The Bottom line—

Figuring out how you can let your business stand out among competition is based on a deep understanding of your  brand and who you’re communicating with. Find out what makes you fascinating to your customers, and then use this to build a marketing and communication strategy. These tips will certainly help you get started.

If you have questions or other ideas, we’d love to hear all about it too. Leave a message in the comment section below.

And if you think your site would benefit from a more streamlined approach to content marketing, get in touch with us today.