When we have a small business to run, we think of the giant businesses out there that may easily overthrow our tiny enterprise outside the competition. Thus, many businessmen and aspiring entrepreneurs already lost the business war even before going into battle. That is because their willingness to succeed has already deteriorated. Fortunately, there are ways and solutions that can help our small companies become victorious in the business and market rivalry. The following are 10 marketing tactics, tricks and strategies you can use to achieve success and win against your big business competitors.
1. Be unique
Create goods or services that have not yet offered to the market. Don’t concentrate on the crowded market, explore the blue ocean market and find untapped opportunities that can be turned into unique products. Be the market leader. Be the first to offer your kind of products. Make your own creative mind your own research and development department.
2. Be the friendliest
True friendship is priceless; it can’t be purchased by money. Hence, whether your company is big or small, the fight is fair and square when it comes to customer relationship. Grab this equal opportunity; win the market competition by becoming the friendliest goods and service provider. Give the sweetest smile, warmest accommodation, and biggest care to your existing and prospective customers.
3. Have the biggest touch
Small business owners have the advantage in reaching their customers more personally than the big bosses of big corporations. Well, you don’t usually expect the CEO of a multinational company to serve his customers personally. Moreover, keeping in touch with your customers in the online world is not as expensive as you think. You can make a website or blog for your business and socialize in the top social sites, such as Facebook and Twitter. The key here is not to indulge in too much expensive technology. Be more human in the interaction with your customers. Socialize personally and actually.
4. Implement the best policy – honesty
You don’t need to invest millions of dollars to achieve honesty. Small business owners can gain the biggest trust and confidence from consumers if they become honest. Remember, that the most convincing marketing words and phrases are of course those that are true. Therefore, you should avoid lies and deceit. Build love; build trust.
5. Use the element of surprise
One of the best guerrilla tactics is using the element of surprise. Small businesses are more visible and recognizable than the giant companies. Thus, this can be turned into an advantage. You can study your big competitors, which are apparently prominent. Then you can create unique and effective products or extra services that these companies are not expecting from you. Your weapon here is your creativity, and then you can make a surprise attack or a market ambush, by offering innovative products to the market.
6. Get the public support
Get the civilian support. Micro entrepreneurs are closer to the masses. With an outstanding integrity, you can be a friend to the community. You don’t need to be a big corporation to do your corporate social responsibility. Be involved in community services and movements, such as the fight against pollution, the promotion of family values, youth empowerment, health awareness, and national and societal interests.
7. Eat the small competition… frequently
If we run a small business, we can’t overcome our big business rivals when it comes to money, manpower and expensive technology. It is also hard to compete with them in large scale competition, like competing with them in larger geographical coverage. What we can do is to overcome them in the several small scale competitions. We can use the weapon of smiles, greeting cards, great customer feedback, free seminars, giveaway products, blogs and other inexpensive strategies which have a big impact when done frequently and constantly.
8. Be the best leader
Whether big or small, organizations need a great leader. In this ground, you can overcome your competitors by being a greater leader than they are. Besides, small businesses have the advantage of managing a small organization. The bigger the organization the harder to manage, isn’t it? Hence, even you’re a one-man-company, you better be a great manager and leader of yourself. Also remember that an army of 10, when united and working as one, is better than a disorganized army of thousand. Organization is important to marketing because product depends on people’s productivity.
9. Be a great teacher
People love knowledge and wisdom, especially those that can change their lives. Thus, you can conduct free seminars to your prospective customers, topics that are relevant to your products, which are also filled with information that can touch their lives. Educate them, but make sure to avoid promotional talks – talks about your product. You can also do this online by making a blog which regularly publishes useful and helpful articles to your relevant visitors.
10. Cooperate
Finally, here is a marketing wisdom I want to share to you. The actual business and marketing competition is in terms of profit and sales. But behind this is a business cooperation that all business persons, whether small, medium or big, must cooperate – the goal to provide solutions and satisfaction to customers and other stakeholders like your workers, the community, and even yourself. The truth is that both the competition and cooperation can actually co-exist. In fact, the competitors who are winning are those who are giving the greatest cooperation.
Thank you for reading. If you think this article is good, please share the good news by sharing this post to the social media button below. To your success and best results!
Victorino Q. Abrugar is a marketing strategist and business consultant from Tacloban City, Philippines. Vic has been in the online marketing industry for more than 7 years, practicing problogging, web development, content marketing, SEO, social media marketing, and consulting.
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