There is no one business without a competitor. No matter what you offer, there is a high chance there is an alternative for your target audience. 

This isn’t a bad thing. In fact, many top businesses thrive on having competitors (and outperforming them one by one). 

How exactly do you stay ahead of competitors? Let’s look at some of the best tips on how to outperform your competitors. 

How To Beat Out Competition In Business

Here are some of the most powerful strategies to outperform your competitors in the market:

Tip 1: Know Your Customers

The first step to handling competitors is understanding your customers. 

What does this have to do with your competition?

Learning about your customers helps you serve them better and address their needs better than the competition. Also, serving your customers well will extend their life cycle with your business and help you retain them better than your competitors.

One of the best ways to understand your customers is by knowing their pain points. What are their needs? What are they looking for with your products or services?

Your aim as a business owner isn’t to offer products but to provide solutions to your customers through your products. 

You can survey your customers, get insights into their behaviour through data and leverage social media apps like Facebook and Instagram to understand your customers better. 

Tip 2: Know Your Competitors

Not everyone in your industry is your direct competitor. If you are a small-scale makeup or skincare brand, you shouldn’t consider Neutrogena or Fenty as your direct competitors.

This is because those brands are already well established and have a broad target audience, so competing with them may prove futile, except you have the same resources as they do. Instead, it’s best to focus on your direct competitors. Examine your marketplace and identify people offering similar things that you do. Also, focus on the brands your customers are talking about and buying from. Who are they likely to buy from beside you? Those are your direct competitors. 

Tip 3: Understand Your Competition

Now that you know your competitors, you need to spy on them. What are they doing right, what are they doing wrong, and how can you be better than them?

Does the company tell stories in a unique way? Do they focus on creating attractive packages? How do they relate with their customers? 

Also, identify the areas in which your competitors don’t perform well and try to fill them up. Perhaps your competitors have a poor social media presence or an outdated website; then you might want to work on that. 

Tip 4: Niche Down

One of the ways to outperform your competitors is by reducing your competitors as much as possible. An excellent way to do this is by niching down. 

Segmenting your market will help you identify your target customers better and also help you promote your products better. 

What do I mean by segmentation? Let’s take a look at this example:

Company A is a marketing agency that offers marketing services for all kinds of businesses in different sectors, including health, ngos, designs, tech, small businesses, engineering, etc. 

Company B is also a marketing agency, but instead of offering services for all businesses, they only focus on marketing services for NGOs. 

In this example, Company B has niched down their business, making it easy to tailor their campaigns to NGOs only. Also, NGOs looking for a marketing agency are likely to choose a company that focuses on NGOs rather than a company that focuses on every type of business. 

Therefore, niche down as much as possible to personalise your business and stand out from your competitors. 

This is not to say a one-stop shop or a company offering a wide range of products is a bad idea. It has its advantages, too, but it increases your number of competitors. 

Tip 4: Highlight Your Difference and Focus on Your Selling Proposition

One of the best ways to handle competition is by focusing on what you do differently. Do you focus on offering products at a cheaper rate than your customers? Do you offer the option for customers to pay in instalments, or do you provide economical packages for customers who can’t afford the basic packages? These are some of the things you may want to use as your selling proposition. 

If you don’t have a unique selling point, it’s time to develop one. Differentiating your business from others makes it easy for you to promote your business and win more customers. 

Tip 5: Set Competitive Prices

One of the simplest ways to beat your competitors is by offering your products and services at competitive prices. One of the things customers look at when buying from a brand is the price. If they believe it is overpriced, they will move to your competitors that offer a fair price. 

A good way to set great pricing is by checking out how your competitors priced their products and services. If your products offer more value than your competitors, you can increase your price and highlight how your product is great. You can also opt for lower pricing to encourage customers to buy from you.

Meanwhile, note that lower pricing isn’t always the best strategy. You need to define your target audience: are they middle class, lower class or upper class? Once you figure out who the majority of your customers are, you can set pricing they can afford. 

Tip 6: Improve Your Marketing Efforts

A great way to outperform your competitors is by stepping up your marketing. You need to help customers understand you and get a picture of your offers and selling proposition. 

Focus on social media marketing. I promise you; it will guide you to a lot of customers or rather, guide many customers to you. Wielding the power of social media will help you engage your customers, which can make a true difference between you and your competitors. Also, don’t just engage your customers on one platform. Share your marketing content on all the platforms your customers use. 

In addition, clarify your messages so that your audience knows what you can do for them and how you are better than your competitors.

Tip 7: Harness The Power of Storytelling 

It’s always a good idea to employ storytelling to sell your business. Storytelling in business can turn a basic product into a religion. You can share the story of how you started your business and the inspiration behind your brand. But don’t stop there:

You should also tell stories about customers your products have helped and illustrate how your brand can help them. Also, share reviews, case studies, and testimonials as often as possible. Customers need to trust your brand, and you need to convince them that you offer what you promise. 

Tip 8: Look After Your Existing Customers

It’s easy to get lost in the chase of finding customers while forgetting to nurture your existing customers. A good tip to outperform your competitors is to work towards retaining your customers so that they don’t end up going to your competitors. 

Work on excellent customer service, communicate with your customers often, consider offering discounts and bonuses to improve loyalty and give your customers a reason to keep purchasing from you. 

Tip 9: Target New Markets

Once you’ve secured customers, feel free to expand your business and explore other markets to increase your customer base. Maybe you have always focused your campaigns towards young women; you can test the waters by targeting different groups of women, like teenagers and older women. Securing new markets will help your business grow and improve your authority in the industry. 

Meanwhile, be sure that you have the resources to target a new market. Your business must be ready to cater for its new customers.

Tip 10: Look After Your Employees

A lot of business growth strategies focus on customers and the outside world. However, your business growth also depends on your team, employees, and activities within the company. Hire the right people, ensure your team members are productive and keep them happy. 

Final Note

Every business has competitors, and the best way to grow your company is by staying ahead of them. These ten strategies are a great way to start handling the competition in your industry and serving your customers better.