Tips for Standing Out in a Crowded Market

In a market crowded with solutions to every imaginable problem, launching a new product can feel intimidating.

You can no longer sit and make a profit by simply having a product. Now you need to understand your industry, audience, and product uniqueness to make a difference.

Here are 5 things to keep in mind when launching a product or brand in a saturated market.

• Understand Your Market

• Find Your Unique Selling Point (USP)

• Maximize the Second Mover Advantage

• Build Relations with Customers

• Be Transparent About the Brand

Understand Your Market

Launching a product into the market without research is like driving a car blindfolded; you are setting yourself up for failure. Research allows you to learn about already existing brands and customer behaviors and lets you build your marketing strategy to appeal to this crowd.

To launch your brand/product successfully, understand these three essential areas of your market.

• Customer Personas

  When launching your product, you cannot target everyone. It is important to identify the most relevant audience for your product. For example, when selling kids' clothes, the primary buyers are parents, not the kids themselves. So your messaging must solve a problem that parents face with kids' clothes.

  
  

• Pain Points

  Following the above example, the pain point with kids' clothes is that they are expensive, especially since babies and toddlers grow out of them within months. Your company could focus on creating durable products that are cheaper than the usual market rates.

  Understanding the major problem of your target consumer can help you pitch relevant products and messages to get the word out for your brand and products.

  
  

• Competitors

  Analyzing your competitors can give you a strong understanding of the customers, their complaints, and what works for brands in your chosen industry. It gives you time to work on your products, marketing, and targeting before launching based on existing data and patterns in consumer behavior.

Find Your Unique Selling Point (USP)

Now that you know your market, audience, and competitors, you must identify what makes you unique in the crowded market. If you are a cosmetic brand, what makes you different from the other brands that would entice customers to purchase from you instead?

Here are three questions you must ask yourself to identify your USP:

• What are the pain points of your target audience?

  Consumers buy products to solve problems in their daily lives. So the answer to successfully pitching your product is knowing what problem your audience has that your product can provide a solution to.

  For a deodorant company, the pain point of customers is carrying a deodorant bottle that takes up too much space and is oftentimes a glass bottle on a long trip.

  
  

• What problems can the product instantly solve?

  Know what benefits catch your audience's attention; is it low prices, long durability, or an easy return policy? It will enable you to pitch your product accordingly in the market.

  A stick deo is easy to carry and use when traveling as opposed to carrying a whole bottle of deo. So the message for such products focuses on the traveling and easy-to-carry aspect.

  
  

• What do you offer that your competitors can't?

  There are other brands offering stick deos; what makes yours better? Yours might last longer, have a better range of scents, or be at a more reasonable price. Identify what your competitors don't offer and what you do; it will give you a competitive edge and exclusivity.

Now that you have answered the three questions, you will have product features that make it unique and give an exclusive vibe in the crowded market, allowing you to stand out from the competition.

Maximize the Second Mover Advantage

The first mover gets the advantage of introducing a product or service that has never existed before to an untapped market. The first mover's advantage is just that, being the first one, but that also comes with multiple risks. There is no insight into the industry, market, or customers.

And this is where the second mover has the upper hand: while the first mover takes the risks, experiments, and improves their marketing, the second mover must simply analyze them and ideate effective strategies. The second mover can mitigate risks and enter the market fully aware of the know-how and customers. So the time taken by the second mover to appeal to the market will be less and more prompt than the first mover, who set the stage.

Build A Relation With Customers

When trying to enter a market, are you only focused on selling your product? If a sale is your end goal, what happens after your customer clicks "Buy"?

Your buyer's journey should not end after purchasing a product or service. Invoking the feelings of loyalty within a customer encourages repeat sales and gives you earned media through word of mouth, reviews, and more.

• Earned Media

  Regular customers hold the power to become free ambassadors for your brand and pitch it to anyone looking for similar solutions. That’s why brands often rely on newsletters or sign-ups to keep customers engaged, offer exclusive deals, and announce new launches.

• Lower Acquisition Cost

  Another advantage to building customer relations is lower acquisition cost. Retargeting existing customers costs you way less than finding new customers every time. Even if you don't have sophisticated automation processes in place, it is important to connect with your customers, take feedback, and cater to their needs to make your business successful.

Be Transparent About the Brand

In the present day, customers are more inclined to buy from brands that are honest and transparent in their communication. People associate with brands that stand for social causes, voice their opinions, and have ethical practices.

There are multiple things that you can talk about to engage your customers and present yourself as an upright business, such as talking about materials you source, employee benefits, and social issues & movements.

For example, Apple is dedicated to reducing its carbon footprint and even removing it completely. They present it to their customer base through social media, creative videos, and white papers as an update on their efforts and progress toward this cause.

While these methods appeal to crowds, it is important not to lie or get swayed just to appease the general sentiment. Instead, you can research ethical or social causes that are relevant to your brand and audience and work with them.

Transparency informs your target audience that your brand is not just made of products, but also values and ethics.

Final Tips to Stand Out in a Crowded Market

When you're trying to build a customer base in a saturated market, remember that customers prefer brands that offer just beyond the generic solution. Your customers are spoiled for choice; make sure you leave a good impression on them when pitching your brand. You need a strong strategy to make your mark even in an overly crowded market, including your digital media and traditional media.

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