Episode 79: How to be seen in a competitive market

You are listening to the Hayley Osborne show with me, Hayley, your host. This is your place to learn how to become the superhero marketer in your business to become the number one in your local community, both online and in your surrounding areas. Every week, I’ll be teaching you how you can achieve the best out of your marketing your business and be the most fearless superhero version of yourself. Small business owners are the backbone of the economy. And I’m here to demystify local area marketing to help you reach more customers, between myself from South Australia and my wildly inspiring guests from across the world. I’m so excited to discuss all things marketing your business with you. I believe in you. So let’s get started.

Welcome to episode 79 of the podcast, Welcome to the Hayley Osborne show. I’m Hayley your host, and I can’t believe we’re up to episode 79. But today, I’m coming to you to talk about how to be seen in a competitive market. And I get this question a lot as well. And I really wanted to address it to my wider audience, you guys, because getting seen these days is actually quite a challenge for us. As business owners, everybody wants to be seen and everyone wants to be heard. Everybody wants to be taken notice of and all the things, but the biggest thing I’ve come across that I’ve found that hampers most small business owners is the ability to actually activate on this being seen in such a competitive market, such as the one that we play in today requires strategic planning and implementation, right. It’s how you activate on that, it’s how you have the courage to activate on that, you know, you want to do the thing. And it’s how you get the courage to do the thing and how to do the thing in the first place. The statistics show, as I know this as a marketer, that in order for you to have cut through in today’s competitive market, you need to appear to somebody 22 times in their feed repertoire before they actually even consider you as part of, you know, a go-to brand. So 22 times is huge. So we really cannot do that on a whim. We cannot do that without a plan. And we cannot do that by panning posting.

I’ve put together some key strategies to help you stand out in this competitive marketplace that we’re playing in to be able to increase your visibility. Right. So the first point I really wanted to touch on was, have you sat down and really thought about and identified what your unique selling proposition is, your unique selling points, what are they? I’ve just gone through this myself again, and I’ve done this a few times now. But as my business grows, and as your business grows, you evolve, and your business evolves, and they change and that’s okay. And as business owners, you know that being nimble is kind of like the key to your success, right? You if you’ve always done what you’ve always done, you’ll always have what you’ve always had, right? So we need to evolve and grow as business owners, which means that we need to continually revisit what this looks like.

So you need to determine what sets your business apart from your competitors. Now, I’m not saying competitive research here, but go deep and think about what it is that sets you apart. It could be a unique product or a unique service offering. How are you different? How do you provide exceptional customer service? What’s your specialised expertise? Or what are your innovative solutions around your product or service? If you can highlight what your unique selling proposition is and your unique selling points are, it’ll really help you differentiate your brand from the competition to attract attention. This is really important, right? We’re not attention-seeking. But we need to figure out how we can differentiate your brand to attract attention in a competitive market. And I encourage you so much to stay in your lane. Because nobody else is in that lane, nobody can be you. And I often love to use the analogy of how many coffee shops are there, right? There are so many coffee shops. It doesn’t matter what state you live in. In Australia, there are so many, but there is room for them all to coexist, right they all have a unique selling proposition of their own and so to you.

The second thing I want to talk about is to develop a really strong brand identity. I do not think a business can thrive and survive without that, right? Because what happens is when you are put in front of your audience, even if you have no branding, not even your face, on whatever marketing you are doing, it should be recognisable, right? So we need to help you to develop a strong brand identity. So, think about brands. I know these are big brand examples, but think about Apple, think about Nike, think about, for example, and I’m sure you’ve all been in this situation, but as a marketer, I honestly love observing this more than anything is when I’m in the cinema. I love to watch the commercials beforehand. And I know you pretty much know, right? Every so often, with a movie, you’ll see a commercial for alcohol. And maybe it’s because of my background. We’ve, you know, alcohol brands and working on them is, you know, there’s always one of those commercials that is really aspirational. It’s a party. And I’m like, I bet you this is an ad for Corona, or this is an ad for Jack Daniels or and you know what, nine times out of 10 or nail it and I haven’t even seen the brand. But that is a beautiful brand building and strong brand identity building.

So how, as a small business, can you do this for you? And you know, I work on this with my own brand. And I absolutely love the shit out of this stuff. So I think by investing in creating a really compelling, compelling brand identity that really reflects your values, what your mission is, and your personality, don’t discount that that has a huge part. This plays like over and above anything else. So when you can sit down and really nail what that is, that’s really important and consistently applying all of these things across all of the elements that you touch in terms of your marketing channels. Right also means your website, your social media profiles, your content and a strong brand identity will make you more memorable and recognisable. And the more consistent you are, the more this drives home. And the way you do this quickly, obviously, is through the most powerful marketing platform on the planet, which is your social media. Right now, honestly, honestly, and DM me on Instagram because that’s where I hang out the most If I’m wrong, you have a business, but you’re winging it on your social media. DM me if I’m wrong. If you’re not, then I commend you. I think that’s wonderful. But you know that you shouldn’t be winging it, right? You leave it to the last minute. And you know, you shouldn’t be your panic posts. You can’t seem to know you’re telling your brand story on your socials. And most times, you haven’t figured out what it is.

It is a really big deal in this day and age in this competitive market. And you really need to figure out what this is. Because you will feel a lot calmer when you do and let’s be honest, you’re all over the place with content. And I don’t want this for you. If you’re serious about your business and growing it, which you wouldn’t be listening to this podcast if you weren’t, I know that you want business growth, you want audience growth, you want to develop a real connection with your audience, you want to obviously increase your brand awareness because if you are on social media and you have a business, you have a brand, right? That’s the short of it. You want clarity around how to become authentically you and your social media, which increases your business value. And you want to understand what your business’s strengths are and play to them using social media. And quite often, I find that people don’t actually see how strong the elements in their business are and what their business’s strengths are because you are so close to your business that you can’t see it anymore. And that’s okay. And that’s a common thing that I found. So don’t worry if this is you, and even having the right tone of voice for your business. Do you have those things? Do you know what they are? Social media is the place you start to develop this for your business. This is how you start to be seen in a competitive market to do all of those things. And above all, it is the quickest way to reach more people.

I think what you need is a collapsed and simplified, usable and tailored formula to help you be seen in this competitive market that we’re playing in. Because what I found is when my clients have this, they have a master plan and a guide to refer back to every time they post. Right, this then cascades through the line of all of their marketing and what I’ve also found when I when they have this is it creates an abundance of confidence and confidence is something that we can sometimes lack if we don’t know what we’re doing, and confidence to be able were to step slightly outside of their comfort zones, which creates even more confidence and so on and so forth. Confidence builds confidence. You can’t wait until you’re confident to show up in your marketing, to show up and be seen in this competitive market that we play in right, showing up. And having a strategy behind how you do it actually builds your confidence. That is the thing that will grow for you. Because it’s done it for me over the years, okay. And now it’s like, I come in here, and I’m recording this podcast, and I show up on my stories, and I do all the things, I don’t need a script, I don’t need any of that, because practice makes perfect confidence builds confidence. And when you have a few quick wins in your back pocket, it creates more. Okay, and that is the thing that works. It works, I’m telling you.

Another thing that follows from this is to produce valuable and high-quality engaging content. Okay, and I’ve said this before content that educates, entertains or solves your audience’s problems. And it could include blog articles, videos, infographics, podcasts, social media, everything that will help you be seen in this competitive market. And if you’re constantly delivering valuable content, you’re establishing yourself as an authority in your industry and building trust with your audience. This marketing game it’s serious. But this churn is a marathon, not a sprint.
I am almost 80 episodes deep into my podcast, I’ve had over five and a half 1000 downloads. And like only just like when I hit episode 50 Did I really start to see the reward. And I am telling you this production is blood, sweat and tears. And I love it. And I’m only seeing the reward now. And that’s why you find a lot of people bail out after a short time because you’re in for the long game, right? It’s a marathon, not a sprint. So you’ve got to continuously exercise your thought leadership. And then, you will step into the expert that you know you are.

Another way for you to be seen in a competitive market is really leverage your SEO, right? So your search engine optimisation, and it will you can do this organically and I just taught a masterclass on this inside my membership superhero marketing. But you can conduct all sorts of things inside your business and your website to be able to be organically higher in the SEO ranking. If you want to know more about this, send me a DM and I can add you to the waitlist when doors open in November to get some incredible bonuses as well. But this is something you can’t discount 99% of people will Google you before they pick up the phone. So this is really important.

Another way is to actively engage with your audience. This is through your socials through email marketing, comments on blog posts, or even live events, which I recently held a live workshop. And I often see and this is my huge bugbear, people don’t respond to comments on their posts. Why? Why don’t you guys do this? Honestly, it’s the quickest way that you can build relationships with your audience by replying to what people write underneath your posts. Massive and that is how you also be seen. This helps you to be seen in a competitive market. I cannot stress this enough. It builds loyalty. It builds brand advocates. It builds trust. It builds relationships. It sets your positioning up as a beautiful person that you know owns a lovely brand when you are nice and you are responsive.

So, you know, if you’re frustrated with lack of consistency, I honestly feel you it’s very hard. It’s very hard. But there are ways that you can make it easy for you. Overwhelmed. We hate that word but it’s true. It’s true. This can create a fear of being overwhelmed. You were time-poor all over the place. If you’re unsure because you’re winging it and you’re stressing because you have no plan, then a social media strategy is probably the missing piece of the puzzle that you should be leaning into. And this is something that I do with my clients. And it’s a 20 to 25-page tailor-made strategy document and it highlights exactly how to grow your business through your social media marketing. They’re step-by-step instructions on how to activate your strategy.

Oh my goodness, how would you feel when you have your social media, all planned out when you do and you see your potential clients coming through? What will you do when you have more time? What will you do with that extra time so that you have a strategy for your social media sorted? And, you know, I like to say, are you excited at the thought of understanding what works for your business on your social media? It feels pretty good. So, you know, I really wanted to highlight those few things on how you can be seen in a competitive market. Even if you’re just starting out, even if you’ve got a small social media following. And you don’t lean into your marketing so much. This is how you do it. And this is how you be seen. And this is how you be heard in the competitive market that we are in in today’s society. It’s really important. I do believe there’s room for everybody to coexist, but you’ve got to figure out what that looks like for you lean into it, own it, activate on it and push forward because I know that you can. And that’s all today, guys. I hope that you have enjoyed listening to this episode. And let me know on Instagram if you have. I would love to hear from you. Okay, bye.

I hope you’ve enjoyed listening to this episode. If you have hit subscribe so you don’t miss any new episodes released every Tuesday. And while you’re there, leave me a review. I would absolutely love to read it. Also, don’t forget to tag me @HayleyKOsborne over on Instagram and share this podcast with your audience so they can get learning too. If you want more, head over to www.Hayleyosborne.com/podcast for today’s show notes and links. I’ve also got an awesome free eBook, a new one waiting for you on my website, the 10 Essentials every local area marketing plan needs and I will catch you next week for another episode of The Hayley Osborne show.