Make Your Company a Zebra Among the Sheep

How to Make Your Company a Zebra Among Sheep

May 24^th 2016 Sally Ormond being authentic, being unique, make your business stand out, Marketing, voice, website copy

be unique and authentic

How do you decide on the approach your marketing content will take?

Do you look at your business, its ‘personality’, the way you want to be viewed by your customers?

Or do you take a peek at what your competitors are up to and base your decision on that?

If you fall into the latter camp, you’re in trouble. And here’s why.

It’s good to be different

You need to create new content for your website.

You’ve done your homework and found the right copywriter for you and you’re now in the process of putting together the creative brief for them.

Rather than following the questions they have asked, you’ve spent the day browsing through competitor websites and made a list of what you want – mainly stuff that’s already been done.

But you’re not worried about that. After all, it must be working for them, right?

If you take this approach you’re just going to look like a sheep, following what everyone else is doing.

That is not going to get you noticed.

Be a zebra not a sheep

If your website echoes what every other company is saying, you’re merely going to blend into the noise.

Consumers are a savvy bunch and will do plenty of homework before they buy. That means trawling numerous sites.

If your site says the same and takes the same approach as all the others, what is going to distinguish you from them?

Your content and approach must be unique – so how do you achieve that?

Be unique and authentic

The first stage is to develop your voice. Your copywriter will be able to help you with this.

Take a good look at your company and ask yourself how you want to be viewed by your customers – professional, friendly etc.

Then think about the personality of your company. That might sound a bit odd, but it relates to how you deal with customers and the way you make them feel.

A good example of that is a project I’m working on at the moment. The client in question is in the intelligence industry. Their work is extremely complex and technical and their customer base varies from large corporates to government departments.

It was important the voice we used echoed their professionalism, quality and attention to detail, but the stand out comment from past clients was how impressed they were with not only the calibre of their staff, but also the personal approach they took.

That was our hook; it was the people within the company that made the difference.

To find your hook you need to do the same thing. If in doubt ask your customers what it was about your company that made them buy from you and then use that as the focus of your voice and approach.

Be different

One of the best ways to make you stand out is to take a different approach to everyone else.

This could be your website design, but it’s essential your content is also unique.

Why follow the same outline as everyone else?

If you think you’re best represented by something that’s not the ‘norm’ go for it – it will differentiate you from the crowd.

You want your website to be the one that makes the consumer stop and think, “hey, that’s different, I wonder what these guys offer?”

Achieve that response and you’re half way home.

Why?

Because you’re offering something different, and people like different.

Generating the same old approach and same old content is not going to cut it. If you want your business to stand out it’s important to develop your own style.

Don’t be afraid to be different, because that’s what’s going to get you noticed.

Tags: being authentic, being unique, make your business stand out, Marketing, voice, website copy

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