No brand stands alone. There’s no sector you can go into, no idea so revolutionary that you can operate without competition. And in the vast majority of cases for new founders, you’ll be entering a crowded field, trying to make space among other startups as well as bigger players that have been established for years (if not centuries, in some cases!).
Your competitive positioning strategy has to take into account this crowded field as well as what your customers want. It doesn’t matter how well you tool your business to deliver a product or service to your customers if you’re ignorant of the five companies already doing it with a similar degree of value and efficiency!
Surveying the Landscape
Something you need to invest in early in your planning phase is competitor research: this tells you who’s already operating in your market, who the most important players (or rather biggest threats to you) are and how they’re likely to behave in the months and years to come as you stake your own claim in the market.
When you understand who’s already dominating the market you’re coming into – and what sort of resources the smaller businesses you’re more directly competing with have – you can shape a strategy to fit it.
Standing Out
The answer to this challenge isn’t to aim for total market domination! Even the biggest players in the field haven’t managed to squeeze out all the competition. Despite worries dating back decades, Amazon hasn’t yet eliminated independent bookshops, or other bricks and mortar retailers that feared a quick death at its hands. And as a new business, a small player on the scene in terms of mindshare and brand strength, regardless of how much investment you have powering you, the important thing to do is to stand out. You can build a successful brand by emphasising the (vitally, positive) ways you differ from your immediate competitors, helping customers pick you out of a crowded marketplace.
You might, for example, emphasise your green credentials. As long as you’ve established this is something your customers care about, and aren’t getting from competing brands, it differentiates you from the competition and creates a unique space in which you can be heard.
Finding this kind of USP is what allows you build the reputation and momentum that really does allow you to dominate the competition and expand your share of the market.