In a crowded market, sometimes it’s best to stand out. What’s your best tip for how to home in on your niche and define what’s unique about your personal brand?
These answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most successful young entrepreneurs. YEC members represent nearly every industry, generate billions of dollars in revenue each year and have created tens of thousands of jobs. Learn more at yec.co.
1. Develop a Consistent ‘Signature Move’
“Most marketing and public relations outreach are the same across businesses in particular industries. To differentiate yourself and stand out in a niche or market, it is crucial to develop a signature move. This could be your branding or logo, or the use of paper materials such as handwritten thank you notes in the digital age. Always do the same thing, and be consistent with all your clients.”
Ryan Bradley, Koester & Bradley, LLP
2. Find an Area You’re Passionate About
“Start by choosing a niche that you’re truly passionate about, one in which you will aim for nothing but excellence. This will work in creating loyal brand ambassadors. It’s equally important to be completely authentic in your approach. Do not try to mimic other successful brand stories, because falsehood is not that hard to detect. Your voice, personality and values should be yours for real.”
Derek Robinson, Top Notch Dezigns
3. Write Your Brand Story
“To identify what makes your personal brand unique and convey it to others well, sit down and write your brand story. Just listing a bunch of adjectives on your LinkedIn profile or website won’t work. Writing your brand story will help you tell a cohesive story. Write a paragraph or two about how your values, beliefs, and passions have shaped you and how you use them to create value in your work.”
Chris Christoff, MonsterInsights
4. Research Your Competition
“Just like you would do with your company, you should do with your personal brand, too — you’ve got to research your competition to determine how to stand out. Do some digging online to find the profiles and websites of other personal brands in your niche or industry. Take a look at what they’re doing, and what they’re not doing, to discover how you can stand out from the crowd.”
Blair Williams, MemberPress
5. Focus on Your Initial Purpose
“Every company in a crowded market sets out with a plan to blow away the competition. Whether it’s alleviating pain points in existing alternatives, simplifying complicated features or adding missing options, there is always a reason for a beginning. Focus on your initial purpose to define what is unique about your brand.”
Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms
6. Go After a Sub-Niche
“The secret to effective niche marketing is to be one step ahead of the competition. This means that you need to find a niche inside your chosen niche and appeal to that demographic. If your chosen niche is vegetarian recipes, for example, then focus on the sub-niche of vegetarian potato recipes. Once you’ve dominated that sphere, you can effectively branch out into other sub-niches and grow.”
Bryce Welker, CPA Exam Guy
7. Ask Your Customers
“Customer feedback is an important element to help you define what’s unique about your brand. Ask customers if they like your product and request feedback about what they would like to see you build next. You can then see if your competitors have some of the most popular features that they requested. If they don’t have one, you’ve found a new differentiator. Let your customers differentiate you.”
8. Position Yourself as a Trusted Advisor
“In the crowded business financing market, we’ve got to give our target market a clear reason to choose us over the competition. We do our best to stand out from the crowd by promoting our reviews/testimonials, being transparent and employing a more consultative approach. Everyone is looking for transparency, as well as a consultative approach versus an overtly sales-driven approach.”
Jared Weitz, United Capital Source
9. Identify Your Strengths
“Create a SWOT analysis for your brand, categorizing your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. After you have written them down, take a look at your strengths and create a marketing message that really gets those across. Make sure all your strengths are included in videos and copy throughout your site, as well as ads on social media.”
10. Give Your Audience What They Want
“It seems like everyone wants to build a brand to feel the “fame” — but go further than that. Do something more powerful and focus on the audience. Now my posts reflect what my audience wants to see and hear; simultaneously, I am authentic and myself. There will always be people who don’t like what you’re doing, but it’s OK because as long as the majority like you. That’s when you have a brand.”
Sweta Patel, Startup Growth Mode
11. Gather Industry Recognition
“Some of the easiest marketing collateral your company can acquire is social proof in the form of awards and industry recognition. There are awards for every vertical on every scale (national and local) and tons of partnerships you can enter into. Whether it’s “best of” awards for workplace culture or performance, these are excellent selling points to advertise your brand.”
Kristopher Brian Jones, LSEO.com
12. Know Who You Don’t Want to Attract
“The last thing you want to do with your personal brand is being everything to everyone. Get a very good understanding of your strengths and your weaknesses and double down on your strengths. Make sure to be clear about who you don’t want to attract and be very clear about it in your content and your imagery.”
James Guldan, Vision Tech Team
