The world today is completely overcrowded with marketing messages and social media notifications to the point we are totally bombarded with distractions vying for our attention.  This has created a social phenomenon known as information overload, which is something you want to be particularly mindful of as a business owner in today’s landscape… the term has a number of applications, such as as

The point is, there’s a lot of marketing “noise” out there, and if you’re going to stand out you need to cut through the noise and get noticed for a good reason.  Imagine yourself as an exhibition stand contractor whose job it is to build exhibition stands that get the exhibitor noticed; it’s a tough gig because in a trade show context, there are so many other stands hungry for the attention of the crowd.

What is found, time and time again in a cross section of marketing reports is that relevance is the key differentiator.  If you want to stand out from the crowd, then you need to be relevant to the audience you are trying to attract.  That’s the secret sauce!  

The good new is that within social media, and particularly now with facebook’s hyper-personalised targeting it’s never been easier to connect with your specific target audience and send a niche message that is relevant to their interests.

Within the theme of relevancy, it’s advisable that you focus on a particular niche and become an expert within a narrow market rather than a generalist within a broad market.

To better understand this, think of a niche as a focused subset of a particular market group.  If you were to think about a personal training business, for example, there are many generic personal trainers that help anyone with their goal to lose weight.  Given the sheer number of personal training businesses out there, this generality makes the service feel somewhat of a commodity meaning consumers will look for the cheapest price.

If, however, we were to look at a personal trainer focusing exclusively on new mum’s, for example, there is huge relevancy and appeal to that specific audience… rather than a mild appeal to everyone interested in losing weight.  It means this personal trainer would be viewed as a specialist in their area of expertise and can build a business around a set of core competencies – where they will soon become known as the “go to expert” rather than a jack of all trades and master of none.

In summary, the most important thing is that you stand out from the competition, and there’s no better way to do this, than to focus on solving one particular and very specific problem – so that you are perceived as the “go to expert” in that area.  

When you stop focusing on the product you offer and start focusing on the solution you offer to a particular problem – you begin to stand out from the competition in a way that is much more sustainable than competing on price, special offers, or the fact you have a huge colourful banner outside your shop window.  The key tip is to start focusing on resolving a pain or struggle your customer faces and market your business in a way that marks you out as the solution provider that can solve their pain, and give them what they want, in very specific “end result” terms.