Whether your business is located in Sydney, Seattle or São Paulo, it is likely you have tons of competition, not only from local businesses, but from companies around the globe who can be accessed online. That means, if you want your company to be the success you know it can be, you need to be able to stand out in a sea of similar offerings. Below, we have put together a few things you can do to make that happen.
Know Thyself, Honestly
Many companies treat branding like a quick coat of paint instead of a structural renovation. Start with uncomfortable questions. Why does your business exist beyond quarterly earnings and shareholder returns? Interview founders, poke through dusty strategy decks, and, most importantly, speak with frontline employees who hear customer frustrations unfiltered. Patterns will emerge that reveal genuine motivations. Capture those truths in plain language, the sort you would use in a group chat rather than a board pack. A brand voice rooted in authenticity stays steady when fads swirl by, because it reflects what the company really values rather than what a trend forecaster predicts.
Tell a Story That Passes the Coffee Test
PowerPoint slides adore abstract phrasing, yet people remember stories about people, not widgets. Translate your pitch into an anecdote you could share over a flat white without anyone glazing over. Introduce a relatable protagonist, explain their obstacle, describe how your product, service, or process helped, then deliver a result that feels specific and believable. Cut inert phrases like best in class or world leading, because they trigger cynicism. The Coffee Test is simple: if someone can retell your story later to a colleague with most of the detail intact, you have succeeded.
Embrace Personality, Skip the Clichés
Global business language often sands away quirks until every message feels safe and sterile. Resist that urge. A conversational tone, a pinch of dry humour, and references that resonate across borders will give you freshness without relying on tired stereotypes. Speak as you would to intelligent friends: clear, concise, and a little playful. This does not mean adding emojis to legal disclaimers; it means allowing an authentic voice to shine. When customers detect that a human, not an algorithm, wrote your copy, they lean in.
Show, Do Not Shout
Claims are cheap, proof is priceless. Publish case studies with real numbers, prototype sketches, and lessons learned. Turn internal experiments into blog posts; admit what went wrong, as well as what worked. Host Q&A sessions where engineers, designers, or scientists, not just salespeople, answer questions. Show raw process photos, messy cables and all. This approach feels risky at first, but transparency builds trust at speed, because audiences sense when a company is willing to drop the veneer and reveal its working parts.
Make Customers the Heroes
The fastest route to distinctiveness is to shine the light elsewhere. Feature client wins on your social feeds the way an excited mentor shares competition results. Provide spaces where users swap tips, hacks, and wish lists. When customers see their feedback incorporated into product updates, they become vocal ambassadors without prompting. Reply to praise with gratitude, and respond to criticism with candour, not scripted apologies. Humility travels further than ego, and humility paired with action rarely goes unnoticed.
Photo by Ron Lach
Collaborate Instead of Competing on Noise
Partnerships unlock audiences that no advertising budget can buy. Identify organisations whose values align with yours but whose products do not clash. A craft software studio might join forces with a design school for joint workshops. A fintech platform could partner with a charity teaching financial literacy. Collaboration signals confidence, because you are comfortable sharing the limelight. Customers witness a network of value rather than a lone brand shouting for attention, and networks feel more resilient than single voices.
Learn From High-Performance Teams
Elite sports squads, orchestras, and research labs succeed through relentless retrospection. Borrow the practice. Run frequent after-action reviews, analyse data dispassionately, and tweak strategy without rewriting everything each quarter. Standing out is not a one-off campaign; it is a habit of continual differentiation. Celebrate micro-wins to maintain morale, then dissect missteps openly so tomorrow’s decisions improve. The method is rigorous yet encouraging, and it produces institutional learning rather than folklore.
Use Technology With Purpose
Shiny software is seductive, yet it only dazzles if it solves a real frustration. Map customer pain points first, then select tools that remove friction. Maybe you build a self-service portal, or you integrate live chat operated by people who understand context rather than reading from scripts. Perhaps you deploy a chatbot to triage simple questions overnight so global customers are never stranded. If in-house bandwidth is tight, team up with a top digital marketing agency that already has the right stack and can plug gaps quickly. Aim for seamless service, not digital fireworks that fizzle.
Measure What Matters, Ignore Vanity
Vanity metrics tempt every marketer because they look photogenic in a slide deck. Follower counts, reach numbers, and video views seldom correlate directly with profit. Identify three essential metrics that reflect genuine progress; name them in plain English. Did a webinar shorten the sales cycle, did a product-led demo increase trial sign-ups, did customer retention tick upward after an onboarding revamp? Share these figures internally so every department sees the scoreboard. When teams understand how their tasks connect to outcomes, alignment becomes natural rather than forced.
Look After People, Protect Reputation
Reputation is built slowly yet burns quickly when employee morale drops. Offer flexible schedules where possible, pay fairly, and create learning pathways so team members can grow rather than stagnate. Diversity and inclusion should extend beyond recruitment slogans and into decision-making rooms. When employees feel safe and respected, they deliver discretionary effort, which customers notice indirectly through sharper service. Internal culture quietly leaks into external perception, so treat staff engagement as brand work in disguise.
Design for the Senses
Visual identity matters, but so do sound, touch, and even scent in physical settings. Consistent colours and typefaces build recognition, yet consider audio cues, material textures, and simple signature details such as eco-friendly packaging or user-friendly micro-copy. The trick is cohesion. Each sensory touchpoint should reinforce the same mood rather than create jarring dissonance. When done well, small design decisions stack into a whole experience customers can recall later, even if they cannot articulate why.
Photo by Anna Nekrashevich
Stand for Something, Act on It
Consumers increasingly expect companies to take positions on environmental, social, or ethical issues. Select a cause that aligns with your domain expertise and commit long term, because token gestures invite cynicism. If your product reduces waste, publish progress data; if you offset carbon, declare how calculations are made. A public roadmap of goals and results is more persuasive than a single press release. Sustainable behaviour is less about perfection and more about credible, incremental improvement. Time to start standing out!
Whether your business is located in Sydney, Seattle or São Paulo, it is likely you have tons of competition, not only from local businesses, but from companies around the globe who can be accessed online. That means, if you want your company to be the success you know it can be, you need to be able to stand out in a sea of similar offerings. Below, we have put together a few things you can do to make that happen.
Know Thyself, Honestly
Many companies treat branding like a quick coat of paint instead of a structural renovation. Start with uncomfortable questions. Why does your business exist beyond quarterly earnings and shareholder returns? Interview founders, poke through dusty strategy decks, and, most importantly, speak with frontline employees who hear customer frustrations unfiltered. Patterns will emerge that reveal genuine motivations. Capture those truths in plain language, the sort you would use in a group chat rather than a board pack. A brand voice rooted in authenticity stays steady when fads swirl by, because it reflects what the company really values rather than what a trend forecaster predicts.
Tell a Story That Passes the Coffee Test
PowerPoint slides adore abstract phrasing, yet people remember stories about people, not widgets. Translate your pitch into an anecdote you could share over a flat white without anyone glazing over. Introduce a relatable protagonist, explain their obstacle, describe how your product, service, or process helped, then deliver a result that feels specific and believable. Cut inert phrases like best in class or world leading, because they trigger cynicism. The Coffee Test is simple: if someone can retell your story later to a colleague with most of the detail intact, you have succeeded.
Embrace Personality, Skip the Clichés
Global business language often sands away quirks until every message feels safe and sterile. Resist that urge. A conversational tone, a pinch of dry humour, and references that resonate across borders will give you freshness without relying on tired stereotypes. Speak as you would to intelligent friends: clear, concise, and a little playful. This does not mean adding emojis to legal disclaimers; it means allowing an authentic voice to shine. When customers detect that a human, not an algorithm, wrote your copy, they lean in.
Show, Do Not Shout
Claims are cheap, proof is priceless. Publish case studies with real numbers, prototype sketches, and lessons learned. Turn internal experiments into blog posts; admit what went wrong, as well as what worked. Host Q&A sessions where engineers, designers, or scientists, not just salespeople, answer questions. Show raw process photos, messy cables and all. This approach feels risky at first, but transparency builds trust at speed, because audiences sense when a company is willing to drop the veneer and reveal its working parts.
Make Customers the Heroes
The fastest route to distinctiveness is to shine the light elsewhere. Feature client wins on your social feeds the way an excited mentor shares competition results. Provide spaces where users swap tips, hacks, and wish lists. When customers see their feedback incorporated into product updates, they become vocal ambassadors without prompting. Reply to praise with gratitude, and respond to criticism with candour, not scripted apologies. Humility travels further than ego, and humility paired with action rarely goes unnoticed.
Collaborate Instead of Competing on Noise
Partnerships unlock audiences that no advertising budget can buy. Identify organisations whose values align with yours but whose products do not clash. A craft software studio might join forces with a design school for joint workshops. A fintech platform could partner with a charity teaching financial literacy. Collaboration signals confidence, because you are comfortable sharing the limelight. Customers witness a network of value rather than a lone brand shouting for attention, and networks feel more resilient than single voices.
Learn From High-Performance Teams
Elite sports squads, orchestras, and research labs succeed through relentless retrospection. Borrow the practice. Run frequent after-action reviews, analyse data dispassionately, and tweak strategy without rewriting everything each quarter. Standing out is not a one-off campaign; it is a habit of continual differentiation. Celebrate micro-wins to maintain morale, then dissect missteps openly so tomorrow’s decisions improve. The method is rigorous yet encouraging, and it produces institutional learning rather than folklore.
Use Technology With Purpose
Shiny software is seductive, yet it only dazzles if it solves a real frustration. Map customer pain points first, then select tools that remove friction. Maybe you build a self-service portal, or you integrate live chat operated by people who understand context rather than reading from scripts. Perhaps you deploy a chatbot to triage simple questions overnight so global customers are never stranded. If in-house bandwidth is tight, team up with a top digital marketing agency that already has the right stack and can plug gaps quickly. Aim for seamless service, not digital fireworks that fizzle.
Measure What Matters, Ignore Vanity
Vanity metrics tempt every marketer because they look photogenic in a slide deck. Follower counts, reach numbers, and video views seldom correlate directly with profit. Identify three essential metrics that reflect genuine progress; name them in plain English. Did a webinar shorten the sales cycle, did a product-led demo increase trial sign-ups, did customer retention tick upward after an onboarding revamp? Share these figures internally so every department sees the scoreboard. When teams understand how their tasks connect to outcomes, alignment becomes natural rather than forced.
Look After People, Protect Reputation
Reputation is built slowly yet burns quickly when employee morale drops. Offer flexible schedules where possible, pay fairly, and create learning pathways so team members can grow rather than stagnate. Diversity and inclusion should extend beyond recruitment slogans and into decision-making rooms. When employees feel safe and respected, they deliver discretionary effort, which customers notice indirectly through sharper service. Internal culture quietly leaks into external perception, so treat staff engagement as brand work in disguise.
Design for the Senses
Visual identity matters, but so do sound, touch, and even scent in physical settings. Consistent colours and typefaces build recognition, yet consider audio cues, material textures, and simple signature details such as eco-friendly packaging or user-friendly micro-copy. The trick is cohesion. Each sensory touchpoint should reinforce the same mood rather than create jarring dissonance. When done well, small design decisions stack into a whole experience customers can recall later, even if they cannot articulate why.
Stand for Something, Act on It
Consumers increasingly expect companies to take positions on environmental, social, or ethical issues. Select a cause that aligns with your domain expertise and commit long term, because token gestures invite cynicism. If your product reduces waste, publish progress data; if you offset carbon, declare how calculations are made. A public roadmap of goals and results is more persuasive than a single press release. Sustainable behaviour is less about perfection and more about credible, incremental improvement. Time to start standing out!
Share this:
Like this: