Too many businesses try to be everything to everyone and in the process, they become nothing to anyone.

The key to standing out? Be obvious and explicit.

The more obvious you are about who you serve, where you operate, what you offer and why you’re the expert, the stronger your positioning will be. Here’s how to lock in your positioning in your customers’ minds and set you up for long-term success

1. Be explicit about who your target audience is

If your ideal customer isn’t clear, your marketing will be all over the place. Your messaging should instantly tell people who your product or service is for. Are you helping small business owners? Corporate executives? Parents looking for organic baby products?

When you’re specific about your audience, the right people will recognise themselves in your message. Instead of saying, “We offer financial advice,” say, “We help self-employed professionals in Australia build wealth with tax-smart investments.” The first is vague. The second is clear and immediately relevant.

2. Be explicit about where you provide your product or service

Location matters, especially for service-based businesses. If you don’t clearly state where you operate, you’re making it harder for the right customers to find you. If you’re an electrician servicing Sydney’s Northern Beaches, say it. If you’re a national e-commerce brand, make it clear you ship Australia-wide. Being upfront about location eliminates confusion and increases the chances that the right people will engage with you.

For example, instead of saying, “We offer premium catering,” say, “We deliver high-end catering for corporate events in Melbourne.” It removes doubt and makes it easier for potential customers to say, “That’s exactly what I need.”

3. Be explicit about your expertise

People trust specialists over generalists. If you’re an expert in your field, own it. Too many businesses underplay their authority. Your potential customers need to know why they should trust you over the competition. Instead of saying, “We do accounting,” say, “We are Australia’s leading accountants for those in the trades.” It immediately positions you as an expert rather than just another Australian accountant in a crowded market.

Highlighting years of experience, industry recognition or a specific skill set can solidify your positioning. If you don’t tell people or show them why you’re the go-to expert, they’ll assume you’re just another generic business.

4. Be explicit about what you offer

If your potential customers have to guess what you do, they won’t bother and they’ll move on to someone they think is a right fit. You need to make it painfully obvious what your product or service is. If you run a coaching business, don’t just say, “I help people grow.” Instead, say, “I provide one-on-one business coaching for hairdressers who want to scale their businesses.” That level of clarity creates a direct connection with the right audience.

Just be obvious

People don’t have time to decipher clever or broad messaging. The clearer you are, the easier it is for your audience to see if it’s a needs match. When you’re explicit about who you serve, where you operate, why you’re the expert and what you offer, you create an instant needs match. When that happens, trust grows, sales increase and your business stands out in a competitive market.

The post “Be obvious and explicit”: Four branding basics you need to stand out from the crowd appeared first on Inside Small Business.

Capitalising on new energy

The new year represents a fresh start for Australian small business. Consumers are actively looking for solutions to problems they’ve been putting off, and businesses are setting their budgets and strategies for the year. This creates a window of opportunity to grab attention, build connections and position your business in the minds of your customers that is different to the competition. 

Taking advantage of this new energy is key to making sure your marketing beats the competition and eliminates some of their opportunities. Whether it’s refreshing your branding or just communicating regularly with your audience, the time to act is now.

Beating the competition

Chances are your competitors aren’t sitting around waiting for you. Many are already executing their marketing plans for the year, aiming to be top of mind all year round. Are you doing the same?

Starting now ensures that you start to position your business in the minds of your customers and clients that is different to the competition and to make sure you communicate more frequently than them.

Building momentum for the year

Marketing success, once action takes place, is often down to momentum. Routine and structure helps build momentum for your marketing efforts while at the same time gives you and team the confidence to do more and sell more. 

Successful campaigns often don’t happen overnight. They require consistent effort, testing and improvement over time. By starting now, you lay the groundwork for stronger, more impactful marketing throughout the year.

Getting started

For small business owners, goal setting often takes place in December and early January. These goals are great, but we can’t meet our goals without an action plan to get there. It’s easy to get stuck in the fun of setting big, hairy and audacious goals but the critical step that makes marketing effective is going from thought to action.

At this time of year, implementing even small marketing efforts – such as a refreshed social media presence or a targeted email campaign – are important to create consistency and momentum. It’s less about having a perfect plan and more about getting started. Marketing success often comes from testing, learning and evolving, so even imperfect action is better than none at all.

Just make a decision!

One of the most common challenges small business owners face is decision paralysis. With so many marketing activities available, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and unsure of where to start. But the truth is, not taking action is a decision in itself – and it’s one that can cost you valuable opportunities.

Instead of trying to perfect every detail, focus on taking one actionable step. It could be as simple as updating your website, launching a single social media ad or reaching out to past customers with a personalised email. These small actions can create momentum that can drive more credibility, trust and ultimately more business.

By taking action in your marketing now, you not only start to set your business up for success In 2025, but you give you and your team the confidence to do more!  

The post Why taking marketing action for your small business is key this time of year appeared first on Inside Small Business.

Given there are so many forms of ‘marketing’ these days including email marketing, Google AdWords, social media, an ad in the local paper, a promotional event, billboards and many, many more, it’s no reason why small-business owners feel overwhelmed, frustrated and disillusioned when it comes to marketing – the list is endless.

These forms of marketing, we call them ‘tactics’. The list of marketing tactics options for small business is infinite, and what makes it more frightening is that these tactics are often trial and error, measuring, assessing, reassessing and trying different things until you start to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

This is pretty normal when it comes to marketing, even the big guys do it. The problem is, the big guys can afford it (sometimes), but generally, small-business owners need to nail what works pretty quickly, or at least quicker than big business. The budgets are leaner, things move quickly, and no one is wating around for them.

And this is the bigger issue. These tactics are actually secondary in the scheme of things when it comes to the real meaning and effectiveness of marketing.

Why? What is it that you’re communicating in these marketing tactics that is different to the competition? How are you best standing out from the competition, and what position in the mind of your potential customers and clients does your brand and business own?

Your brand positioning is key and should be done first. This strategy, or your brand positioning – how you position your business and brand in the minds of your customers and clients – is what will assist making the ‘tactics’ effective.

This brand positioning should all revolve around why you’re different to the competition.

We see so many small-business owners waste time and money doing it all in reverse and wonder why their marketing isn’t working.

What you don’t want to do is start executing your marketing tactics, like building a website or running Google AdWords or sending out flyers to the local area, when you don’t really know why you’re different to the competition. What’s the message on those flyers that makes you stand out? Why are you different?

You want to ensure you don’t waste valuable resources like your team’s time or bucket loads of cash on tactics that aren’t targeted, engaging, or telling people why you are different to the competition. Once you do discover your point of difference, make sure that you’re communicating it consistently across all your tactics.

If the positioning isn’t right, any investment you make in getting your business and brand out there will be a waste. We know in small business that every dollar matters and every dollar invested in marketing should be objective driven. Remember, if can you define why you’re different, and what your core message is, the investment made in getting your brand out there is a waste.

Once your positioning is confirmed, it’s time to decide how you can get this message out there and communicate that point of difference through your marketing tactics.

The post The difference between strategy and tactics in small-business marketing appeared first on Inside Small Business.

Even though this may be the case, there are still some really powerful things to be gained, and a number of reasons why getting this deeper understanding can only be a great thing in the long term for your small business.

Here are three powerful reasons why understanding what your clients and customers are saying about your business is so important.

Use the feedback in your marketing content

Your clients and customers may be saying that you’re trustworthy, efficient, on time, your dresses make them feel special, the descriptors may be endless. These great adjectives are words that you can use in your content.

Document all of these “descriptors”, and when it comes time to write content on your website to describe your business or create social media postse – whether you’re doing the writing, or you have a copywriter doing it – these descriptors are perfect and come in handy.

It makes your content real and you now know what people think about you, so they are true descriptors of your business.

Allows you to make change

If you know that something isn’t working, you want to be able to make a change.

Business owners can get super defensive when they receive feedback. Look at it, be objective, put yourself on the other side of the conversation and say to yourself, maybe they’re right and is there something that I can change?

Maybe you can’t make a change, and that’s fine, but at least take the time to consider and ask yourself whether it is something that you that you can improve on or not.

Shows you genuinely care

If you have taken the time to create a customer experience journey or pick the phone up to speak to customers or clients, then it’s clear you actually care about them and that you want them to return.

You’ve invested in a process, invested in a team member to make the call – so simple – in an era where customer service is dying. A great customer service experience drives loyalty, and is super undervalued.

We are always wanting to get that new customer or client. How about keeping your existing ones, no doubt there’s 30 to 40 per cent of revenue to be made from your existing clients and customers.

And finally, I hear you ask, how will I gather this feedback?

Ask them face to face

If you have the opportunity to be face to face with your customers and clients, ask them for the feedback. Don’t be scared to ask the questions if you have that face-to-face interaction.

Show them that you’re genuine – people see that, and it goes a long way in succeeding in business.

Pick the phone up

Don’t be afraid to ask them for a couple of minutes of their time to get their thoughts around the customer experience with you. It can be super casual.

Email

With a simple survey and five really simple questions, it will allow them talk about how they’re feeling and rank you on your customer service offering with them. Maybe ask three closed questions and two open-ended ones, which will allow them to open up a little. You never know what you can learn from your existing customers and clients.

The post Why understanding what your clients and customers are saying about you is key appeared first on Inside Small Business.

What does positioning mean to small businesses? How are you positioning your business and your brand in the minds of your customers and clients where there is the least amount of competition?

Here are four key items to consider when taking a look at the competition.

Their offering

We want to understand their service or product offering so that we can do something differently. Let’s use an example. Picture three photographers. Two of them photograph a bit of everything – family portraits, school photography, weddings and sports photography. But the third one only does pre-school photography.

That’s a pretty specific service offering. They need to be able to work with kids, make kids smile, and have the tolerance and patience to work with preschool kids every day. If I am a pre-school manager on the hunt for a photographer, chances are I’m going to choose the specialist.

As most of our clients would say at this point, “isn’t our business losing out on doing all the other bits of photography?”. Potentially, but how do you intend to compete with 50 other generalist photographers?

Their target audience

If we use the photography business example. The two generalists are “focusing” on everyone people. Their communication with up-coming married couples is the same to sporting clubs – general and vague – because they want to communicate with everyone.

However, if you’re the photographer that is focused on the target audience of pre-schools, you would be using specific language and imagery. You could use language that communicates your expertise in working with kids backed up with images of your photographers in action within a pre-school.

If we didn’t take the time to know who the competition is communicating to, we wouldn’t know where that little gap in the market would be that we could make our own.

Their location

If your competition isn’t taking the time to spell out where they provide their products or services, then it’s time for you to. If you focus Australia-wide, say it. If you focus on a suburb, say it. People can relate to locations; it makes your offering feel real and trustworthy.

“Enterprise” became the leading rental car brand in the USA not by overtaking Hertz at airport terminals, but by setting up car rental facilities in suburban locations and focusing on “insurance replacement” market. They are by the far the market leader within the US market by differentiating on “offering” and “location”.

Their authority

Is your competition acting like an expert in your field? If not, then that’s a position for you to take.

How? Be really clear and consistent in your communication and what you’re the authority in. If you sell microphones to use in podcasts, then say that’s your focus and you’re the absolute expert in that.

Seek out publications to contribute your knowledge and expertise, put it on your website and hammer it home with your existing network. Don’t be shy to say you’re an expert.

If you become a thought leader in your field, that will assist you to stand out and put your business in good stead.

The post Why knowing your competition is critical to your marketing appeared first on Inside Small Business.

In Australia alone, there are approximately 32,000 registered accounting firms – an extremely cluttered competitive landscape to say the least. Imagine, if just one of these firms focused on, say, positioning itself as a specialist to small business for all their accounting needs.

What does this example mean for the small businesses of Australia? Businesses need to understand the competition, customers, the market and then communicate to them.

Let’s not be scared. Being a brand-focused, marketing-led business is not as hard as some people may think. So, what are some of the critical elements when it comes to your branding essentials so that the right perceptions are created in the mind of the marketplace?

Investigating the marketplace for competition

One of the key elements of marketing anything is communicating it to the marketplace in an easy-to-comprehend fashion. Communicating your brand is generally a battle of the minds (your clients and customers) more than anything else. Getting in their mind first is a big step in the right direction, otherwise you’re forever battling to get inside. To know which part of the mind to occupy, you need to know what part of the mind your competition is playing in. Is it based on the audience, price, colour, location? You need to be in the part of the mind that hasn’t been taken by your competition. You want to be towards the top of the list, if not the first. If you’re not first into a market, it makes the journey a lot more difficult.

Creating a “positioning”

Communicating vagueness or ego is played out too many times in business. You should be asking yourself, what is my brand really communicating? The most important thing we should be doing is owning a piece of real estate in the minds of customers and clients. This is known as the positioning of your brand. Generally, this positioning defines what you do, as clear as day, in the marketplace. You need to also ask yourself, what position does my brand own in the mind of our customers and clients? Am I the cheapest in my category? Am I the most expensive? Am I the first? Am I targeting someone that no one else has? You need to own a position in the mind that is beyond quality. Minds are cluttered, so find a space and fill it.

Consistency in communication

So now that you have a position in the mind of your clients and customers, are you staying true to your brand’s positioning? I often see brands embarrassing themselves by giving in to one-off sales. If you’re an exclusive brand, don’t be loose on the discounts. If you’re a cheap brand, don’t try to be glamorous. Be consistent in your communication so that people remember what your brand is about. Constant, consistent reinforcement is critical.

What made Coca Cola so successful in the early days was the simplicity and focus – they started out with “Cola”. As companies do, they explore product line extensions, steering them away from what they’re known for. “Coca Cola Life”, Coke containing Stevia, a natural sweetener, lasted all but 24 months on Australian shelves.

So, the key take away for Australian businesses is to make sure you’re investigating your competition, see where you can be different, positioning you in the minds of your customers and clients with the key difference being at the fore front of all communication, and making sure this communication is consistent.

Michael Kava, Founder and Director, Little Marketing Group

The post Small business branding essentials appeared first on Inside Small Business.

At this point in the business life cycle, excitement and motivation is strong, but where is this being directed?

An idea and a cool name are not enough to make a business successful. Your people, your business model, your marketing, timing…there are umpteen reasons businesses can succeed and fail.

As a business, you need to consider the competition, how you will spread the word, whilst also building trust for your business and brand.

Outside of the belief that marketing is a great TV ad, marketing in simple terms is how you communicate your brand. If you’re not communicating your brand, how do you sell your brand to your audience?

What’s even harder is if your idea is something that no one currently has the need for. You need to create the demand for that category. You need to ask yourself – what’s the compelling reason for them to engage in my brand, what’s the benefit, does it have a factor that will attract leaders within my community to spread the word for me, why should people trust me?

You need to build trust with happy customers, satisfied users, and people of credibility who can put their name to the brand. This all creates trust. Placing an ad in a newspaper doesn’t. Trust isn’t a quick fix.

Doing the hard yards often happens behind the scenes of successful businesses, what the average Joe doesn’t see. A nice example is Airbnb which began in 2007 when two mates were struggling to pay their rent. There was a conference heading to San Francisco and all hotels were fully booked, so they came up with the idea of renting out three airbeds on their living-room floor and cooking their guests breakfast.

The next day they created a website. Six days later they had three people from all walks of life paying $80 each sleeping on their rented apartment floor.

In 2008, there was a Democratic Convention with an expected 80,000 people attending. The boys finished a new website, launching it a couple of weeks before the conference. Within a week they had 800 listings.

The boys promoted the category of an easy alternative for people to make money off their property in the short term whilst travellers saw a great alternative to inflated hotel rates during an event.

They aligned themselves with a grand scale event, and then once they had the listings, they told everyone about it. The snowball began.

So, how will you go after your first set of clients and customers? And how will you leverage them to give your brand credibility?

Find that point of difference, tell people about it and do things to build trust in your brand.

Michael Kava, Founder and Director, Little Marketing Group

The post Starting a business is more than just a good idea appeared first on Inside Small Business.