1. Best Practice Guides How To Stand Out From The Crowd
Best Practice Guides
Stand Out
How To
Stand Out
From The
Crowd

2. Best Practice Guides How To Stand Out From The Crowd
Introduction This guide looks at how to stand out
from the crowd. We’ll explore what
a brand means, how it’s critical to
Welcome to our best practice guide where we
your success and why you need to
unearth the myths, secrets and areas for you to action
to build a successful brand.
engage with your audiences.
Our best practice guides are a series of publications
aimed at helping you attract and engage prospects
and customers. We’ll cover areas from brand to social
media, but in a way for you to digest and hopefully put
into practice.
This guide looks at how to stand out from the crowd.
We’ll explore what a brand means, how it’s critical
to your success, why you need to engage with your
audiences and some key tactics to be seen and heard.
In a world of ‘me too’ businesses, lets strive to be the
authority in our sectors.
The ID Group team

3. Best Practice Guides How To Stand Out From The Crowd
Section 1
WHY DO
WE NEED
TO BRAND?

4. Best Practice Guides How To Stand Out From The Crowd
What Is A Brand All About??
The process of creating a brand is a mix of creativity, energy and
standing behind everything that you believe.
Brands are more than just logos or strap-lines, it allows people to recognise
and familiarise themselves with your company. A brand is so much bigger
than just a logo. It is how you are seen and how you present yourself to the
“
A brand is much bigger than a
logo. It is how you are seen and
world from a phone conversation to an email, to the website. Create a brand
how you present yourself to
that is not only memorable but also successful.
the world.
“
Approach branding as the reputation of your organisation and make sure
your company messages are reflected effectively.
Without a brand, companies become lost amongst the crowd. Make sure to
stand out from your competition and possess a USP setting you apart from
other organisations in the same market. The more attention you are able to
draw to your company through branding, the more your business will grow in
a positive light.

5. Best Practice Guides How To Stand Out From The Crowd
Do You Brand Or Market??
Businesses tend to mention branding with marketing and advertising in the
same breath, which is just not the case.
A brand is an overall image of a product/service that consumers are able to
connect with, make an emotional attachment to and interpret. They are able “
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to identify with a name, logo, strap-line and style. quia doluptaque same vendaecaero
ipsunt reste quis endaepe rspiendi
Branding is different from other communication methods because marketing
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focuses on a message and keeping consumers connected, whereas the brand
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itself is the image and perception which must stand alone in order to be
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effective, credible and to stand out against competition.
“
Branding can only be effective and successful if it is executed correctly
and consistently.
Think about your logo and what it represents (as it highlights everything you
stand for). Be clear of what values your company and brand identifies within
its messages. Above all else, create a personal connection through your
brand for customers to engage with.

6. Best Practice Guides How To Stand Out From The Crowd
Section 2
KEY AREAS THAT
ARE CRITICAL
TO YOUR
SUCCESS

7. Best Practice Guides How To Stand Out From The Crowd
Positioning Yourself
Is The Key To Success
One thing we all aspire to is to create a business where people will be If you position yourself well, you create a strong rapport, and when
banging on the door to work with you. you educate others you build advocacy.
The simple answer is… position yourself. Being positioned as the ‘respected’ choice within your industry is
powerful. We can overcomplicate things to the nth degree, but no
It is that simple, if you engage with people and spread emotion, it matter the state of the economic environment, emotion always sells.
becomes easier to build a business. For instance, if your messages are
constantly dictating a sales pitch on Twitter, people tend to switch off.
Spread content that has a human feel to it, or is intended to help others,
a purely commercial message is less spread.
If you position yourself as the logical choice, then people will listen.
Do this in three ways:
Provide an education that helps your prospect become interested
Deliver useful information to put you in the mind of your prospect as
more of an expert than your competition
Plan and think strategically to sell your product/service that isn’t
selling and far stronger than a flat out ‘this is what we do.’

8. Best Practice Guides How To Stand Out From The Crowd
Never Build Your Brand On Hope
There are more ways than ever before to broadcast your marketing Here’s an analogy that brings this principal to when we were all
messages and present your brands, but so many companies look to build younger. Remember the 2p slot machines (we still have plenty of
their castles purely on hope alone. them in Bournemouth) and when you put the coin at the top, it could
only go two ways. It can hit another coin and trigger a host of others
Take for instance, your Twitter feed. Amongst the stream of conscious to result in a noise of a return that would always put a smile on your
messages that form part of our daily lives, we are also bombarded with face, or it can sit on it’s own and get lost amongst the crowd of other
dictated messages to interrupt and gain our focus and attention. coins and no smile on your face, just a relentless pursuit of more
return for the money spent.
This is similar to the old way of marketing where you would spread your
message in as many ways as possible, from outdoor advertising to press Most marketing efforts are like this, where a message is put out there
ads to radio exposure, in the blind hope that people would react and in the hope that there is an expected reaction to hit as many people
notice it. Simply building awareness, is not the aim, the key is to build as you can. Every single message you create has to be targeted to
conversation, credibility and trust. your audience. When you try to hit everyone, the impact is small, but
if you’re focused and target the right audience, you create value and
By being focused on a target market, with a specific message to that a guaranteed return on your investment, a bit like those afternoons in
industry, you don’t simply want them to be aware of you, you want them the arcade.
to be responsive to you. They want to feel that they are being spoken to,
directly to them, not at them.

9. Best Practice Guides How To Stand Out From The Crowd
The key to all formats of engagement is communication, so build an
Don’t Market, Engage effective dialogue:
iving information. This could be in the form of directing to a blog
G
on a particular topic or providing a report on an area of interest
within your industry. The better information that is provided and
Does a bulk of ‘likes’ on Facebook or a large number of followers on more relevance it has to a prospect, the better the opportunity to
Twitter result as an effective marketing strategy? Shouldn’t we focus convert to a customer.
direction where we are not in the business of marketing, but engaging
with an audience? ontinuity. Everything that is sent to represent your business
C
has to have consistency throughout ie. there is a connection
Do more than just telling everyone ‘how good it is’ and having links to a between the webmail that is sent out and the message it relates
specific page on your website, it is detrimental to a brand and people to. Continuity in your brand and communications is key to building
will switch off immediately. The focus should be on developing a two- familiarity and credibility.
way dialogue between brands and the customers they serve. Build
partnerships, not just leads. row your community. Sharing knowledge within a community
G
builds loyalty and keeps a conversation constant. To do this,
When brands put priority on engagement, this moves from one-way compelling content needs to be created and maintained in order
traffic of ‘followers’ as passive receivers of messages to one where to build collaboration, e.g. commit to a printed newsletter to share
there is interaction, participation with the aim to build a dialogue and with your customers.
customers to become advocates ie. share their experiences.
estimonials. Reading someone else recommending your product,
T
rather than yourself is an effective way to turn prospects into
customers and customers into advocates.
Online and offline engagement delivers benefits for all. The more
engaged a company is with its marketplace, the more the marketplace
sees the company as the expert within their field and ‘the place to
go to.’ This results in greater customer loyalty, better new customer
conversion rates and enhanced revenue. Set realistic goals and stick
to them and remember to maintain a flow of communication.

10. Best Practice Guides How To Stand Out From The Crowd
Section 3
WHAT YOU
NEED TO
CONTINUALLY
ASK YOURSELF

11. Best Practice Guides How To Stand Out From The Crowd
WHAT MAKES ME DIFFERENT?
We’re all bombarded from more channels than ever before to grab our
attention. So, what makes you different?
“
Most products or services that
are out there just form part of a
The key to standing out is to make people’s lives easier. landscape that is full of ‘me too’s.
“
It has now become more commonplace to blend in with everyone else,
most products or services that are out there just form part of a landscape
that is full of ‘me too’s’. Couple that with a world where attention spans
are now very short, it becomes a challenge to identify what makes you
and your product different.

12. Best Practice Guides How To Stand Out From The Crowd
Here’s an example to show you how important it is to stand out. The success to being a thought leader is to cut a cake in half. The first
Friday nights can mean an empty fridge and searching for something half is to have a multi channel approach and the second half is when
to have for dinner. The answer is within the realms of Marks you engage with your audience, it is a two-way communication where
Spencer’s ‘Dine In For 2, For £10.’ What this is, is effectively ready added value is key. What this leaves is a cake that people will go for
meals to heat up in the oven (with a bottle of wine), but packaged time and time again, no matter how much icing is on the others.
in a way that it felt a bit of a treat. This is what I mean by avoiding
being a ‘me too’ product (a ready meal), by doing something different
(packaging up as ‘fine cuisine’).
Coming back to our products and services that strive for attention in
our marketplaces, the key is to provide a benefit that solves problems
for others and position it in a way that others/prospects take notice,
with the knock on effect to know, trust and like us. “
What makes you stand out is
What makes you stand out is to provide a service that people to provide a service that people
care about and instead of blending in with everyone else, go in care about. Instead of blending
the opposite direction. If you provide people with a reason to pay in with everyone else, go in the
attention, they will listen. opposite direction.
“
To be known as the expert, bring all your communication tools
together to spread your message in a variety of ways, namely the
use of blogs to get your view across, the social media channels to
tease and invite, the relationships with the press to inform (not self
congratulate), to loving your immediate customers/community by
treating them as the VIPs with a small number of printed
regular newsletters.

13. Best Practice Guides How To Stand Out From The Crowd
5 A blog becomes a really effective tool when it is promoted through
a number of channels, notably the social media networks and links
10 W To Be Seen Heard
ays included on each email signature. Blogs are a great format to voice
an opinion, comment and gain recognition within your industry.
6 Networking is important to build your business community.
Making new connections and meeting new people can lead to
There are a number of channels that can be used to present yourself positive referrals from clients to prospects. It can also allow you
to different audiences by being consistent and having continuous brand to contribute, learn or share ideas with other people in similar/
exposure. Here are a few things to help. different industries. Networking can also lead to partnerships and
joint ventures for companies, so be confident and get your
1 Twitter is an effective networking tool to share, comment and be voice heard.
consistent within your industry. The essence of Twitter is to have a voice
within your community by posting good tweets, retweets and interactions 7 Communication is essential for building and maintaining strong
with other businesses. relationships with existing and prospective clients. This will build
your business and your company’s credibility.
2 Video content is a way of ‘seeing.’ This gives an insight into the heart of a
company and shows how they present themselves and interact. This is a 8 Website
really effective way to share via social media and to targeted audiences. People don’t like copy heavy websites, it is not interactive and
there’s too much to focus on. Concentrate on getting your
3 Business cards are one of the most traditional formats to present a message/company goals across to audiences, so keep it simple.
company’s identity. However, why not be more innovative? Treat it as
more than a card and offer more. For instance, is there an offer you can 9 Social Media is evolving, so keep people updated with latest news
promote? Are there aspects of the business that you want people to of your company via Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Pinterest. Keep
know more about? Are there more ways you present your business on audiences engaged.
your card, i.e. links for twitter, facebook, LinkedIn, blogs.
10 Cold Calling
4 A personalised letter is an ideal way for targeting prospects. Move away It may not everyone’s cup of tea, but by having a leap of faith
from the conventional email and take time to write to someone. Use good cold calling can be effective to your business. Don’t be afraid if a
quality paper, add something to your envelope i.e. a puzzle, present. The customer does pick up the phone and says ‘no’. Persevere because
idea is to be more engaging than just a written email. there are people that need your help.

14. Best Practice Guides
Stand Out We hope our best practice guide
provides interesting routes for you to
explore in more detail.
If there is anything here that you’d like
to have a conversation about, just get
in touch. We’d love to find out more
about you. We’re here to help deliver
a consistent message and position you
as the ‘go to’ person.
Email: mark@theidgroup.co.uk
Tel: 01202 557 458
Web: www.theidgroup.co.uk
Blog: www.theidgroup.co.uk/blog
Twitter: @heyidgroup
Facebook: /heyidgroup
Lorne Park House, 1 Lorne Park Rd,
Bournemouth, BH1 1JJ