9 Factors To Make your B2B Tech Product Stand Out Against Competitors

A growth-focused competitive strategy is a crucial aspect of developing a strong brand identity and more importantly, product differentiation. A B2B tech product that stands out from the competition is essential given the clustered nature of the SaaS industry.

With an ever-increasing number of SaaS providers worldwide, constantly increasing adoption of cloud-based solutions, and many similar product offerings, B2B tech businesses must emphasize efforts on differentiating their products.

The ‘International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences mentions that competitive strategy addresses two critical factors. These include creating competitive advantage and protecting competitive advantage. B2B tech companies must design proactive competitive strategies, instead of reactive ones, to assure business continuity.  

Why a SaaS Product needs to Look Competitive?

It is harder for a highly competitive industry like SaaS tech to keep pace with changing trends and the competition’s strategies. Entering the B2B tech sector requires entrepreneurs to set higher benchmarks for both product & customer service to compete with possibly established organizations selling similar services.

Research has previously identified that product differentiation as a competitive strategy can reap significant benefits for the B2B organization, its employees, and its brand identity.

9 Ways To Make A Your B2B Product Stand Out In A Competitive Landscape

1. Well-crafted Product Story
2. Create a Visual Identity
3. Position Your Product
4. Enhance Customer Experience
5. Offer Competitive Pricing
6. Add Product Features Continuously
7. Prioritize Customer Requests
8. Take Social Responsibility
9. Give a Money-back Guarantee

The B2B SaaS sector is one of the fastest-growing industries in post-pandemic times. To make a B2B product stand out against the competition requires a mix of branding, marketing, storytelling, design, pricing, and customer-focused content. Let’s go over nine ways you can differentiate your B2B offering against other similar services.

1 – Well-crafted Product Story

Crafting compelling stories around your brand can be crucial to building lasting relationships with your ideal customer profiles. Telling the story of your brand, why you created your products, and how it helps organizations in real-time compared to your competition which only offers the ‘lowest prices can be momentous for a brand to connect with their audiences.

Storytelling around the brand creates an emotional bond between the B2B tech provider and their buyer personas. Deck7 identifies four attractive benefits of crafting stories around your products so they stand out in the industry:

• Real-life stories create resolute trust & authenticity
• Storytelling is based around customer pain points (and your products to solve them)
• Stories engage customers in a memorable way
• Product stories demonstrate the understanding you have of providing solutions

Today, B2B marketers employ various methods including videos, case studies, webinars, blogs, interviews, whitepapers, etc., that weave immersive stories around existing customers and products. 

2 – Create a Visual Identity

The visual elements of your products can be assets that substantially differentiate your offering from the competition. Here are some essential aspects of a B2B product’s visual identity that make it stand out from others:

• The Brand Logo
• Official Color Schemes
• The Brand Patterns and Themes
• The Fonts Used
• Website Design
• The Use of Photography, Animations, Ads, etc.

Research has already identified that audiences make up their minds about brands within 0.05 seconds of looking at a B2B website. In this highly competitive industry, the visual aspects surrounding products should be consistent to continuously engage audiences with the brand. Remember that the visual identity is part of the brand identity, hence should be creatively designed to create optic appeal.

3 – Position Your Product

Product position is neither branding, nor marketing, and neither just a redundant statement. Product positioning is the accumulation of multiple factors including branding, marketing, social corporate responsibility, customer services & success, and more.

The product positioning strategy is defined to engage customers, and develop a captivating perception in their minds about your products. When planning your SaaS product positioning strategy, there are four commonly recognized aspects to analyze:

• The B2B product itself
• The buyer personas
• Competing products & services
• The industry and trends

Common techniques that tech providers employ when developing their position strategy include:

• Interviewing existing customers
• Conducting market research to validate brand messaging
• Identifying the B2B product’s unique value proposition
• Positioning the brand name among different buyer personas

4 – Enhance Customer Experience

McKinsey Research identified in 2016 that B2B customer experience scores were lagging well behind those for B2C customers. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, B2B providers are increasingly investing in customer experience to make its products stand out. In her Forbes article, Blake Morgan mentions three aspects that B2B providers should focus on:

• Create consistent omnichannel experiences for customers
• Build nurturing & caring employees experiences
• Deliver personalized customer service experiences like that for B2C customers

The modern B2B customer experience is the sum of all experiences buyers have across different brand touchpoints. Therefore, a consistent customer experience enhances customer retention, customer lifetime value, new customers, and existing customer satisfaction.

5 – Offer Competitive Pricing

Competitive pricing is a strategy where B2B products are closely priced against the prices of direct competitor products. Competitive pricing is usually employed when SaaS providers don’t necessarily want to invest in a price-setting strategy.

Competitive pricing can be of three types:

• Lower – Setting product price below the competition
• Higher – Setting prices slightly higher than competing products
• Match – Setting the price exactly as that of direct competitors

6 – Add Product Features Continuously

A recent poll from ProductCraft identified that 57% of SaaS providers introduce new features continuously. The modern B2B customer is consistently demanding new features & upgrades based on their feedback and evolving needs.

Announcing new product features sets brands apart from the competition as innovators. There are also excellent benefits of regularly developing new features in B2B SaaS solutions, including:

• Reduced churn rate
• Improved customer loyalty
• Optimal customer retention

7 – Prioritize Customer Requests

B2B products are developed in sync with the needs of their ideal customer profiles. Developing a sound customer feedback loop and feature request process can be revolutionary for any tech provider.

Identifying new customer demands and pain points earlier can be significant in setting your products apart from the still unaware competition. Developing regular customer satisfaction surveys, interviews, and feedback requests are all great ways to prioritize customer requests for new features.

When customers feel heard and appreciated, they are bound to be more loyal. Consistently listening and developing new product upgrades can therefore offer longer customer lifetime values and sustainable revenue growth.

8 – Take Social Responsibility

Corporate social responsibility is one of the cornerstones of modern B2B business. Increasingly customers, partners, and other stakeholders are preferring to work with brands that have a sustainable approach, and offer economic, social, and environmental benefits.

Tech providers that define their social responsibility plans including a commitment to the natural environment, user privacy & data security, enhancing employee welfare, and diversity representation, instantly set themselves apart from the competition.

9 – Give a Money-back Guarantee

Offering a guarantee is a very effective tactic for setting your B2B product apart from the competition. Since it reduces purchase risk, guarantees are an excellent way to grow sales consistently. When products are guaranteed, customers are inclined to buy early, hence shortening the sales cycle.

The most crucial aspect of offering a guarantee is that it creatively differentiates your products from the competition. While your competition does not offer any guarantees, you can attract a larger market share with a more low risk alternative to theirs.

Another important area that B2B tech providers can benefit from through guarantees is the pricing strategy. When your product is guaranteed to perform, customers will be willing to pay more to purchase a solution that has lower-risk and more features.

Conclusion

Having a sound product differentiation strategy can be the driving factor to succeed in the B2B tech sector. Identifying the unique value of your product can be immensely helpful in building a resolute product identity that will appeal to target customers.

B2B tech providers who feel they are struggling to survive or grow in the SaaS market should always consider the assistance of a reputed product marketing consultant. At Chasm, we offer a centralized B2B marketing solution that ensures your business grows through every sales cycle. Connect with us today to learn more about how we can help you differentiate your product from the competition.