5 Ways Plugins Help You Compete with Large Online Businesses

One of the things I love most about working at POWr is the passion this team has for helping small businesses achieve success. Everyone here recognizes the value small businesses bring and truly believes in their ability to make a meaningful impact. That being said, we know it can feel overwhelming competing with larger businesses, which is why POWr plugins exists. We want you to have the resources and tools you need to face giants and come through victorious. 

Here are five ways plugins can help you do this: 

1. They add additional functionality to your website

My site’s functionality is off the charts. It’s almost too functional 💁

Plugins, like Form Builders, are fantastic for taking your site’s functionality to the next level. You can use them to collect user data, take payments, create questionnaires and much more. The POWr Form Builder-Zapier integration opens the door even wider for you to optimize your forms by enabling you to automate tasks you’d otherwise spend hours doing manually. For instance, you can create a Zap that takes the data collected (i.e. customer contact information) in your website’s form and organizes it within a Google spreadsheet--how cool is that! With 1000+ Zaps, you won’t run out of ways to save yourself valuable time in order to focus on higher priority goals!

This additional functionality is vital in your efforts to compete with larger businesses. It ensures you can focus your energy on more important objectives and strategies, rather than spending hours on tedious tasks. 

2. They help you improve conversions

Getting those conversions. Making those dollars. Like a boss. 😎

You don’t need a large team and a multimillion dollar budget to get phenomenal conversion (actions users take on your site) rates on your website. Popups are great for grabbing customers’ attention and encouraging them to engage with your site. You could create an exit Popup that displays as soon as a customer goes to leave your website and offers them an incentive (let’s say 25% off) if they make a purchase. 

For example:

“You’re leaving so soon? 😢 We were getting along so well. Would 25% off your purchase change your mind? 🤑” 

This lets customers know you value them and gives them a reason to stay on your site and make a purchase. You can also create a subscription Popup offering a discount to visitors who subscribe to your email list. This is an excellent way to collect data while encouraging purchases. 

Note: You don’t want to overwhelm your visitors with Popups, so make sure yours are relevant and eye-catching. Spend time researching your big competitors and favorite brands and ask yourself: how are they using popups? How could they improve? What tactics could you utilize on your own site? 

3. They can help increase customer engagement

Is it too soon for this? I guess I must have misinterpreted the signals...😳

One BIG advantage you have over larger businesses is the ability to really engage with your brand community and build relationships with your customers. People like to feel valued. If you make your customers feel important, they’ll be more likely to remain loyal to your brand. 

Social Feed and Comments plugins are great for helping you create a sense of community and encouraging engagement. Use a Social Feed plugin to illustrate your brands relevance and keep customers in the know about sales, new arrivals and special events. By incorporating it on your business site, you make it easy for them to connect with you on social media. 

Don’t underestimate the value of Comments plugins. Not only can they help boost engagement, they also offer you valuable insight into your customers’ experience and thought process. Comments can be used for responding to customer queries as well as well as building a community for them to communicate with others about your products. Whenever I look into a new brand, I always checkout the comments to learn about how customers feel about the item I’m interested in and how good the brand itself is at responding. In my experience, larger businesses lack that personal touch I typically find in smaller ones--interactions often feel automated and robotic rather than empathetic and engaging.

4. They can attractively showcase your products

What do you mean this isn’t the type of picture you’re looking for? 😦

When a customer wanders onto your site, they should be mesmerized by your stunning products. This means you must showcase them in the most flattering manner. Gallery and Slider plugins are fantastic for this! Gallery plugins allow you to display your products in a sexy Pinterest-like grid or collage. With POWr Gallery, you can even add neat effects (i.e. custom image cropping and layouts ), text, a custom border and more to make it POP. 

Sliders can help you highlight sales, new products, events, and more in an attractive slideshow. You can even create interactive sliders users can click on to go directly to a specific page. 

Note: with both Sliders and Galleries, it’s vital to use high-quality photos in order to achieve optimum results. 

You may feel like larger businesses have the upper hand when it comes to highlighting their products and using top notch images, but there are many resources available to help you take your own quality product photos without having to blow thousands of dollars on professional photos. Galleries and sliders help you stand out from your larger competitors by enabling you to display your products in the best light possible. 

5. They enable you to highlight what makes you unique

Some say being a dog that wears Hepburn-esque sunglasses makes me unique. But, I’ve always thought it was my fondness for French cinema. 🤔

Your brand is unique and that should be clear to customers. This may be your greatest weapon against larger competitors. Embrace what makes your brand quirky and make sure customers know your story and why your products are special. 

Use About Us and FAQ plugins to illustrate your value to customers. Make your story as engaging as possible and think about ways you can ignite the passion you feel for your brand in your customers. A good way to generate ideas for this is checking out the techniques used by your favorite brands and biggest competitors. Think about your voice and the style that will best convey your purpose. 

What makes About Us plugins so great is you can add images and bios for each team member. Be creative! For instance, you can have everyone where a silly hat and share a fun fact about themselves and why they’re passionate about your product. This adds a human element to your business and helps customers better connect with your brand. 

FAQs allow you to share valuable insight into your products, your brand story, shipping and returns, etc. Checkout FAQs on other business sites and take note of any questions you feel would be of interest to your customers in regard to your brand/products. 

Here’s an example of how you can use About US and FAQ to highlight your brand’s uniqueness: 

Let’s say I run a sanctuary for rescued squirrels, and to raise funds, I sell the world’s cutest squirrel plushies made from 100% fair trade, sustainable materials. If I were to create an About Us plugin, I’d have each team member incorporate their favorite squirrel plush in their picture and include a quote about why they’re passionate about saving our nutty, little friends. I’d ensure my FAQ included information about why we’re passionate about creating a safe space for rehabilitating squirrels, where we source our materials, and all of the information about the sanctuary itself along with shipping and returns. Maybe each plushy comes with a story about one of the rescued squirrels, I would want to make sure to include that, so my customers fully comprehend that we aren’t just selling plushies--we’re making a real difference in the squirrel world. 

When it comes to differentiating yourself from larger businesses, these tips will help you stand out. Remember to focus on your unique traits and what makes your product special. You may be a small business, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make a big impact. 💪