How to Stand Out in a Sea of Identical Claims

Written by: Husam Jandal, Digital Marketing Consultant and Business Strategist, Husam Jandal International

Did you know that 85 percent of invoice factoring providers mention speed on their website’s homepage, or that more than 70 percent market themselves to trucking and transportation businesses? Your prospective clients do. While they may only be picking up on it subconsciously as they evaluate their options, the similarities are striking when you step back and look at the full picture.

Yet, we know that virtually every client journey includes consideration and conversion phases; stages in the marketing funnel in which they’re actively evaluating offerings and trying to find the best fit. Moreover, we know a prospect’s mind is largely made up before they reach out and become a lead. If you want more people to reach this stage, you must find ways to differentiate your business and offerings while they’re actively researching.

I recently analyzed more than 100 factoring websites, perhaps even yours. The findings revealed several clear patterns, but more importantly, they highlighted significant opportunities for companies willing to think more strategically about how they position themselves in an increasingly competitive market.

Start with a Clear USP

As we touched on earlier, the vast majority of factoring companies use speed-related differentiators in their marketing copy. Other common claims relate to transparent pricing, back-office support, and fuel cards or fuel advances and discounts. These are all good things to offer and promote. The trouble is, they’re so common that they cannot serve as a key differentiator for prospective clients.

You need a unique selling proposition, or USP, that gives prospective clients a clear reason to choose your business over another provider at the core of all your marketing efforts. Before you move on to other aspects, identify something unique about your business or offerings that will stop them in their tracks and be memorable.

Strengthen Your Branding

We often think of branding in terms of color palettes and fonts. These are important factors, as 55 percent of brand first impressions are visual, Exploding Topics reports. But online branding is more than the sum of your visuals. It’s the voice your company uses, the stories you tell, and the people involved.

When your branding is consistent and authentic, it builds familiarity over time, which translates into trust. Good branding also makes your company and its messaging more memorable, so it sticks with prospects as they make a decision.

The analysis did uncover several companies that had strong brand voices. Some took on gritty, no-frills language, others took on a family-values tone, and some echoed the strain their prospective clients felt. Yet nearly 80 percent had generic corporate voices.

Find Your Niche and Own It

Earlier, we touched on the challenges associated with industry saturation, but there is an upside to zeroing in on your ideal customer. When you know who you’re trying to reach, you can develop a detailed persona that represents the client, which then allows you to create content that speaks specifically to them. You can use their language, speak to their pain points, address their pushback, and more in everything you create, which makes your marketing much more effective.

And the research shows many of you are doing this on a macro level. For instance, one-third of the sites analyzed addressed trucking or transportation exclusively. And these sites were far more likely to choose a no-nonsense or gruff brand voice that resonates with trucking professionals. There were also a handful of other industry-specific sites, such as government factoring specialists, healthcare factors, and construction funding companies. These also routinely spoke directly to the audience’s needs in a relatable voice.

This is a good start, and it narrows the playing field considerably, but 7 percent took it a step further. Instead of speaking to the industry, they hyper-specialize by targeting highly specific micro-niches or unique sub-sectors. While this no doubt limits the total number of leads they receive, it also means the leads they do attract are a much better fit for their offerings, and therefore sales are far more efficient.

You can target beyond industry, too. For instance, a small sampling listed exact numbers for revenue, invoice volume, facility sizes, or fleet sizes. Another small subset gave qualitative sizes or stages of growth they serve.

It’s important to note that the idea here isn’t necessarily to compete with others. You shouldn’t water down your positioning by claiming to serve every size and industry just because a competitor casts that wide a net and you want the same leads. The goal is to have clarity on who you want to serve and ensure that the audience sees themselves in your content.

Build Authority Through Expertise

When prospective clients are evaluating multiple factoring companies offering similar services, they naturally begin looking for additional signals that help them determine which provider feels most credible. Expertise can play an important role here.

The more visible your knowledge becomes, the more opportunities you create for prospective clients to encounter your business outside of your direct marketing efforts. Educational resources, industry-specific guidance, commentary on market conditions, regulatory insights, and speaking opportunities all reinforce the idea that your company understands the industries and businesses it serves.

The research revealed a major opportunity in this area. More than one-third of the factoring companies analyzed do not publish articles on their website, while many others have little content beyond core service pages. That leaves significant room for companies willing to invest in content.

Build a Reputation That Extends Beyond Your Website

More than 99 percent of the population reads online reviews before making a purchase, Capital One reports. They influence 93 percent of decisions, too. With that in mind, it probably goes without saying that people are checking your online reputation before they reach out to you for a quote or to apply.

Whereas many will review things like the number of reviews you have, the recency of reviews, and your star rating, financial consumers tend to dig deeper. They’re looking for lived experiences. They want to know if your claims are valid and if the service you provide is solid. If others trust you, then they can, too.

But human readers aren’t the only ones evaluating your reputation. Search engines, for example, look for reputation signals such as links back to your website before deciding when to display your business in the search results.

Your footprint impacts generative artificial intelligence (AI) results, too. For instance, in a separate analysis of various programs ranging from ChatGPT to Claude, reviews were identified as a leading indicator of whether a factor was mentioned or not. Interestingly, the platforms presently appear to care more about volume than they do about quality.

All this means that if you don’t have a strong footprint with reviews, your business may legitimately be invisible online, depending on the tool being used.

Back Up Your Claims with Clarity and Evidence

Which is the more compelling statement:

●      We provide fast funding.

●      We provide funding in as little as 8 hours.

Research consistently shows that quantifiers influence the impact of a statement. And yet, 15 percent of the sites that mentioned fast funding failed to define what “fast” means. Moreover, 41 percent didn’t mention any numbers at all. These things matter when prospects are comparing their options, especially when two factors appear to be offering similar services.

Similarly, case studies and testimonials on your website can give you an edge. Most factors recognize this, as 59 percent include testimonials. However, just 12 percent shared case studies or success stories.

Create a Differentiator

One of the best, but arguably more challenging ways to make your brand stand out is to develop something novel that other factors cannot replicate or would need to invest significant resources to replicate.

The hyper-specialization covered earlier is one way to approach this. Bundling value-added services is another, and was leveraged by 39 percent of the sites reviewed. The most common approach was to offer fuel cards. Others created unique names for their services, published their rates, or developed full financial ecosystems for their clients. Yet, only a fraction of the factors reviewed leveraged these types of novel approaches.

Stand Out Strategically

Differentiating your business and offerings from others is essential to achieving lasting growth. However, choosing the right differentiators for your business and identifying the right way to convey them requires a thoughtful review of everything covered here, along with a cost/benefit analysis to ensure the offering is useful to your audience and supports your long-term goals.

About the Author

Husam Jandal is an internationally recognized marketing and business strategist who has been helping businesses achieve transformative growth for more than two decades. As a trusted consultant, author, educator, and speaker, Husam’s in-depth knowledge of the challenges businesses face and unique ability to fuse proven strategies with tailored insights empower companies to reach new heights and attain lasting success.

The views expressed in the Commercial Factor website are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, the International Factoring Association.