In a world that often feels ruled by mega-brands, what are the qualities—or perhaps even super-powers—that allows some small but burgeoning brands to break through and become mighty? When vast competitors not only already dominate the market but also possess seemingly endless resource pools to draw from, it can be hard to imagine being able to stay at their heels, let alone outmaneuver them altogether.

However, today we are going to explore the possibility that such noble stories of triumph require neither super-human capacities nor bottomless budgets, but instead, are actually something that can be tactically replicated. For inspiration, we need to think only of the historic battle of David and Goliath.

How was it possible for the hero of this tale to defeat such a gargantuan adversary? After all, as the story goes, Goliath towered over his challenger with a height of six cubits and a span, which roughly equates to a staggering 10 ft 4 inches.

The key is that, where other would-be warriors assumed that they could never overpower such a giant, David saw an opportunity to make the terms of engagement asymmetrical and therefore claim an advantage. He could never have defeated his enemy head-to-head with brute strength alone. However, with a simple but carefully targeted strike from his slingshot, he was able to bring his gargantuan adversary right to the ground.

What this allegory tells us is that the kind of branding and marketing tactics required to slay corporate giants needn’t be overly flashy or expensive, but they must be dialed in if they’re going to be effective. By the end of this article, we believe that you’ll have a much clearer idea of how to shape those kinds of Goliath-slaying strategies for your own unique enterprise, even when operating with finite resources. So, let’s get you armed up and ready for the challenge.

Being Smaller Means Being Lighter on Your Feet

While that looming big-name competitor of yours might take up a lot of space in the marketplace, it’s important to remember that size and agility rarely go hand in hand. As a newly-launched startup or a smaller brand already navigating the same waters, you possess the major advantage of being more nimble on your feet—and that should be reflected in your agile brand-building strategy.

For larger businesses, the effort required for—and the risk involved in—turning the ship in order to jump on of-the-moment opportunities is substantial. In contrast, your light-footed business has less red tape to worry about and, while keeping an ear to the ground, can far more easily innovate in whichever direction the market is currently flowing.

Oftentimes, these opportunities will be too small to even register on the radar of more sizable competitors. But for you, they can be an incredible ‘in’ that facilitates vital brand awareness and a deeper audience connection that will later serve as a solid foundation to build upon.

Leverage Trending Topics to Claim the Center Ground

When we talk about opportunities worthy of a nimble pivot, we are of course speaking of trends. It’s easy when brand-building to get too zeroed in on the problem-solving capacity of an original product offering and pay less attention to the evolving narratives that inform what really matters to your audience.

Of course, understanding the whats, whys, and whos that originally set you on your journey remains important. But there is wisdom in remembering that new ideas are constantly emerging—and as they do, consumer desires and how your brand slots into them will be evolving too.

Before you panic, don’t imagine this means that smaller businesses have to jump onto a constant treadmill of reinvention. Stability of identity is also a must for cultivating market longevity, so you don’t need to become a branding chameleon.

But, being in the thick of the current conversation—even if it isn’t directly related to your chosen field or expertise—can work wonders for boosting brand authority and showing audiences that you understand what matters to them right now and what will matter to them tomorrow.

One of the best things about positioning towards trends is that it doesn’t require a money mountain. You can keep your brand on the pulse from both a macro and micro perspective, with the former achieved by using tools like Google Trends and tracking social media hashtags to see what’s on everyone’s minds. Meanwhile, the latter can be achieved simply by paying attention to your community, listening to your everyday audience, and being sure to let them know that they are truly heard and seen.

Be More Available to Your Audience

Anyone who’s ever taken the time to read up on marketing will have heard the word ‘differentiation’ bounced around a lot. What makes your company unique? How are you communicating those special traits to your customer base? These kinds of questions are powerful when it comes to showcasing innovating within the marketplace, however, there may be another side to the equation that deserves your attention too.

Professor Byron Sharp of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute highlights that putting all of our energy into differentiation alone might be a flawed strategy. A number of years ago, his research shaped the Double Jeopardy Law, which is now widely accepted as an empirical law of marketing.

Sharp found that brands with less market share—so the Davids among us—have not only fewer buyers (the first jeopardy) but also less brand loyalty (the second jeopardy). Simply put, we have to work much harder to make and retain our mark than the companies that have already hoovered up a chunk of the market.

While news that market penetration and brand loyalty tend to rise and fall together may be bad news, it does give us an insightful new roadmap to follow. Ultimately, if small brands are to tip the scale in this regard, as Sharp puts it, “mental and physical availability must be a much bigger story than differentiation.”

Unquestionably, this aligns with how crucial nimbleness and trend-tracking can be for smaller brands aiming to trump the big fish in their waters. Forging and harnessing intelligent opportunities to connect with customers, before in turn becoming a central and trusted voice within your target market, is an impactful approach to building brand loyalty that bucks the assumed outcomes of the Double Jeopardy Law.

And what does brand availability look like? It definitely means smooth communication channels through your business website and social media pages, but it might also mean weighing in on Quora discussions or utilizing local media outlets to explore new opportunities for dialog. At times, it is possible to discover spaces where the giants never roam and within which you can strengthen customer bonds on a much more personal level.

Offer Real Value Right Off the Bat

It’s a logical assumption that no business swells to Goliath-like proportions without doing something right. With larger brands, value is generally seen as inherent and so people feel confident to part with their cash faster. However, for a smaller enterprise, demonstrating value immediately is a great way to steal attention away from your oversized rivals and establish evidenced trust.

To give a few examples, this might take the form of an e-book, a fun blog, a how-to guide, a digital tool, a calendar, a recipe, or a checklist. Many businesses utilize free offerings like these as ‘lead magnets,’ which is a term that describes asking an audience for contact details in return for access to a freebie. But it isn’t always necessary to mop up information when delivering a taste of your brand’s potential value, and sometimes, avoiding the creation of a barrier can mean creating a far steadier and more sizable flow of traffic.

Whichever approach you take, what is key is focusing on quality above all else. Namely, providing a resource or resources that people can actually use and that will genuinely make their lives better in some way. Most importantly, if you get the formulation just right, that free offering will bring your audience back to you time and time again—and ideally, it will encourage them to spread the word too.

Choose Your Battlegrounds Wisely

Earlier in this article, we touched on the importance of asymmetry when battle-planning in order to overcome a larger opponent. We talked about the advantages that come with greater ease in maneuvering, but what about the landscape itself? In fact, for a moment, let’s move from dry land back to the water, because you’re probably familiar with the metaphor of a drop in the ocean.

Just a small amount of anything in the ocean—whether it’s a potent substance or a smaller brand’s best-laid marketing presence—is unlikely to make waves. Now, it may be true that your industry’s giants are able to traverse and rule the ocean in question easily, however, this isn’t the place to meet them.

Instead, it’s worth looking for the scenic tide pools where the temperature and currents are just right for your brand. These will be just big enough to play a role in sustaining your businesses, while being small enough that your hulking competitors are unlikely to have them covered.

Finding these welcoming shallow waters means wading into smaller market niches that are currently underserved by the big market players, and figuring out how to meet the needs within those tide pools head-on. By dominating in these areas, you’ll be able to establish the brand reach that will ultimately allow you to venture out into open waters and confidently claim territory from the giants.

Cut Bigger Competitors Off at the Finish Line

Stepping stealthily back onto solid footing, it’s now time to explore the idea of being just a little bit sly in order to down that Goliath. This tactic might not seem like the most honorable approach in the old-world sense, but in the gritty arena of modern competitive marketing, sometimes fighting dirty is the best way to come out on top.

Consider the capacity that huge mega-brands have to drive consumer behavior and even create the trends that will serve them directly. You may not be able to compete with marketing strategies on that scale, but you can certainly leverage the results of their efforts to your advantage. Crucially, by tracking the agendas of the giants within your field, you can illuminate precise consumer data and expand it with the aforementioned search engine and social media data sources.

These critical insights will allow you to identify the audiences that big brands have set up for themselves and then target them in the final hour. If you can provide a compelling pitch that makes your offering the more appealing option at the finish line, you may soon discover that you are successfully siphoning sales away from a seemingly herculean competitor. Not to mention, if you can ensure that your customer experiences are absolutely top-dog from there on out, you can likely ensure that you get to keep them too.

Understand the Power of Being the Underdog

From David and Goliath to the beloved 1990s movie Cool Runnings, everyone loves the story of a triumphant underdog. Perhaps more importantly, people will often actively root for the little guy. They’ll draw some satisfaction from supporting small businesses – especially when they feel that their dollar spend is going towards something that reflects their values while also meeting their needs.

With so many opportunities to tell powerful stories through branding and marketing in the digital era, today’s underdog success stories are far more likely to be defined by creative tactics and innovative ideas than they ever were. Because, when delivered well, those all-important ideas can soon travel far and wide.

It’s important to remember, too, that many of today’s biggest brand names were once the underdog themselves. Netflix was the David to Blockbuster’s Goliath; Ben & Jerry’s was the underdog to Häagen-Dazs, and so on. When it comes to slaying your brand’s giant foe, your biggest asset is your willingness to discover asymmetric opportunities to level the playing field over time. That requires a playful and exploratory approach and a hearty dose of faith that the bigger player never rules forever. With ingenuity and just a little luck, your turn to rise will be just around the corner.

Related Read: How to Make Your Brand a Hit With Women (Without Excluding Men