Every brand holds a certain place in a consumer's mind, if they're aware of it at all. It's how our mind organizes information and remembers things we'd like to recall. We give them labels, characteristics and put them into buckets that we can remember them later, when the need arises. We also use comparisons to similar items to help provide context and distinguish things from one another.

If you really want to beat out your competition, you need to first identify the position you currently hold in your customers' minds. From there, you can decide if that position is the best place for you to be or if you need to move to a different position. If you do need to change people's perceptions of your brand, you'll then need to figure out marketing strategies and tactics do accomplish that.

This exercise will help you start the process.

Select 2 dimensions that consumers would use to base their purchasing decisions for your industry (examples: expensive vs inexpensive / fully-featured vs ala carte)
Write a list of your competitors
Send a survey to your customers asking them to rate you and your competitors based on those dimensions.
Add up the scores and calculate the average score for each company for each dimension.
Plot each company on an X/Y axis

Download the Positioning Map worksheet

If your company is in an area with a lot of your competitors, it will be hard to distinguish yourself.

If you're in a relatively empty space, you are clearly distinguishing yourself from the competition. However, you also need to make sure it's a position that you want to be in. For example, if your customers perceive you as expensive and low-quality, that's probably not the position you want to be in.