Why understanding your competition is essential to your marketing strategy
Do you keep an eye on what your competition is doing?
I'm not talking about spying on them, or obsessing about what they're doing in an unhealthy or dishonest way…
But you can't be in business blindfolded. You need to have an idea around:
- What your competition is doing
- How they're positioned in the marketplace
- What section of the market they're going after
This allows you to make strategic decisions that can see you dominate in terms of your positioning.
There's a few ways you can go about understanding your competition.
Buy their product
What better way to understand a customer's perspective on your competition's product, than to become one of those customers yourself?
Buy their product. Test it out. Understand it. Battle-test it - really put it through its paces and see where the cracks are, because those are your opportunities to do it better.
How is their after service care?
What is the pre-purchase journey like?
How do they onboard new customers into their brand family?
This gives you an insight into how they're doing business… and most importantly how they're treating their customers.
Audit their website
Spend some time gaining a solid understanding of the message they're putting out to the world. Notice the imagery they're using. The language and brand story they're presenting. And of course, notice the offers they're promoting, and the terms of those offers.
Once again, look for a crack you can fill with your own strategy. How does your approach measure up to theirs? What are they saying that you are not? What are they doing that you are not? And where can you find opportunities to outclass them?
Monitor them online
Go to Google Alerts, and set up an alert to be emailed to you every time your competitors are spoken about online. Whether they're getting interviewed, launching a new product, or anything else that's happening… you can be among the first to know what's going on.
You can also set up a Google Alert for your own company name as well. So you can keep track of what people are saying about you online. This can help you nip any bad press in the bud quickly if it should appear.
Understand good strategy
There's plenty of strategies out there. Some days it can seem like everyone and their dog has the 'latest greatest method' for growing a successful business. So how do you know which ones are actually any good?
Strategy is not what people think, which is simply to put a business plan together and achieve some goals. Strategy is analysing your marketplace, your competitors, your past clients, and creating something that really allows you to dominate.
A good resource to help you understand what good strategy looks like is Episode 83 of The Comeback Game podcast with Babette Bensoussan.
Find your own vibe
I see a lot of business owners flat out copying the strategies of others in their niche all the time. I get that it can be a good strategy to emulate what's working, but rolling out the same model as a competitor means you have no unique point of difference.
The thing that makes you stand out from anyone else in your field is YOU. The more you can embrace your own story, your own value and represent yourself authentically in your market, the faster your business will grow. Because you're aligning yourself congruently and wholeheartedly with what you're putting out in the business world. People appreciate and respond to that.
Over to you...
If you're wanting to learn how to stay on top of your competition and start marketing more effectively, please feel free to reach out to us by dropping a comment below.
We'd love to help you achieve the rapid growth and results that our Opulence clients do.
A bit about us - our business growth program The Opulence System™ takes business owners from struggling and overworked to 3x growth and profits while getting back 10 hours a week within 6-12 months.
If you're a business owner looking to scale and grow, please reach out. We'd love to have an honest conversation about your business and whether we can help you. Just leave a comment below, or get in touch on one of our social channels.
