Like it or not, the competition out in the marketplace is fierce.
Marketers like yourself are spinning their wheels trying to figure out what makes a consumer choose one brand over another and how they can stand out in a crowded market.
There are many trusted tactics you can use to make competition work in your favor, but what good are those strategies on a regular basis if everyone is using them?
In the blog post you will hear from experts across a wide range of industries, giving you an inside look on how less-utilized tactics can work for you.
1. Allusion
“Not to be confused with 'illusion,' allusion is a tactic used to call something to mind without explicitly mentioning it. In the context of marketing, this would be comparing your product line against that of your competitors. Rather than using their logo, name or brand image, you might use easily-definable colors that most consumers would associate with that brand. When you're marketing the unique selling points of your product, your message becomes that much more powerful if you're able to draw comparisons to your competition.” - Gregory Yong, Chief Experience Officer, Convincely
Takeaway: If you want your customers to know why they should pick you over your competitors, you’ll have to show them. Covert allusion can drive the same point across without heightening tensions.
2. Acknowledgement
“We always bring up two or three competitors in our discussions. We don’t hide from the fact that the client has other choices. By doing this it shows transparency, which builds trust. Second, we position ourselves in relation to the other competitors in a very positive way, never disparaging their other options.” - John Millen, Co-founder and managing partner, The Millen Group
Takeaway: It’s smart to acknowledge the elephant in the room. Consumers already know that your competitors exist, but if you can show them how your business compares to and exceeds the competition, you may convince them that your products will better serve them.
3. The "Skyscraper" technique
“The skyscraper technique is an advanced link-building strategy in which you find high-quality content with lots of backlinks and identify its weaknesses so that you can improve upon them. Begin by conducting a competitive content analysis to examine your competitors' highest-performing content that contains the keywords you want to target. And check out how they use articles, guest posts, images, videos, case studies and surveys to understand better the kind of content that engages well in your market. With this information at your fingertips, you can build off their strategy by creating better content of real value that your audience wants to share.” - Chris Gadek, Vice President of Growth at AdQuick
Takeaway: Beating the competition requires you to be the best of the best and that means producing better content than your competitors. Even your competitors’ best work has flaws, and identifying and improving them can help you provide even better service to consumers.
4. Social proof
“Leveraging your competition by out-promoting them, or creating a similar product at a lower price point to attract their customer base, is expensive. Which is why utilizing social proof mediums, such as public reviews, to look for common threads of dissatisfaction, and then identifying “switchable customers,” is a much more effective way of leveraging your competition.” - Jeff Meeks, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at EnergyFit.
Takeaway: By leveraging your competition in this manner, you eliminate the need to find a target audience, and already have a motivated customer base who has identified their needs for you to fill.
Consider these non-traditional strategies something of a secret weapon that can be used to help you meet all of your marketing goals from a strong social media presence to higher conversions. You can use them on their own or with the staple strategies you love — either way, you’ll be able to use your competition to your advantage.