THE DAILY TACTIC - #06 - GOOGLE THE COMPETITION

Each day (well most days) I post a short digital marketing tactic. Not a deep dive but a quick little morsel that I hope charges conversations in the comments and which people can learn from. These are not posted in any specific order, I'll just be coming up with them on the fly and posting them daily. I'm fairly confident some of them will be pretty crap, some will be good. It's all an experiment.

When is the last time you sat down and wrote a list of your top 5 competitors, a few larger, more innovative ones, a few on your level and a couple fast risers? Who are my top competitors? There are likely other companies in your area who provide similar services. Are you continually competing against the same companies for business? These are your biggest competitors and you should focus your efforts here first.

Why would you do this? Well, it's simple. Spending time really looking at your competition and where you fit can help you target your marketing efforts.

Try asking yourself these questions?

• How does my product or service stack up to the competition? Take an honest look at their offerings. Is your quality commensurate? Do you have similar offerings? If you have a niche product that your competition doesn’t, can your competitors actually become a source of referrals for you? What is the unique value you provide that competitors don’t or can’t? Emphasise these benefits in your marketing.
• Is my pricing high or low for the market? If your pricing is too high, you could be losing customers; too low, and you’re leaving revenue on the table. This doesn’t mean you have to price exactly the same as your competitors, it just means you should be able to justify your price based on the value consumers get from it.
• Who else am I competing with? Most businesses have a host of indirect competitors as well direct. Start to think more broadly about your business.

Look for things like their websites, their social media accounts, do they have any reviews (positive or negative, these are a goldmine for opportunities and marketing differentiation), are they in the news? What can you emulate and what should you differentiate and what should you? What are your competition not doing that is apparently obvious and you should do? Let’s be fucking clever here people.

You could find that they are stealing your strategy and tactics.. Sometimes improving upon them and doing better. It hurts, I know from personal experience. (The worst thing ever is when someone steals your strategy and tactics and do it better)

Whilst I’d never encourage a brand to copy another exactly, you can find some sweet spots?

What did you find when you Googled your competitors?