Staying ahead of the competition is every business’s aim. You want to have a unique selling point. Advancing your product faster than your competitors can provide exactly that. By offering something your customers don’t even realise they need, you can excel above the competition. But without marketing, how will everyone know about this amazing new feature?
Typically, marketing has relied on reactive processes. Building from consumer needs and wants to provide what the customers are asking for. By promoting a new, unrequested product, one with the potential to hugely benefit the users, you promote yourself as a market leading business.
Not everyone will get behind a change initially, but the developers have done their job in creating an impressive new product, now it’s marketing’s turn to step up to the plate. Promoting your feature as the product which will revolutionise their processes. Making leads, prospects and customers aware of the benefits they stand to gain.
Beat the Competition
It’s all well and good looking at a competitor, and thinking “that’s a good feature, how can we get that?”. But by the time you’ve been able to build, test and implement it, it’s likely that it will be seen, still as beneficial, but perhaps also as expected. If you can, find an area to expand, something which will benefit your customers, and add it to your product. Then tell everyone about it on all the marketing channels you can. That includes Email campaigns, social media posts and website content.
Why you win and why you lose
Knowing your strengths and weaknesses will give you the ammunition to build and boost your marketing strategies. Identify the reasons why you win a deal, and why you lose one, and use this information to adapt your strategy and products.
Win: When you win a customer from a competitor, build it up. Capitalise on the fact you’ve outperformed the competition. Create case studies on why your new customer has come to you. Why have they chosen you over a competitor? Then tailor future customer journeys to target those key points, because chances are, it’s the same pain points for other prospects too.
Lose: If you do lose a deal to another competitor, find out why. What was lacking in your business that your competitor could provide? Armed with this information, you can build on the issues noted and resolve them to better your own service and products.
Use PPC to Target Competitors
Paid ads can help increase awareness of your company. A lot of companies don’t bid on their own company name as the keyword in their PPC campaigns. Use this to your advantage. Use THEIR name in your paid ad. For example: [competitor] pricing, [competitor] alternatives, [competitor] competitors. Not only will your website be displayed when a competitor is searched, but if a prospect isn’t already aware of your company, then they will be after searching for the competition. They will see your company as an alternative solution.
Grow your lead base
Not only can you convert leads to your business through PPC campaigns, but you can also target likely leads through competitor websites like Owler. Owler tells you the competitors of each company. Paired with IP tracking software on your website, you can identify whether the competitors of your recent clients or Top Target leads could be interested in your product. The combination of tools can tell you if these potential leads are 1) already aware of your company and 2) a good fit to work with. You can then target these leads, to grow your customer base, likely away from your own competitors.
Compare your Social Stats
Direct competition often promotes a healthy rivalry. You want to compare your performance in every way you can. With our GatorSocial module, you have the functionality to do just that. With the social media presence companies are building, and the increasing importance of social media in the B2B world, you can use this to see how many followers your competitors have. As well as their inactive users, and their Twitter activity over the last 5 days. So you can keep an eye on how you measure up (or surpass them).
Healthy competition helps promote a constant development in business, which improves the client’s experience. Build where you can, and use every available channel to shout about it. Add in tactics which help boost leads and promote the benefits of choosing you, over your competitors. Because, let’s face it, we know you’re the better choice anyway.