Here Are a Few Things Your Competitors Can Teach You About Marketing
Your competitors aren’t always out to get you. In fact, they’re sometimes your greatest teachers for improving your marketing campaigns. It’s easy to get sidetracked by rivalries or defensiveness when working against your competitors, but open your eyes to them every now and then and you’ll be surprised by what you might learn. Here are ten things you can expect to learn from a little healthy competition.
Learning by Design
Need to launch your website but don’t know how to design it to be eye popping yet professional? Just look at your competitors! They’ve been around long enough to know what rocks and what socks, and it’s not cheating if you lift just a couple design elements from their work. Just make it yours, and as long as it’s got your touch about it, it doesn’t matter where it got its foundation.
What Blogs and What Doesn’t
Certainly you want to make quality content, but there’s always a learning curve that you need to get over. What information clicks with your target demo? What doesn’t? What flops? What needs tending to? What is a good series and what needs to be nipped in the blog? Your long-standing competitors might have an idea or two, and by looking at what they’ve got to offer you can save yourself time and potential leads by taking several leaves out of their books.
When the Fiber is Cut, It’s Time to Go Mobile
While mobile apps are great and most people have access to them, it doesn’t mean that you have to go mobile right off the bat. Get up there eventually, but don’t waste your resources rushing to become iPhone friendly right away. Scan the playing field and take a look to see how soon after opening your competitors decided to enter the pockets of half of America. That’ll give you an idea of when you’ll be needed there, too.
Interaction is King
This is where you jump ahead of the competition. Look at how your competitors are interacting with their clients. Then look at how they’re not interacting with them. Then, all you have to do is do all of those things that they’re not doing. Perfectly simple. Who knew the competition could be so giving.
Think Email is Dead? Think Again.
Email marketing is still very much a thing to do, as it has great lead generation potential and it generates a huge amount of traffic towards your social media profiles. Need to make people aware of your Twitter? Let them know it exists over email. Need more people to be aware of your email? Make a Facebook post about it. It’s a two way street and all roads lead to you.
Would You Retweet that Tweet?
Check to see what tweets are picking up traction from your competitors. They’re in the same industry so people who are following them will follow you, too, and that means you can use the metrics from your competitor to figure out what are the most effective tweets to make. Do your readers want news or opinion? Do they want behind the scenes info or promotions? Gather information, you hear?
Forget Quality is King–King is the New Quality
You are an authority, but no one knows it. Your competitors who have been around for a while are authorities, too, but people do know it. That’s why they like listening to what they have to say while you’re on your soapbox getting pennies. But you can use that to your advantage! They’ve got people listening to them and reading their social media, so get in there and interact with their social media! Get into debates, generate ideas, comment on topics, and establish your authority! People will eventually sieve on over to your side of the pond if you just keep your tweets to the grindstone.
Don’t be Afraid to NSA a Bit
Build buyer personas. Your competitors have them and they tell you everything you need to know about the people you’re trying to reach. Take cues from what your competitors are writing about and who they’re targeting and where they’re aiming—all of this should have a neat section in each of your buyer profiles.
Resources Abound
Social media is everywhere! You can interact a million different ways everyday with everyone logged into the internet, and your competitors can only interact in so many ways. That’s why you should get out there and explore, and generate ideas about communicating that your competitors haven’t gotten their hands on yet. Interaction is communication, so pay attention to it in your life outside of work to see how it can benefit your life inside of work.
A Helping Hand Goes a Long Way
You’re not alone. There are contracting companies that reach out to provide social media services for businesses who are working their way there, and your competitors have used a few of those themselves. There’s nothing wrong with paying for a bit of success, and learning from these professionals is a great way to get your own training underway. You can be sure your competitors did the same.
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Do you know why? Because your enemies will challenge you and push you and force you to adapt, making you stronger and faster because of it. Eventually you’ll be able to beat them to the punch, and it’ll all be thanks to their presence and your determination. Life is one big lesson, and so is social media marketing.
