In any business, you need to be able to stand out to be successful. If you’re not winning attention, you’re not winning customers. But there’s one step to this equation that many miss out. The fact that those customers most likely already have their attention won by someone else. That there are other players just as willing as you to keep people coming. So here’s how you take the competition into consideration when you’re marketing.
Research is key
First, you need to get a real idea of your customers. You need to know who they are, what they do, their lifestyle and priorities. Finding out opinions from customers and potential customers alike isn’t too difficult. If you visit Pollfish.com and similar sites, you can create a survey that can go out across all manner of devices. You can use tools like it to create polls that take up only a fraction of a user’s time but give you the data you need. Data that will help you better target their needs in your advertising.
Learning from the enemy
Research can give you a good idea of what your customers want. How you can fulfil it, or what you lack, can be better learned by looking at the marketing environment. You need to research others in the industry. From your rivals to others who simply share your space. See what they offer. Both in marketing and delivery. See what they do right, so you can adapt it. Similarly, see what they do wrong, so you can fill that gap. Pair it with your research to find out what the market’s missing. Then use it. See sites like Pestleanalysis.com to see how to do it.
Identify your USP
The research, combined with finding that gap in the market, can come together to make your most valuable tool yet. Something truly unique to offer. If you want to rise above the rest, you have to make that unique value the cornerstone of your company. Look at Snapchat, for instance. There are a lot of social ways to share videos and photos. But it’s story-telling feature is what elevated it beyond its competitors. Identify your unique selling proposition. The next step is shouting it from the rooftops.
Focusing your brand
This means taking the time to totally revamp your brand. If you have something unique to offer, it needs to be the main message that goes out through your branding. It needs to be part of your tagline, your visual design and even how you communicate with customers. Focusing your brand means taking the short-hand way of communicating your company’s value to others. Then creating a unified style of displaying it across text, images and even video. Brands need to have a focus, but they also need to be malleable. Keep the core of it down to one mission statement, one USP.
This isn’t a solution to suddenly make your marketing effective. This is a process that you need to keep on-going. The moment you stop keeping your marketing competitive is the moment when other businesses use these tactics to surpass you.
