When it comes to taking on the competitors within your market, the goal shouldn’t be just to do as well as them, but to stay far ahead. But what does ‘staying ahead’ mean to your company? Is it about building a better mousetrap? Or maybe it’s about selling more of your current mousetraps.
In either case, you’re going to want to study what they are doing right – in terms of their marketing, customer service, product development, and a dozen other metrics. Then you need to come up with strategies that will not only attract new customers, but make even your competition’s loyal patrons spend their money with you instead. Once you have an idea of why they are successful, you can better determine how to not just imitate their success, but to boost your own.
What are your competitors doing better? And what are you doing wrong?
No manager is going to kick-off a staff meeting with a chant of, “We’re Number 2! We’re Number 2!” But acknowledging your competitors’ success by taking a serious look at what they are doing right (and what you are doing wrong) can be a productive way to bolster both your team’s sales and their morale.
There are a number of concrete ways to do this. You could start off by contacting some of your competition’s former employees through platforms like LinkedIn. As long as they aren’t muzzled by an NDA or non-compete agreements, they will likely be happy to have you pick their brain… for a fee. The insights they generate could provide the key that unlocks the secrets of their former employer’s success – and your own path to prosperity.
If you want to take on your competitors in terms of marketing, run analytics tests to see where their ad dollars are going. What Runs Where and SEMrush are popular online tools that you can use to look at their best-performing display ads and where they are running online. It shouldn’t be hard for your SEO team to find out which keywords they are ranking for, and figure out which ones you should be bidding on in response.
Studying their website’s sales funnel (in both PC and mobile views, of course) is another great way to glean lessons you can apply to your site. So-called ‘funnel hacking’ involves clicking on one of your competitor’s ads; examining the landing page you, um, land on; and seeing just how much easier it is to buy their products than your own. You should then be able to apply your insights towards improving your own online customer journey and, eventually, stealing their customers away while building up your own consumer base.
Finally, ask your customers for their thoughts. Scary, I know. Everybody seems to have an opinion these days, so use surveys, social media, and even in-store interactions to ask what works about your company and, gulp, what doesn’t. You may find that people are all too happy to discuss your pain points!
So, how do you stay ahead?
This is the harder half of this challenge, because there is no guarantee that your hard work will pay off.
Start by figuring out what your company does well and lean into it. (If you like business jargon, call that strength your USP, or unique sales proposition.) Perhaps your customer service is amazing. Maybe you’ve won Best Product polls on the website of your local newspaper. Differentiating your brand from your competitors, in these ways is great for getting future customers to notice you, especially if you follow it up with media outreach and targeted ad spends in the cities or territories where you want to build your business.
Finally, let’s talk innovation. Has your team taken a good, hard look at the strengths and weaknesses of both you and your competitors? Innovating is always better than imitating, so assuming you have an R&D department, give them greater freedom (and a bigger budget) to experiment with product development. Remember: your R&D costs are an investment in your future. (They’re also probably tax deductible!) That includes researching what is going on technology-wise in your industry. Are you on the cutting edge of that tech? Why not? While it’s important to understand what your competitors are doing to be successful this quarter, it is equally important to think about positioning yourself as a market leader three quarters from now, and beyond.
Sticking to tried-and-true strategies within your industry – in terms of what you’re selling to your customers and how you’re selling it – may reap short-term rewards, but is no guarantee of future success. Yes, it is important to understand what your competitors are doing (and why they’re succeeding), but staying a few steps ahead is the only way to guarantee that you won’t fall behind.
Sean Plummer | Contributing Writer
