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"How
To Beat
Your Competitors - Like A Drum"
When
you start thinking about competitive analysis, ask yourself this question:
What do your customers see when they compare you to your
competition?
This chapter
covers competitive analysis from your customers' perspective. After all,
your customers' perspective is the only one that counts. Knowing and
understanding what the customer sees is the most important competitive
analysis you can do.
The
Customers' Perspective: Competitive Analysis
One part of
being a professional advertiser is thinking like the prospective customer.
Your customers and prospects do not live in a vacuum. They are
sophisticated shoppers. Their perceptions of price, value, quality, and
service are very high. What happens when they compare you to the
competition?
Sometimes you
can focus so much on what is special about your own company that you
forget about your competition. But your customers and prospects will see
and read your competitors' marketing materials. They are going to talk to
them on the phone. They are going to price their products, review their
guarantees, and meet with their sales people. Your customers will
conduct their own competitive analysis.
You must do
the same thing. It is very
important for you to make these same contacts with your competitors so
that you can understand what the customer sees. You need to know where you
stand in comparison to your competitors from the customers perspective.
Conduct your competitive analysis the way your customer would.
Here are some
competitive analysis questions:
1. How
do your advertisements compare to the competition?
2. How
do your other marketing materials compare?
3. What other promotions are
your competitors running? In many industries, published consumer
advertising only represents a small part of a companies marketing budget.
How else are your competitors reaching your prospects? Direct mail?
Telemarketing? Incentives and specials? Coupons? Call and ask.
4. How
good are your phone operators compared to your competitors'? How often
do prospective clients wait on hold, or have to leave a message, or
have to go through layers of automated messages on the phone? How soon
do you return their call? How does this compare to your competitors?
5. How
good are your competitors' salespeople? How professional are their
presentations? How slick are their marketing materials?
6. What
do they talk about? What marketing materials do they give to the
prospect?
7. What time, volume, or
seasonal incentives do they give?
8. Do
your competitors follow up? How soon? How aggressively?
9. How
good is their offer? How
do they build value into their offer? What are their guarantees and
return policies? How good is their customer service?
10. How
do they stay in contact with customers?
How do they follow up?
11. What
do they do poorly? Why do customers leave them?
Conduct your competitive analysis so that you get the answers.
More
Competitive Analysis
You don't
conduct a competitive analysis to copy the competition. You could be copying systems or methods
that do not really work that well. This is about understanding what your
customers and prospects see, think, and understand.
And don’t worry
if you can’t afford to sell the same way a large corporation can,
because you probably don’t want to anyway. It is how you differentiate
yourself from your competitors that counts.
Your competitive analysis should determine how you are different and
special, not how you are the same.
What
differentiates you from your competitors from the customer’s
perspective? What strengths and weaknesses do you have? What strengths and
weaknesses do your competitors have? What is your potential customer
seeing and thinking?
The answers are probably found in the difference between your advertising
and marketing materials, and your competitors'.
The answers
are at your fingertips. The best competitive analysis you can do is to
compare your brochure to your competitors'. How good is the copywriting?
How professional is the presentation? You must run a competitive analysis
on all of your competitors' marketing.
Without knowing
the answers, you can never take advantage of your strengths, or compensate
for your weaknesses from your customers perspective.
Because you can be absolutely sure of one thing - your customers will
conduct their own competitive analysis.
Do you really
want to beat your competitors - like-a-drum? Make sure that what your
potential customers see about you is better than what they see about your
competitors. Plan your marketing materials and presentations to take
advantage of your strengths and of your competition's weaknesses.
Plan what your
potential customers see when they compare you to your competition. Get the
insight into your customer’s wants, needs, and desires, and market your
company to address their concerns better than your competition does.
Make sure your competitive analysis is done from the customers'
perspective.
Competitive
Analysis - Easy Examples
If your
competitors are bad at answering the phone, and you use a great employee
to answer your phones, you win. If people are calling from your
yellow page ad, or anyplace else for that matter, then the single most
important thing you can do is improve the quality of your phone skills.
Your competitive analysis will tell you how good your competitors' are. First impressions count.
McDonalds won
over MILLIONS of customers by providing cleaner restrooms. Bet you never
though about that. What do the customers see? What’s important to them?
What are the impressions you make versus your competitors? Your
competitive analysis will tell you.
Take a good look at your brochure versus your
competitors'. Is it twice as good? What company would the customer choose
if your brochure was twice as good as your competitors'?
More than this, do your competitors even have
brochures, or something to send or leave with potential clients? Don't
think a cheap flyer will do the trick, but if you are the only company
distributing brochures, or refrigerator magnets, or coupons, or
information booklets, then you will win the business. People need to
think, reference, and read before they decide. Give them what they need.
Your competitive analysis will show you the way.
And just how slick are all of your marketing
materials? How good is your presentation? First
impressions count. It is natural to be impressed by a high quality
presentation and superior marketing materials. You must conduct a
competitive analysis on your own company. Remember, customers are
conducting their own competitive analysis - How do you compare?
Competitive
Analysis: Ask
for Help
As
always, we
strongly recommend that you hire a quality graphic designer for your
printed materials, and ask a marketing professional to help plan and review the work.
It’s a very small investment for something you are going to reprint
endlessly. And it’s the best investment you can make if you can modify
what your prospective clients see and think about your company versus your
competitors'.
We also
recommend that you contact a marketing professional to help you conduct a
competitive analysis. In an hour a professional can give you some real
insight into the quality of your marketing materials, how they compare to
your competitors', and what you can do to improve them.
Please
contact
Professional Advertising for these
services and additional assistance.
Professional
Advertising
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& Marketing Consulting Services
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Please
see Working
with Professional Advertising
for more information.
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