Hands up if you are a stalker? Not in a ‘getting arrested’ way. In a healthy awareness of what’s happening in your industry way.
We’re not suggesting you should be copying your competition – far from it in fact! If you don’t know what the competition is doing, how do you know what you are doing is making you stand out to the market – or are you just blending in with the noise?
We’re in the throes of looking at just this for a couple of business planning clients. Here are some things we’re looking at that you could think about for your own business in relation to the competition:
- What are they telling the market they ‘do’?
- Why are they saying they are different/better? And is that different to your message?
- What’s the user experience when browsing their website? What seems to be the ‘goal’ of the website?
- What’s happening on their socials? Are people picking up what they are putting down? What’s working and what’s falling flat?
- If they’ve got a space somewhere in real life, how does it feel?
Now go and check out what you’ve got going on (website, socials, email, physical touchpoints). Does what you’re offering make you stand out as different from the opposition?
- If you’re claiming to be premium, does your brand and customer experience reflect that?
- If you say you’re an expert, is there evidence to back that up?
- Is it clear what you do, who you do it for and why someone should choose your business? Or should they pick your competitor?
As well as direct competitors, why not take a moment to look at what your ‘aspirational competitors‘ are doing? Who are they? Businesses that are a few (or many steps) ahead of you. These guys have the budget to engage the professionals that might be out of your reach right now, but you can pick up some tips to apply to your own approach.
We’re interested…tell us about your observations. What are you going to mix up after a quick stalk?
Want to do more than a brief look but don’t have the time? We can help with that. Let’s have a chat about what you might need.
Remember, don’t look to copy, look to be different and stand out as the right choice for your ideal client.