As promised, I wanted to quickly discuss competition and the role it plays in developing your marketing strategy.
Traditionally, Marketers approach competitive forces by completing a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (S.W.O.T.) analysis. These are effective at gaging your product or services position in the marketplace and where resources might best be focused.
Too often however, we get caught up in press release wars and the race of first-to-market. These tactics result in internally focused strategies and quickly, almost immediately, lose sight of the consumer and their needs; a fundamental marketing error. Yes, we must pay attention to the competition, but look only to determine what information is being brought to the industry or marketplace. Only then, can you forumulate an appropriate response that is valuable to your consumer.
An example.
Thought-leadership and the idea of “content as king” are getting a lot of buzz in the b2b marketing world lately. Do we watch what content the competitors put into the marketplace and then respond with our slightly better, slightly more insightful content? What is the result of this approach and how does it impact our customer base? We must vet our responses to all competitive content from the point of view of the customer and ask ourselves, am I responding to the competitor or educating the customer? More often than not, we are simply responding to the competitive focuses at play and disrespecting or ignoring the customer. The end result here is not that you’ve demonstrated superiour thought-leadership, but rather, thought-followership and have succeed at introduced confusion into your marketplace.
Don’t lose sight of your customer.
Of course we need to pay attention to competitive forces, more importantly we need to understand how these forces are impacting our customers and the marketplace. Respond to competitive content not for the sake of responding, rather in ways that represent your brand appropriately, support your position in the market and educate your customer. Only then will you be able to effectively combat the competition.
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