Have you ever been shopping for a product or service and found a brand comparing themselves directly to one of their competitors?
Perhaps you were actually looking for one of their competitors, but then they explained all the reasons they were the better choice. This can be a very effective marketing strategy, which you can use yourself to win business for your brand.
You could boost your sales and collect more leads using this strategy, but only if you go about it in the right way. If you get it wrong, you could turn customers away instead, or even end up getting in trouble for misrepresenting your competitor or your own brand.
If you want to create a comparison between your offering and what one of your competitors is offering, you need to know how to do it properly. There are various choices you can make to create an effective comparison that convinces prospective customers you are the better choice.
It’s important to do plenty of research and to outline a good comparison that is truthful and helps you to capture organic traffic for your brand. With this startup marketing strategy, you can go about doing it in the best way.
Identify Your Strongest Competitors
To begin with, you need to know who your strongest competitors are. You probably have a good idea of this, but if you don’t, you need to do some research.
It’s important to remember that your biggest competitor isn’t just a brand that’s doing something similar to you. It’s one that has a similar target market to you. Some businesses might have similar products to yours but they’re marketing them to very different people.
When you’re researching your competitors, compare their typical customer, their size, their location and the product or service they’re offering to your own.
Know Your Facts
Before you go any further with your startup marketing strategy, it’s important to remember that you need to get your facts right.
Product and service comparisons can be excellent, but you need to be careful not to misrepresent your competitors, and your own product or service.
You don’t want to end up in legal trouble because you haven’t created a truthful depiction of what you offer or of what your competitor is offering.
You also don’t want to upset your competitors. While you might be on their radar as a competitor, you don’t want to give them any reason to come after you with a legal challenge or in any other way.
Research Complaints About Your Competitors
The aim of comparing your offering to a competitor is that you can not only get new customers who are comparing their options but also try to get hold of your competitor’s existing customers.
There are always customers frustrated with the service they are receiving or the product they bought, and they’re usually looking for an alternative. Your first step to try to get these customers is to find out what their complaints are.
When you know their potential reasons for turning away from the brand they’re using, you can make a case for why your brand is the better choice.
Checking out review sites is often a good way to discover what your competitors’ customers are complaining about. Find out from their reviews and ratings what common complaints they might have.
There are sure to be similar complaints that come up again and again, so focus on those rather than the outliers that only one or two people might have.
Another excellent place to look for complaints is social media. People use social media to get in touch with brands directly, so you can listen in and find out what issues they have.
You can even use tools that help to collect this data for you.
Once you create a list of the things that people are complaining about, you can think about how your product or service can answer these problems.
Find the Branded Search Terms You Should Use
To capture the frustrated customers from your competitors, you can get their organic traffic by using the right branded search terms. Finding the right search terms requires some keyword research, which is something that your digital marketing experts can carry out.
You’re likely to find more popular branded search terms for some brands than others. Smaller brands might not have much in the way of branded keywords, but there are more generic terms you could use together with their names.
When you’re looking for the right terms, it might help you find more of the key issues you should concentrate on too. People often ask questions when they’re searching for something, which can help you understand which factors matter to them most.
For example, they might search for whether a particular speaker has Bluetooth or they might want to know if a software provider has good customer service.
Use the Marketing Methods Your Competitors Use
Another thing you should do is make sure you can find your customers in the right places and using the right methods.
Finding organic traffic through using the right keywords is important, but also look at the other things that your competitors are doing to find their customers.
If the methods they’re using are working for them, they could work for you too. You can find the customers you might take from them if you’re using the same marketing channels and techniques.
Know Your Brand Inside and Out
Along with getting to know your competitors, it’s also important to know about your own brand. It’s essential to know and understand it well if you want to create an accurate comparison to other brands.
You should know what you offer that’s unique and how you do things differently compared to your competitors.
Whether you go above and beyond to deliver the best customer service or your product has features that other products don’t have, know how to make your product sound like the superior choice.
You need to present your brand accurately.
Speak to Your Own Customers
If you want to learn more about your brand, find out about why your customers choose you over your competitors. You should already have some understanding of this through the marketing you have done before.
However, sometimes you can discover that your customers choose you for reasons you haven’t thought of.
They can offer you insight into why they chose what you offer and perhaps how other brands might have let them down in the past. You could conduct a survey through email or even contact some clients personally to have a chat with them.
Organize Your Information
Organizing your information can help you get everything ready to create a good comparison for your product.
When you have collected essential information such as strengths and weaknesses of your business and your competitors, it’s helpful to make lists and tables so you can think about how to present it.
It will help you consider the most relevant information and what should go into your comparison. You can also have lists of the keywords you want to use, and think about what your primary keywords will be.
Create a Well-Presented Comparison
When you’re ready to create a product comparison to go on your website, consider how you will present it. You need to create something that is attractive and easy to read, and that lays out your case in a convincing way.
There are several ways you might format your comparison, depending on how many products you’re comparing and how many different points you want to make.
You can use tables or separate blocks to present information about your product compared to others. It’s best not to compare too many products at once, and it’s often a good idea to choose just one competitor to focus on.
When you compare your offering with a competitor, you need to make design choices that help to highlight what you offer. You might choose a brighter color that helps to highlight your brand, for example.
You can also use the popular technique of listing different features you offer, which your competitor both does and doesn’t have. Using check marks and crosses, you can present a clear visual representation of how you can beat your competitor and offer your customers more.
Combining both text and images should help you create an attractive page that is also readable. People should be able to scan the page and find the most important information so they can absorb it easily.
Remember to consider your keywords and phrases too so you can optimize the page for SEO. You should focus on getting organic traffic with your product comparison to help you get the right customers. This is one of the most important components of a startup marketing strategy.