Now that you know more about the products being offered by your competitors, it’s time to use them to your advantage!
If you missed the how-to on how to size up your competition click here.
Use Them For Inspiration
This strategy is to use the products that your competitors have as an inspiration for your own.
This can work no matter what kind of products you are planning on offering.
If you are writing and marketing an eBook, look at the books that your competition is selling.
If you are selling computer parts, look at companies that sell computer parts for inspiration on how they set up their website.
If your product is something a lot less tangible – like content, look at what your competitors are doing and become inspired.
Copy Them
While the last tip only suggests that you get inspired by what competitors are doing, this one actually encourages you to copy them directly.
This will not work all of the time, but for certain types of companies, this can be a really great strategy.
If someone is doing everything right and having success in your industry, then you might be able to do exactly what they are doing, employ every technique that they do and have the same success.
Of course, there is also the chance that you won’t, but your chances are good for achieving some level of success.
Create Something They Didn’t Think Of
Try coming up with some kind of product or service that your competitors didn’t think of. Innovate. Look for things that they missed.
Think way outside the box and you may be able to come up with something that will set you above your competitors in the eyes of the customer.
Use Their Biggest Weaknesses Against Them
This next strategy can be extremely effective if you are good at figuring out where your competitors are weak.
Examine their entire sales process, from the way that their products are listed to the customer services after the sale and try to figure out where they are lacking.
Look at the prices that they charge, the shipping carrier that they use, the website layout they have and everything in between.
Make a list of all of the things you find where they could do better and then rank them in importance from most to least important.
Then you can use that list to blow them out of the water by addressing all of those weaknesses in your business.
Keep Track Of Their Dissatisfied Customers
Another thing that you can do is keep track of dissatisfied customers. You should research the company’s products by looking up online reviews and figure out what people are complaining about.
Find out what the product reviews are like, and even if they are mostly good, look at the bad ones and see what people are complaining about.
Partner With Them
If you can’t beat them, join them. That old saying can certainly be applied when it comes to your competitor’s products.
But what if instead of trying to compete with someone who is leading the market already, you partnered with them and earned a commission whenever someone bought one of their products through you?
This is a great way to add some extra income and avoid going out of business because you are trying to compete with someone who has a huge SEO team and lots of experience in the field already.
Use Competitive Analysis
Using competitive analysis can definitely give you an edge over your competitors.
There may be things that the other company is missing, but you won’t be able to figure them out until you do a competitive analysis on each of the products that they are offering.
This allows you to see a clear picture of how you stack up against them and then make decisions that won’t be futile.
In order to figure out how to do a competitive analysis, you may have to use tools like Google’s keyword research tool, analytics, and your own charts and graphs.
Repackage Them
Finally, this strategy involves presenting your competitor’s products in a very different way so that you can differentiate yourself in the market.
You have to be creative when you use this approach because it can be difficult to come up with ideas on some products and services.
But if you can come up with something that no customer has ever seen before, you could potentially draw that customer base that was going to your competitors to your site.
What are your tips and tricks to push yourself past your competition? Share in the comments below.
Interested in more ways to balance your life and your business? Get a reminder with my HappyBot for my free Facebook Live trainings every Friday! happinessmatters.com/fblive
