How To
Hit The Competition Without Losing The Customer
by: Ray L. Edwards
Get over it! If
you run any type of business, you're going to have competitors.
Even if your product
or service is a unique one, soon you'll have copycat products
start surfacing. Competition is therefore just a fact of business
life and one of the 'virtues' of living in a capitalistic society.
Now that you are
over it, let's examine some ways in which you can hit your competition
without marginalizing your prospects. Your choices are about
the same as a politician's with regard to beating his or her
opponent.
So you can:
1. Drag your competitor's
name through the mud.
You can try and
discourage your prospect from dealing with your competition
by slandering their name and claiming their products to be inferior.
Only problem is that in the majority such cases this has the
opposite effect and brings more attention to your rival in business.
What happens is that people who knew nothing about your competitor
now go to investigate for themselves the validity of your claims.
I'm sure you've
seen this phenomenon where unknown books are banned, only to
make unto the bestsellers list.
This approach can
also backfire since you'll appear as a jealous and vindictive
business owner. Your arguments will appear more driven by feelings
rather than hard facts. This is therefore not the best approach
to take.
2. Making a recommendation
with a major reservation.
This strategy is
a little more ethical than the first but not anymore rewarding.
In this case you make a recommendation such as: "You are
welcome to buy your widgets from the XYZ company if your construction
is needed only for a few months, because that's how long they
last." Here you are really giving a compliment and then
undoing everything you said before. This may be a neat psychological
tactic but your business still appears in a negative light.
3. Invite an apple-for-apple
comparison.
When you invite
your prospect to compare your product side by side with that
of your competition, you are showing confidence in your product
without putting your competition down. So you can say: "I
invite you to compare our vacuum cleaner to any leading brand
and see the results for yourself. We are sure that you'll be
pleased by the results that you get from our latest model."
The interesting
thing about this approach is that most people wouldn't bother
to do the field test. Simply because you were not afraid to
acknowledge your competitor's product will instill the confidence
in your prospect to get your product. It will be assumed that
you already did the comparison and know the results otherwise
you wouldn't make such a claim. Even if someone did make the
comparison then you have a new testimonial to add to your file.
There are several
ways in which you can invite this comparison without making
a statement as I did above. You can use a table that juxtaposes
the features of your product against your competitor's. Such
tables can simplify the process of carrying out a test and 'help'
the prospect towards choosing your product.
Another effective
way is to quote credible sources such as Consumer Report magazine.
Such organizations are not supported by advertisers and so their
results carry real weight with the consumer. There are other
such third-party organization that are considered neutral and
their conclusions credible.
Outside of such
organization you can point to reviews done by users of your
products where the reviews are not used as an affiliate advertising
tool. You are looking to erase all bias in these comparisons.
You may also be
wondering how to address the case where your product is obviously
inferior to that of your competitor's. In such a situation,
you simply admit your faults openly. There are times when extra
features can be a useless luxury. For some people, a car is
just a convenience to take them from point A to point B. They
may not need the luxuries of a Porsche or have the money to
pay for such an expensive vehicle.
So let's say you
were selling an autoresponder script that is definitely not
as feature-rich as another script. You can state: "If you
are looking for high-end script capable of emailing to a million-strong
list and having all the fancy features that you'll never even
bother to use, then this script is NOT for you. However, if
you are looking for a small but rugged program that will deliver
your emails, without all the bells and whistles (and accompanying
high price) then the Maxemailer is for you."
Right away you
see that you are showing the customer that your script will
do the main thing that a product like yours should do, without
having to invest a large amount of money in its purchase. You
are admitting that your script is lacking in many features,
but in the end these components may not be necessary to get
the job done.
In addition, by
admitting to your products 'weak side' you build instant credibility
with the customer. Many marketers think that they have to hype
their products in order to get sales. But many marketing tests
have shown that if you admit to the disadvantages of using your
product, sales increase!
Here is how I hit
the competition on my copywriting service website:
"In fact,
I insist that you make a side-by-side comparison of my copywriting
results with that of any other copywriter. Then after doing
a 'split test' (i.e. run my copy against theirs) you can judge
for yourself the selling power of my copy."
For an online business,
your competitors are just one click away. Challenge your website
visitors to shop around and compare. Most will not.
They'll buy from
you instead!
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About The Author:
Ray L. Edwards
is a published author, copywriter and internet marketing consultant.
He has made tens of thousands of dollars for his copywriting
clients. Being an online market himself,he understands what
it takes to sell online and welcomes your inquiry about his
master copywriting service. http://www.webcopy-writing.com |