Читать книгу 99 Marketing Mistakes - Kenyon Blunt - Страница 15

Mistake #9

Ignoring The Competition

Many small business owners ignore their competition, and sometimes it’s for a good reason. There are three reasons why:

1 Why waste your resources on competitors? Tracking your rivals takes time, wouldn’t that time be better allocated on your own business?

2 Focus on your customers instead. The majority of an entrepreneur’s time should be spent on his or her customers and finding out what they need.

3 Don’t duplicate problems. If you spend too much time analyzing the competitors, you may end up having the same issues they do.

Why You Should Track Your Competitors

On the other hand, when you ignore your competitors, you do so at your peril. Here are some reasons to focus on your competitors a little more:

 You may have to. What if you’re about ready to launch a new product offering, and your competitor beats you to the punch? By keeping an eye on your competitors, you can react before they do.

 Learn from their mistakes. Look at what your competitors have done recently. Where did they go wrong? Did they miss out on a specific prospect? Whatever they’ve done poorly, try not to make the same mistake.

 Watch out for your employees. Increasingly, your competitors come from within when ex-employees form companies. Understand if they could be a threat to your business.

How to Track Competitors

Here are some easy ways to track competitors:

 Pick three. Find three other businesses like yours and study their marketing like you were back in school. Pay special attention to the tactics they only do once and those they repeat every month. Learn from their mistakes and successes.

 Do a SWOT analysis. Look at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for each significant competitor and see if you can uncover some marketing opportunities.

 Use Google Alerts. A straightforward way of keeping track of your competitors is using Google Alerts. You can set up email alerts based on specific search terms allowing you to get essential updates on your competitors.