Five Keys To Spying On Your Competition - Guerrilla Style
Keywords: marketing, branding, advertising, public relations, small business success, profits, entrepreneur
Call it research, but why kid yourself? What you are doing is spying.
And why not? How else are you going to know how your company and your product stack up against your competition? You must check out every aspect of your competition’s operation and then objectively compare it with your own.
A prim and proper traditional marketer refers to this as “market research” but a down and dirty Guerrilla Marketer knows it for what it really is — spying.
There are two basic schools of marketing. There’s Lemming marketing, which encourages you to follow the herd, to do exactly what everyone else is doing, even if that means leaping off a financial cliff to certain doom.
And then there’s Guerrilla Marketing.
Guerrilla Marketing demands that you put away your checkbook and instead use less costly resources, relying primarily on time, energy, and your imagination as your best and most effective marketing tools.
Know Your Enemy
Before you can launch an effective Guerrilla Marketing campaign you need to know as much about your competitors as possible. You need to appreciate their strengths and, just as importantly, you need to admit and acknowledge your own weaknesses in comparison. And then you need to do something about it.
Guerrilla Marketers don’t mince words. The way to evaluate your competition, the way to dissect their inner workings and expose their weaknesses is to spy on them, plain and simple. There are five very simple and straightforward keys that will allow you to lay your competition bare-naked on a slab in front of you for you to pull apart and examine at your leisure.
But before you do that, it is absolutely vital that you set aside your ego and that you are brutally honest not only about your competitor but also about yourself, your organization and your product. If you can’t be totally — and we mean totally — objective then find someone else who can be, someone with no emotional ties to you or to your business.
The 5 Keys to Spying — Guerrilla Style
1. Order something. Start by ordering something… from yourself. See how fast and how easy it is to order something from your own website or to buy something at your own store. Evaluate every step involved. Now order something from your competitor. Is your competitor’s ordering system faster? Easier? Does it leave you feeling better about your order than your system does? Does your competitor offer a back-end product? If so, appropriate the strong points of your competitor’s system and make your system better, faster, and easier.
2. Make a visit. Again, start by making a visit to your own store or your own website. Look around. What is your very first impression? How easy it is to navigate through your store or website? How easy is it to find what you are looking for? Can you get knowledgeable and friendly help when you need it?
Now stop by your competitor’s store or website and ask all of the same questions. Look at the smallest of details, because it is often in the details that a sale is made or lost. Again, make note of anything that your competition does that you could copy and improve upon to make shopping on your website or at your store more enjoyable.
3. Phone your competition. How friendly, professional, and helpful is the person who answers your competitor’s phone? Is there anything you can learn from this that can be applied to the person answering your phone? Make sure the person who answers your phone smiles when they say “Hello!” A smile can be heard on the other end of the line, and it can set the entire tone of a conversation.
4. Request something to be delivered to you by mail. It doesn’t really matter what you ask for. Ask for a brochure or a pricelist, and then see how quickly your request is handled. Is there anything you can learn from your competitor’s ability to handle a simple request? Be honest and try your best to beat your competitor.
5. Compare everything. Again, it may serve you well to ask someone else to do this, someone with no emotional tie to you or to your business — someone who can be brutally honest. Compare everything about your competitor and yourself. Your competitor’s appearance vs. your appearance, the look and layout of your competitor’s store or website compared to yours. Compare your competitor’s service, pricing, packaging, the people they have working for them, their selection of goods and/or services, their follow-up, the look and layout of their signage, the quality of their merchandise, their delivery, their attitude, and just the way you feel after doing business with them as compared to the way you feel after doing business with your establishment.
As a true Guerrilla Marketer it is up to you to make an honest evaluation and then to beat your competition on every single point.
Marketing Spitfires Holly George and Leslie Hamp are creators of the ‘Fast Track to Marketing Mastery’ program. To learn more about the step-by-step program, and to sign up for their *FREE* Marketing Mastery Success Kit, visit www.boostyourbottomline.com
Previous Articles Highlighter:
Secure High Pagerank Back Links With A Bidding Directory (1)
You can always add to your bid at any time thus controlling your position on that directory. For this reason it might be worthwhile to list on lower ranking bidding directories to start with.
Using Article Marketing To Boost Your PageRank (2)
Some business owners hire ghostwriters to write the articles for their article marketing and for their website content. This practice provides them with more time for other business activities.
How To Get Great Testimonials - And Actually Get Them In Your Hands! (3)
Testimonials are incredibly powerful tools that will turn real estate prospects into clients faster than any other type of marketing. Want more tips like these? Irene Dorang and The Agent Guide co-owner Michelle Blue offer free resources for real estate agents, affordable custom real estate web design and done-for-you real estate newsletters at www.theagentguide.com.
Mozilla Firefox Download - Things That I Like The Most (4)
Rest assured Firefox2 is not an illusion; it is a great browser and the Mozilla Foundation technicians work around the clock so Firefox can always live up to its promise of a better Internet experience for all who use this browser.
Scaling Up Your Business: How NOT To Paint Yourself Into A Corner (5)
The force behind the autopilot can be employees, remote assistants or computer automation. Automation is probably the best choice - scripts and programs don't take vacations or take off from work because their cat is having an existential crisis.
Outsourcing: Let Others Do The Dirty Work (6)
However, after a certain point, George needs to be doing all the stuff you no longer need to do on your own. The business owner who finally makes enough profit to reinvest in the business should look first at what is most desperately needed.
How To Begin Search Engine Opmization In 15 Minutes (7)
Here are some of my tips to better search engine optimization. Read this article again, apply them and you will see your website rocket through the roof! If you want to learn more about Search Engine Optimization and other aspects of website promotion, business, get the FREE newsletter by visiting: www.nkthen.com
Bulk Emailing - Is It Really Such A Good Idea? (8)
You can send your messages without fear of reprisals to a large list of your opt-in subscribers who have specifically given you permission to send information to them. This is the proper way to do this form of marketing and as such is very successful.
How To Have A Successful Links Exchange Campaign (9)
Make sure you set your business standards high. Good business Link exchange can be very useful in building important business contacts and higher rankings in search engines. With the tradition link exchange, only around ten percent of offers sent to the web site get a response.
How To Conduct A Successful Bulk Emailing (10)
This should also include releasing samples of whatever product you are planning to release in the future. The second step in the process of building anticipation is to give the readers/subscribers some reason to actually care that you are releasing this product in the future.
5 Things You Must Understand About Marketing To Any Niche (11)
Again, this goes back to establishing credibility: in order to market to that select group, which already has its experts and heroes, you will want to generate some type of proof for the quality of your product.
Some Quick Tips To Bring More Traffic To Your Website (12)
They should contain only factual information and be easy for the average reader to understand. Submit your articles to free article directories online, and soon you will start seeing more and more people coming to your site.
5 Biggest Niche Marketing Mistakes (13)
Don't make this mistake. Target your audience carefully. 2.Foregoing the beta testing phase. Most inexperienced niche marketers skip the beta testing phase. They don't like the idea of giving away their products for free, even if they will get something in return.
7 Top Tips To Niche Product Creation (14)
For example, you can ask your visitors what type of product they want - videos, ebooks, software, audios, or something else. 6) Join a membership site that generates niche product ideas each month.
7 Unstoppable, Tested Methods To Build Traffic For Your Website (15)
In exchange, you could give him compensation (weekly or monthly) or give him free access to your site. 2) Hire someone to find some quality reciprocal linking partners for your business.
Do You Need A Links Exchange Manager? (16)
Ways to Improve Traffic Flow to You Web Site To have visitors to your web site, search engines need to be able to find your web site. Many sites pointing to your web site are necessary and this does take some work.
How To Start Your Own Niche Product (17)
This time, based on the purpose and the segment of the market that you consider targeting, eliminate all products that you previously have in mind, everything that does not fall into servicing the particular market segment that you have decided on.
Enter Into A New Life As Secret Shopper (18)
Keywords: mystery shopping, secret shopper The world of a secret shopper is an ideal world for most who truly enjoys shopping. Secret shoppers not only get to do things that they love most, they also get paid.
Common MLM Pitfalls And How To Avoid Them (19)
Commissions on sales should be competitive with industry standards. Potential downline income should also be attainable and fairly distributed. Problems on either prong of the two-pronged MLM benefit structure can make a program far less beneficial than others.
Find Receptive Customers With Niche Marketing (20)
Someone did, after all, make a fortune by selling simple stones to the public simply by marketing them as "pet rocks." Imagine, however, just how incredibly successful a sales campaign could be if you already had an interested audience hungry for a product?
Newer Articles Highlighter:
Discover How To Powerfully Control Your Business (1)
Don't allow yourself to set up a business that ends up owning YOU. Take the time to evaluate what you are doing now, and how you can grow yourself out of working for your business like just another employee.
Advanced Networking Strategies - Create Your Own MasterMind Group (2)
Protecting the proceedings from prying eyes helps to concentrate the free flow of ideas and suggestions. Knowing that what you may say will be held confidential will allow you to speak from your heart, knowing that you won't be misconstrued.
Making A Hyper Responsive Opt-in Work (3)
Some people will not immediately buy the product that is offered but by keeping the names in the mailing list, it is possible that when a product of interest is on hand, the person will then buy.
Building Your Business With An Opt-in List (4)
Ask only for opt-in, with their full name and email addresses. Make sure that the profiles that you gather are updated to aid in improving the relevance, timeliness and satisfaction from each deal you make.
Utilizing The Secrets Of Optin Lists (5)
A lot of programs are milling about assisting regular computer users in making and maintaining websites in a real simple way. Some website creator just needs you to cut and paste, like that of a regular paint program.
How To Earn Or Make Online Money (6)
Start out by doing a little surfing. Perform some keyword research. You will soon find something to catch your fancy. Determine Your Target Audience Once you have determined your niche, it is time explore who your audience is.
The Ten Best Internet Marketing Strategies (7)
No they are not, but they are still a great way to advertise your website. There are websites that provide nationwide newspaper advertising distribution, I would recommend these over advertising in just your local paper.
Dangerous Traffic - Google Adwords (8)
Insert 2000 keywords that are related, somewhat related, and not related to your ad (using software and not even looking at the keywords). 4. Run ad. 5.
Revealed! Attraction Marketing Techniques Produce Results (9)
Thankfully at one point I realized that I needed to change my marketing efforts to attract more qualified, targeted people for my organization. Attraction marketing can bring you huge results if you can use it properly.
Things To Consider When Submitting To A Web Directory (10)
One of the more common methods, that has been used for more than a decade, is to add your site to web directories. There are free directories, paid directories, bidding directories and deep-link directories to name the most common types.
Every Contact Is An Email Marketing Possibility (11)
The customers know full well what type of business the person operates on the internet but are not sure what the website looks like because they have never had the opportunity to visit.
Pay Per Click Or Search Engine Optimization (12)
There are many forms of paid advertising such as email marketing, directory listings, banner advertising, and pay per click advertising. Today we will discuss the benefits of pay per click advertising.
Increase Traffic Using Local Internet Marketing Keywords (13)
A link made with the anchor text 'Washington SEO' will help the destination site to get ranked for 'SEO'. Using this method can help you to get ranked more quickly in the search engines, and will also be a safer way to get ranked for competitive keywords in the long run.
How To Start An EBay Business (14)
There are a few points that you must adhere to, to register. You must give a correct email address. If you don't, you will not be able to register.
How To Write A Good Sales Letter (15)
Also check out a book at the library and relearn how and where in writing to use punctuation. Substance is also very important when writing a good sales letter.
The Perfect Optimization Method For Online Advertising (16)
Using ROAS is a decent optimization method though it is far from perfect. ROAS ignores the fact that most companies don't have a flat profit margin across all products.
Affiliate Marketing And Home Business (17)
Many people start of with affiliate marketing programs from major search engines. If you are good at website design, you could register your page with someone such as yahoo publisher.
Earn Passive Income With Affiliate Marketing (18)
An affiliate marketing is a commercial arrangement between a trade merchant and a website owner. The website owner, that is you, allow the use of your blog or website for the promotion of the merchant's products by linking to the merchant's website.
What Factors Should You Consider When Choosing An Autoresponder? (19)
There's no point having an autoresponder with lots of great features if a large number of subscribers never actually receive your emails, so this should be one of the first things you look for.
Discover 6 Tactics Professional Internet Marketers Use On Their Sites (20)
The quickest way to get your customers to trust you is to sell them an inexpensive product of extremely high quality and let them see for themselves that you are knowledgeable and reputable.
Permalink to Five Keys To Spying On Your Competition - Guerrilla Style