Tabitha Jean Naylor — August 4, 2017 — August 4, 2017
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You may think your competitors are your worst enemy but in fact, that enemy can actually provide you with a wonderful learning opportunity. When your goal is to stay ahead of the pack, knowing which strategies work and which don’t is vital knowledge to your online marketing success. Your competition can provide you this type of knowledge… you just have to know where to look for it.
Develop Better Self Awareness
Your competitors can force you to take a look inward to review your strengths, as well as identify areas you can improve upon. Researching how your competition handles things like customer service can shed light on things you yourself might need to think about changing. People expect immediate answers, since communication channels are so widespread and fast-paced. In fact, 42% of consumers expect to receive a response within an hour of posting something on social media.
So…
- Is your competition too slow to respond? If so, change your response times to better satisfy people. It demonstrates that you’re listening and that you’re attentive.
- Do your competitors ignore customer concerns? Businesses often only address the positive feedback and ignore any potential negative feedback. Acknowledging people – regardless of their thoughts about your company – will help you to develop a more trusting relationship that demonstrates you care.
While customer service and marketing may seem to be two different departments, in the age of online reviews and consumer based social media, they actually go hand in hand. Exceptional customer service will help with client retention.
Successfully Utilize Social Media
Your competitors are engaging with a similar audience that you’re trying to attract, so it only makes sense to take a look how they use social media.
- Platforms: Take a look at the different types of platforms your competitors are using to interact with their customers and emulate their approach.
- Consumer Attention: What types of posts are getting the most engagement from consumers? Are they success stories, curated posts or something else? Take a peek at the CTAs they are using to learn which ones are the most effective. You can do this by evaluating which posts are generating the most engagement though likes, shares and comments.
- Posting Frequency: Take a look at how often your competitors are posting. This will give you a general idea of what your audience considers useful. Building your following is a delicate balancing act. You want to ensure that you’re posting enough to retain their attention, but not so much that you annoy them and they become disengaged. Knowing how your competitors approach this balance of post frequency can help you keep your fans happy AND grow your following through more consumer engagement. The more they like a post, chances are much higher that they will share it with others.
- Timing: Pay special attention to the time of day that your competitors get the most engagement. You are trying to identify days of the week – and times – when people in your target audience are active and engaged. Understanding peak periods of traffic for your niche will give your content a higher chance of going viral and being seen by the most people possible.
Proper Link Acquisition
Doing your own competitor backlink analysis is crucial to a successful marketing campaign since it will:
- Provide you with more insight about your industry
- Provide inside information into how your competitors are acquiring their links, strategies they use and their rankings
- Give you a list of sites you can target on your own for linking purposes
Before you start on your own link building campaign, you’ll want to first use your Internet sleuth skills to find out more information about your competitor’s backlinks, including which are of value and which are spam, as well as potential link sources you can reach out to.
Conclusion
Remember that online marketing isn’t one-size-fits-all. There are certain marketing strategies that’ll work for one company within the same industry that won’t work for the next. Take detailed notes about your competitors, including things they are doing well and things they could improve upon. Monitor what they’re doing and notate these changes too. The results of your marketing campaign will be better for it as a result.
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