If you are going to copy (or creatively swipe) don’t copy from your competition or own industry, it just produces sameness. Find another industry, look at what they are doing and do what they did. But don’t mimic the product, just mimic the process they used.

If you’re looking at building a community online go to Lego or Harley Davidson. If you want to radically change your customer experience look at Starbucks or Apple. Thinking about word of mouth marketing, consider what Ikea and Amazon did. Large companies I know, but so what? It worked for them and it can work for your small business.

Discover what they did, how they did it and then challenge yourself, your team and, if you’re adventurous enough, your customers to create similar developments. It’s likely that you will identify things that are just not done in your industry and that what will set you apart. Nice!!

Competition is interesting sure. However, we spend far too much time watching them closely. We get sucked into copying them and then wonder why we end up in a mediocre place. Whilst we are looking over our shoulder observing their every move, we forget to plough our own furrow. Creating that new product, developing a customer experience that people find hard to match. Recruiting the best in the business or even reinventing ourselves.

And why do we then find it hard to do our own thing? Because we can’t afford to, we just got ourselves into a price sensitive marketplace as we aren’t different nor better!

The point…make sure there are enough sharks in your moat so to speak! If you like it there is more on YouTube.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=MvLhVkNV5-s

It’s more important in these times than ever to be tuned in to what’s happening out there. Today is a good place to start considering how you are going to take advantage of these interesting events! And it’s a great time to know these five things:

1. Out of site, out of mind…..marketing on a consistent basis is essential not only for survival but growth. Customers forget very quickly what you do. Marketing gives you your profile, it builds your reputation and it reinforces that you are still there to existing customers. To stop marketing is a quick walk to the the edge of the cliff!

2. Your competitors won’t go away. If they are switched on they will be deciding on their next amazing strategy that’s going to attempt to woo your customers away from you. They’ll be thinking about how they can be more creative than you, offer a better customer experience than you and communicate far more clearly what they do than you are doing at present. They are never far away cooking up something that will blow customers socks off!

3. With existing customers you have to maintain their state of mind, with potential customers you have to change their mind. Existing and potential customers are different, so develop a strategy that reflects that!

4. Marketing is not a one off event, it’s a series of events over a sustained period of time. That means it rarely brings results immediately. Commitment to the long haul is required, investment of realistic time and money essential and an understanding that it will be at least three months before results start to show is a hard dose of reality. Stop moaning your marketing is not working and give it a reasonable chance! 

5. Keep ahead of the game. If you want to know how to market, ensure you have a sound understanding of what is working and what is ‘old school.’ Read, read and read…yep for some that’s boring but get attuned to the latest trends. Get signed up to Seth Godin’s blog, buy the latest leading edge thinking in marketing books and subscribe to at least one magazine that pushes your thinking such as Fast Company!

If you are not keeping up, you are almost always falling behind.

In the New Scientist (19th April 2008) they mention in their Evolution feature on page 30 that “You Don’t have to be perfectly adapted to survive, you just have to be as well adapted as your competitors are.” Whilst this may be true in the animal kingdom, evolution over a relatively short time in the business world, has determined those days have long gone. Thank goodness!

Being good enough to be just as bad as your competitors sends an interesting and telling message to customers. Those companies that are doing well in crazy times are breaking the rules, generating creativity, standing out from the crowd and, perhaps in some instances, not giving a damn what their competition is doing.

Differentiating ourselves at every stage in the business process is mandatory. Knowing what makes us distinctive and then communicating that in a compelling message captures customers imaginations.

Sometimes it’s the right thing to do your own thing!

Learn a little more in the free e-book at www.clarityprojects.co.uk