The best marketing strategy in a competitive environment (Game-changer)

There has never been more competition for your customer’s time, attention and resources than today.

Said another way…

Right now, you have more competition than at any other time in history.

And they are competing for your dollars.

What is the best marketing strategy in a competitive environment?
The best marketing strategy is always focused on the customer and executing these 6 steps:  

1. Define a clear and compelling value proposition. 
2. Communicate your value to a defined target market with your Marketing Mix. 
3. Maintain your customer list. 
4. Track and optimize your results. 
5. Scale.
6. Make searching for a breakthrough strategy part of your regular operations.

But on the flip side, there has never been more money circulating in our economy than any other time in history.

That is, there is more money available to you now than ever before.

In fact, it’s estimated that there is about $40 trillion dollars of physical money circulating, right now. And if you counted cryptocurrencies, savings, money markets, mutual funds and CD's, this number would be far, far larger.

Your business is striving to capture a fraction of this $40 trillion. Probably a similar fraction that your direct and substitute competitors are competing for (this is why a breakthrough strategy should be core to your regular operations).

In this article we are going to explore some marketing strategies that can help you not only compete, but gain a rock-solid competitive advantage in a hyper-competitive marketplace and capture as much of this $40 trillion dollars as your business can!

What are some marketing strategies to achieve competitive advantage?

Great marketing can make or break your business. 

That’s because there are only two chief functions of business:

1. Innovation, and
2. Marketing.

Everything else is a cost-center.

If you want to have a little fun, tell this to the lawyer in your office, your IT director, accountant, or the human resources director.

Then sit back and listen. Say nothing. Smile. 

The only person who will undoubtedly agree 100% of the time is the experienced CEO.

There’s a lesson there.

10 marketing strategies to achieve competitive advantage include:

1. Mobile-first marketing
2. Use "Free" in your marketing
3. Upgrade your product and tell your customers what you did for them
4. Charging a premium price
5. Position yourself as an authority
6. Use a celebrity
7. Providing more value for less
8. Communicate more often to your customers
9. Build more content
10. Provide more value to your best customers

Onward.

Since we are focusing on building massive sales revenue and creating a competitive advantage, let’s talk about your marketing and your competitive advantage.

The job of marketing is to:

1. Gain a customer, and 
2. Keep a customer.

Nothing else matters.

That’s because without proper marketing, you have no way to reach new customers, keep current customers up to date on new products and promotions, and you will struggle to convert leads into paying customers or clients.

But you know better. 

Especially since you have tons of incredible resources at StrategicMarketingPartner.com to help you.

Now is the time to focus on developing your competitive advantage.

Let’s first discuss what a competitive advantage is, and then let’s exploit it with a plan (see below) you can take to the marketplace.

Investopedia defines a competitive advantage as:

A company's ability to produce something more efficiently than a rival, which leads to greater profit margins. 

A good answer, but they are only seeing this highly important factor through one lens. 

Let’s go deeper.

Here’s how Dictionary.com defines “competitive”: 

As good as or better than others of a comparable nature.

Here’s how Dictionary.com defines “advantage”: 

A condition or circumstance that puts one in a favorable or superior position.

Now we are getting somewhere.

Your definition of a competitive advantage in marketing is:

Your customers believe your brand is better than the competition because of your superior marketing.

For now, you will have to trust that your sales, manufacturing, R&D, and operations teams will deliver upon your value propositions. For this reason, this is why marketing touches every department in the house and is integrated into every portion of the customer experience.

But more about this at another time.

What you are about to develop now is a game-changer for your competitive advantage and will separate you from your competition.

Five steps to develop your competitive advantage in a competitive environment: 

1. First, find the message that most resonates with the customer.

We do this through testing. This is where the heavy lifting is done and the hardest part of marketing. It’s called “finding fit”.
This message has to be so compelling that the competition doesn’t matter. In this case, make the benefits to your customer that you are delivering so compelling that they are only thinking about the results they will get as a result of your message. 
If you focus on the benefits, and not the mind-numbing factoids, that your product or service provides, you will gain an immediate competitive advantage. I would suggest that you don’t stop at finding just one competitive advantage here. This process is never ending for a great marketer (go here to learn how to do this). And is why marketers make so much money because they know how to find fit.
After all, having two productive unique selling propositions that make sales is far better than just one. The more the better.  Get good at finding fit. Go here to learn how to develop a winning unique selling proposition (USP).

2. Second, make them an offer they literally can’t refuse.

This offer has to be so compelling that the competition isn’t even a factor.  The best and quickest place to start to develop your competitive advantage is:  

Can I offer something for “Free” in order to win my customer’s time, attention and resources? 

If you can, this will make the competition non-existent and you will gain an immediate competitive advantage.  Go here to learn how to use “Free” in your marketing.

3. Third, make-good on this promise.

This is the job of your customer support and order fulfillment team, i.e, the sales team, IT, warehouse, shipping, admin, etc.  Depending upon your industry, by simply meeting your customer’s expectations in this part of the process you might gain an immediate competitive advantage. But, this is where you can shine! 

This is where you can integrate your referral marketing strategy, your business card marketing, your feedback loop (surveys), and your strategy for what to sell to your customer next -- where the big money is actually made (the second sale and beyond). By properly using email and direct mail, you can automate a lot of these marketing strategies. And by staying ahead of your customer at this phase, you will gain an immediate competitive advantage.

4. Fourth, and by far the most important, continue to service this customer long into the future through great marketing.

Notice that this isn’t an isolated event. We already talked about the item above. That’s because it's all connected and part of the marketing process.

Now is the time to implement your Recency, Frequency, Money analysis for marketing. Do this, and you will gain an immediate competitive advantage. No joke. Identify your segments as we outline and use email marketing and direct mail. Your savings account and the CEO you work for will thank us. 

5. Fifth, it's time to rise above and lock in your competitive advantage.

In step 1-4 above, do your best to set up systems to make it as easy on yourself as possible.  In this last step, we are going to squash the competition in two ways:

1. By making progress in small increments. It's called incremental growth and it happens by regularly getting 1% better at all the "little things" your team does from invoicing, to voice mail, to direct mail to cleaning the refrigerator on and on. Over time, this will make your business and marketing 10%, 25% and 110% better, putting more money in your pockets and taking it away from your competitors. This in itself will give you a competitive advantage.
2. The second part of this is where you are going to strive for a breakthrough in business, and make it part of your daily, weekly, monthly operations. This is where massive quantum changes can occur.

How do you execute these two steps?

It's called “ideation” and you regularly brainstorm.

Go here for exactly how to do these two steps, including finding your breakthrough strategy.

Its this process of finding a breakthrough in your business that will help you create a far larger fraction of the $40 trillion dollars floating around the economy.

If you need assistance along the way, Your Strategic Marketing Partner is happy to help!