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Why A Website Needs A Strong Call To Action
Why spy on your competitors? It helps you create your own value proposition It helps you develop your own business strategy It helps you establish benchmarks Whether you are disrupting the industry with a completely different approach to your competitors, or following what your competitors do, but BETTER, competitor analysis helps you work on your business, not in your business. Step 1: Determine who your competitors are Identify who you is your competitor and who isn’t. If you are operate a Café in Brisbane CBD, then not all cafes within the 50km radius are your competitors. Look out for the most similar ones to your business idea based on factors such as: Who are you targeting? Coffee enthusiasts or hot chocolate drinkers? Plant based milk options or standard milk options? Office workers or leisure drinkers? What are you offering? Quick service or comprehensive service? Takeaway based or in store dining? Small bites, or sit down meals? What is your price range? Budget friendly or premium coffee experience? Specialty coffee beans or standard coffee mix? Meal combos or set menus? This allows you to react faster to changing market conditions, and compete with your competitors on the same plane. A new takeaway corner coffee shop for office workers is not a competitor of the Japanese café for students, although they are in the same industry. Knowing who are your competitors is the first step to familiarising yourself with your own brand strategy and will help you get clear on your business plan. Step 2: Identify the winning strategy your competitors are using Once you have identified your competitors, the next step is to identify the reason why they are successful. You are asking "Why are they currently successful?" and "What are they doing right?". Is your product or service going to be superior to what is currently on the market? If so, how will you package your product so that you can incorporate this into your own business plan and strategy. Learning from other people’s success will help you to grow faster from the beginning because chances are they are doing something right and it pays to take notice. If the winning strategy is 'buy one get one free', then what's the downside of not using the same promotional technique? Step 3: Analyse your competitor's target audience There is no 'right' or 'wrong' target market, and our job is also not t o make people go from one target market to the next. Our job is to identify the opportunity and what target markets already exist, and then offer them our product and services. If you are having trouble identifying your own target market, then an easy way to get started is to see if you can identify the target market/audience of some brands you are familiar with. Some things you can think about include: Are my competitors doing a good job on promoting to their target audience? Are my competitors' marketing message clear? Are my competitors targeting similar segments? How close will my target market be to my competitors? Why is my competitor targeting this segment? Is it fair to say that my competitor is doing a good job at identifying opportunities in the market? Is one target audience segment worth more than the other? How many target audience segments are my competitors focusing on? How has the target market of my competitor changed over time? All of the questions above, although are directed to your competitor, are also worthwhile to ask yourself with . The more clear you are on these topics, the easier your marketing job will become. Even if you decide on a certain target market/audience now, it may change with your capabilities and natural growth of your company. Step 4: Work out your competitor's price offerings Remember the question "Is one target audience segment worth more than the other?" in step 3? This is related to uncovering your competitor's pricing strategy and price offerings. There is a fair market price for every product and service, since ultimately what you can charge is also equal to what your customers are willing to pay. The benefit of looking at what your competitors are doing is that you can identify where you can price your own products and services, relative to your competitors. It is important to get clear on this, as you don't want to be price too high, neither too low . If you are offering more inclusions than your competitor, you may want to charge more for it . However, how much more? $10 more, $100 more, $1000 more? Or, will you be offering a cheaper price for a certain target market segment but not the other? If you are offering hand made organic skin care products, how much is too much to charge your customers? Your competition, if successful, most likely would have figured out their own sweet spot in terms of pricing. Remember to think about your price as a factor that determines your revenue, and subsequently your profitability. Step 5: Analyse the engagement of your competitor's content You can tell when your competitors are doing a good job at promoting their products and services if engagement levels are high. Take a look at their existing marketing channels: Are people talking about their services and products? Do people share stories and positive brand experiences with others? Is information on the competitor easy to find and access? How many channels does your competitor maintain? Are customers commenting on the content? Does your competitor have a loyalty club? If so, how are members rewarded through loyalty levels? How often is new content being produced? Does your competitor have sell out events? etc. On top of these questions, you can also look at how they interact with various parties - their own company employees and vendors and suppliers. Just remember that brand recognition is built over time, so you can take your time deciding on the direction you want to take that will maximise the payoff for your company when you are just starting. Step 6: Compute your competitor's profit and turnover One of the trickier items, is to look at how your competitors are operating as a business. Yes, a company can be doing all things right, but is it ultimately profitable? That's the big question that we need to ask, and the most important metric to look at when you are just starting out. If you only have 5 months to work on your business and the business is not yet profitable by that time, will you keep running your business? Or will you close down? Step 7: Take a look at their marketing strategy T Thanks for reading, if you would like to leave a feedback on the blog or newsletter, please go to https://forms.gle/ZVfVcD4eNz5fpStX8
Step 1: Prepare and produce content The first step to creating a brand is to gather the content that you have and package them into resources that you can use. Even if you just started, you can still gather content that will help your business get started on the right foot. Get clear images of high quality resolution There's no surprise that a poor quality image is simply not acceptable as it significantly detracts from the visual appeal of whatever it is you are attaching the images to. Even if it means retaking the photos using the front camera, or switching to a simple digital camera, will do wonders to all your content. When you are displaying images in a big size, a poor image quality will instantly look more pixelated than what’s ideal. Film videos of when you just started You just started your business! Have fun and enjoy the process! Filming your journey can serve as important keepsakes later on when you build your company history. You won't need a fancy camera (unless you're a photographer by trade), just take some standard photos of: yourself your equipment your shop front your happy customers/friends/mentors your printed logo/business card your vehicle your area of service your product your product's materials etc Have concise text material Simple is good, short is better. All of your text communication should sound the same, so that people can familiarise themselves with how you communicate. It is very helpful to establish some guidelines of what can be included in text material and what just does not make the cut. Get your brand value and slogan hammered out What do you stand for? Why choose your business over others? Is there a problem that you are solving for customers? A pain point you help customers avoid? Perhaps your unique proposition can stand out with a catchy slogan to get the word out! Step 2: Tell your full brand story You and your brand have a story to tell your customers. It can be about: How you started What your big plans are What made you offer your services Why choose you over other providers The challenges that you overcame by setting up this business The wonderful things you learnt The point of creating a story is so that when someone asks you "what do you do?" you won't just answer it in a simplistic or boring way. Instead, you will have already created a story about your journey and your impact, that will captivate your audience and make them want to do business with you. Story has been a way humans process information since the beginning of time. Your story will most likely have a: Beginning/Plot - where you were before you started Conflict/Drama - what challenges you faced and overcame Resolution - where you are now Why - why people should care and work with you To keep this engaging, try to have a story that you can tell your friends and acquaintances in 5 - 10 min . Step 3: Create your unique value proposition Products and services If a customer needs to get a job done, do you have the resources to complete it within their definition of the problem? If so, how much will you offer your services for? What prices will you charge? Gain creators What do customers care about? Are you helping people save money? Are you helping people live a better life? Think about all the positive outcomes a customer can achieve after using your product and service and why they should even tune in. Pain relievers Are you helping people to recycle their material? Are you providing faster service so that people won’t need to wait weeks? Pain aversion and avoidance is often the number one reason why consumers purchase a product. Step 4: Align yourself to industry best practices Talk to established business owners about what to look out for as a newcomer in this industry. Chances are there are services and resources in place to help you get started with your business idea. You can seek help from business owners that are within the same field, online forums, and government resources. There are plenty of resources related to: Marketing Hiring employees Tax Accounting Licensing and permits Grants Step 5: Create shareable content Creating content that will engage customers and users across platforms and marketing channels early on means that you will be able to build a r ich resource of content that you can use over and over in different formats. Tell a story Similar to creating a story brand, you also want to tell a story about 'Why should people work with you or purchase your product?'. You can highlight on your target market, and tell a story about how a particular group of people can benefit from your product and service. For example, if you run a Chiropractic Practice. Target market: elder people aged 60 and above Problem: people don't go to a chiropractor until it's too late Storyline: how an elderly woman went to the chiropractor and cured her neck pain problem of 7 years See how easy it is for customers to start spreading the story such as the one above, and it instantly creates an environment where you'll be the hottest Chiropractic Practice in town? Validate your audiences opinions and values Based on your audience, what messages will they resonate with the most? Finding the voice of your audience can help you reach and move people within your community. As a new brand, your main customers will be early adopters of your service. You will need to focus on them so that you have a deliverable product or service that will later on get adopted by the mainstream customers. Helpful resources Is your content actually useful information for your customers? Will they tell their friends about it? If you are a Photographer, some potential helpful resources you can create are: Tips on posing for family photos Pre-shoot consultation and introduction Photography equipment recommendations Photography sets that can be pre-purchased Complementary video editing etc. Creating resources is all about creating value for your customers so that there is a value exchange. One of the biggest road blocks new businesses face is that people think they have 'nothing to offer'. However this is simply not true. There will be something that you know that others don't. When you produce and provide resources, you are creating a invitation for customers to interact with your business through multiple channels and on a higher frequently. Keeping customers engaged after they purchase, will make them come back! Include different formats Print, text, images, videos, podcasts etc. Pick a medium that you are familiar with and start there. Once you are confident, then you can spend some more time and energy to get professionals to help you out in areas which you lack. It's okay to ask for help! Thanks for reading, if you would like to leave a feedback on the blog or newsletter, please go to https://forms.gle/ZVfVcD4eNz5fpStX8