Don't Shy Away From Your Competition

By Colleen Davis

In almost every single market out there you're going to have a lot of competition to deal with. While there are going to be a lot of other businesses, quite often a few specific companies crop up who will offer you the most direct competition, and when this happens, you have to be ready for it.

What you're doing is telling people that you're the best business for them. Well, why are you the best business, and why is it that they shouldn't go to the competition?

Something I see a lot are the companies who go out of their way to avoid ever mentioning their competition at all. They act as if they have no one else that they're competing against, and they certainly never name that competition in their advertising. When they print brochures they're only going to talk about what they want to, and do their best to focus on the strengths of their company while never bothering with the competition.

If you ignore your competitors too much you might find them undercutting your business when you weren't watching. There are two primary paths to take when you have strong competition, and I would suggest you pick one of them for your company.

The first is the direct challenge. I remember when Little Caesars first became popular in my area because of their low prices. Pizza Hut was the other primary pizza place, and they knew that they couldn't compete with Little Caesars when it came to pricing, so instead they focused on the fact that they delivered. Rather than just mention that they delivered, they instead specifically said that Little Caesars didn't.

They took the challenge right to their competition by telling people what the other company can't do.

The next approach is to study what your strengths are in relation to the competition, and then try to focus on those in your advertising. Let's take that previous example, and let's say Pizza Hut had used this tactic. What they could've done with their print brochures was to make sure to always mention that they deliver. Have this as the primary point of the brochures and avoid placing too much emphasis on low prices.

No, they wouldn't be specifically mentioning that the competition didn't deliver, merely boosting up that they did. This is still directly competing with Little Caesars because they're making sure to only place emphasis on the places they know they're the strongest in.

I can't say for certain which path is better. Obviously Pizza Hut chose the first one, and I'm not in a position to say how successful they were. Which one you choose will obviously be up to you, but I would suggest you look at both, because the stronger the competition is, the more you have to pay attention to them.

For more information, you can visit this page on print brochures