Attracting new customers is vital for any successful business. This can be difficult when you’re competing in a market with a lot of competition.

This article will give you different strategies you can use to attract customers from your competitors.

Creating a Superior Value Proposition (Your ‘So What’ Factor)

When you go shopping for just about anything (groceries, household goods, lawn equipment, healthcare products, etc), you will likely see multiple options on the shelf. 

Even for something as simple as eggs. There isn’t too much that’s different about one farm’s eggs vs another at a first glance. Though there is quite a bit of competition. Take a look at the different results that show up on Amazon for example:

There is SO MUCH competition going on with this one product and there are quite a few differentiating value propositions at play. Here are a few worth considering with this example:

• Quantity of eggs
• Price
• Packaging
• Reviews
• Delivery
• Cage free vs Free range
• Local or National Brand
• Organic
• Nutrition Facts
• Brand

One could even say that some competitors, egg-agerate their branding to sell the same eggs you could get from another competitor at a higher price. 

Imagine that, by having the right value proposition, some brands have carved out a niche in the market where they can get more customers even though they cost more. For example, Organic Valley costs $5.69 vs 365 Everyday which is $4.49, yet it could be assumed that Organic Valley sells more eggs because they get more than 5x the number of reviews!

With the right value proposition, you can do the same thing with your product/service to attract customers away from your competitors. Here are some questions you should consider to find the right value proposition:

• How does your price compare to the rest of your competitors in the market? Can you maintain a realistic ROI if you lowered your price?
• What do your ideal customers care about? Quality, affordability, convenience, etc.
• How well known is your brand and what are you known for?
• Consider the 7 Ps (product, price, promotion, place, people, process, and physical evidence) for your product or service.
• Is anyone else doing what you are doing?
  • If they aren’t, why might that be and could that be a differentiating factor customers should know more about?

It can be tough to consider what value proposition you should use to differentiate yourself. If you want to brainstorm value proportions to help attach customers from your competitors, then schedule a free consulting call.

Digital Marketing Channels to Attract Customers From Competitors

Now that you know what distinguishes your brand from competitors, you can start looking for channels where you can get new customers from your competitors.

Unless you’re in a new market with a new need to fill. It’s very likely that you will need to attract customers from competitors to get more clients simply because people are using a solution for their problem. 

Here are the different digital marketing channels you could use:

• Paid Search
• Organic Search
• Social Media
• Email Marketing/SMS Marketing

Paid Search Boxes Out Competition

There are two major strategies for conquesting against the competition. Either by bidding on their brand terms or by beating them out on neutral product/service terms.

Bidding on neutral product/service terms allows you to establish yourself. You can then see which competitors are bidding on these same terms in the auction insights.

With this information, you can do the following:

• Look up their website and read their product/service material
• Determine what their key value propositions are
• Think about your advantages vs their value propositions (are you lower priced, higher quality, more established as a brand, etc).
• Then make sure you accentuate your advantages in your ad copy
  • For example, if you are lower priced then it could be a good idea to give a lowest price guarantee or give the exact price in the ad

This should allow you to get more clicks vs your competitors on the same terms that you’re bidding on. 

You should also consider bidding on their brand terms. After you know what your advantage is, you could create a campaign to intercept people looking for their brand name. This will directly help you attract customers from your competitors by literally getting them to go to your site instead of theirs because you have a more compelling offer.

Organic Search to Compare Yourself to Competitors

This usually takes more time because your competition tends to rank better on their own brand. Over time there are few ways you can dominate their organic search results. Here are a few different content ideas to get you started:

A competitor comparison article: you could very easily take what you know about your product then compare it to what they offer in the market. Either you could do a 1 to 1 review or add multiple competitors to one article. You could attract customers from a specific competitor by making an article about them or you could generally let customers know about what differentiates you vs other products in the market. Both options are ideal if you can do it, though for specific competition, a specific article is recommended so you can be more contextually relevant.

A review article: instead of comparing yourself to your competition, you could write a review about their product. This content can rank very well and is useful for social media (we will get to that later). You do need to come from a non-bias narrative or third party perspective with this article. If you don’t, the content is less likely to be considered by potential customers because it may lack credibility.

An industry article: you could also write an article about a problem in your industry that your product addresses while discussing your competition to a degree. This would allow you to rank on similar terms you’re both competing for while showing customers why your product is so useful for solving their problem.

Generally blogging: as long as you’re going after similar terms that competition is also going after, having an ongoing content strategy to rank on specific keywords can be very helpful too!

Social Media & Indirect Competition

People spend a lot of time on social media. Approximately 147 minutes per day to be exact. When they’re on social media, you might think….what are they doing for over 2 hours?

Generally speaking people like to use social media to connect with family/friends while also exploring their own interests (either by consuming or creating content).

Unlike search, social media is a disruptive marketing tool. We’re trying to intercept people with content that relates to their interests instead of capturing intent by giving them a solution to their search.

The way you beat your competitors is by showing up at the right moments. Of the time that people spend on social media, you should consider whether you’re showing up in their feed and what you’re trying to get people to do.

Social media is a mix of branding and performance marketing so there are two different approaches you can use to attract customers from competitors here.

1. Create content that relates to your customers interests and have it also relate to your product. You’re not trying to directly sell your product, rather, show up in an engaging manner. This helps build your relationship with your potential customers so they are more likely to be interested in your product vs your competitor. When they’re engaging with your content they’re also not engaging with the competition.

2. Provide offers and generally promote your product. Of the people on social media, some of them might be ready or more qualified to buy from you. They may have been doing their research already but haven’t chosen yet. Having a remarketing campaign or simply being present can help you get more customers by giving you more touch points vs your competitions. The difference between you and your competitors could be as simple as being present at the right time with the right offer.

Email Marketing, SMS, & Other Direct Marketing Mediums

These marketing channels have some similarities to both social media & search. Direct marketing of this nature gives you the ability to reach someone that already signed up for your email list which gives you a higher degree of intent potentially. While it also allows you to intercept people that may not know about you but have similar characteristics to your current customers (job role, location, signed up for similar products, etc).

In an ideal world, you could get a hold of your competition’s email list then send them all emails to show them how great your product is vs your competitors to attract customers from them.

Unfortunately that’s not how it works, but you can do the following to attract customers from the competition:

• Promotion messages – this can be great if you have a similar product and want to get someone to try your product by giving it to them at a lower price.

• Informational messages – I like to think about things in terms of problems, solutions, and results. Finding ways to highlight their problems, what you do to solve them, and how you have solved them for other people. 

• Entertaining messages – build the relationship with your customers. Give them something witty to read for a moment to break up their work day. Then add some useful information on what your product does and how it can help solve their problems.

• Direct messages – if you have a really high intent audience of people that are ready to buy. You could just be direct and give them product information along with an option to buy.

The last thing I will mention with this channel is that brevity is an artform and you should try to attract their attention first before you give them more information. That and these messages usually happen over several correspondences…not in one email or text.

Final Thoughts

Attracting customers can be difficult without the right plan and the right experts to execute on your plan. 

If you need help attracting customers from your competition, then you should book a free consultation with us today. We would be happy to help!