Virtual tips for the savvy business owner!

It’s easy to tell yourself that you know more than your competition, and in many cases, that’s probably true. But that doesn’t mean you should ignore the tactics and qualities they have. There’s a reason that you still call them “your competition” and not “the company I left in my dust years ago.”

Watch their practices. Analyze their site. What are they doing well that you could work on? There’s usually something there, and if you find it, it could be the first step in setting yourself apart.

This doesn’t mean you should abandon your strategies and methods; these are the reasons you are where you are today. Just make sure that you’re not missing an important share of your market because they have it covered.

My background is in the newspaper industry, and most recently, with The Seattle Times. If there’s one thing I learned during my time there, it’s that people will go where the product is.

When the other Seattle newspaper, The Post-Intelligencer, folded last year, we were concerned that this would lead to a decline in subscriptions. For decades, people had identified themselves as either a “Seattle Times reader” or a “Post Intelligencer reader” and we didn’t want to see those people stop getting their paper, like many media analysts were suggesting would happen. To the contrary, we found that when people enjoy a product, they’ll turn to whoever is supplying it.

Make sure you’re the one your customers turn to. If they look online, do they find you first? If they ask a friend, are they hearing your name? If the answer is “no” more oftehn than “yes”, take a look and find out what your competition is doing. It could be the key to taking your business to the next level.

Filed under: Marketing tips, Online Social Networking, Sales Strategies, online marketing, viral marketing