Some people think that competitors affect your business in a bad way. But the truth is, if you don’t have any competition you may not actually even have any customers. The thing to remember is that if there is competition, someone else has already proven the niche works to earn money.
Your competition helps you define yourself. When you know your competition and what they’re all about, you’ll know better what you identify with – especially to your audience.
By watching what others are doing (or in some case, not doing), you learn much about what to do next in your own business. But, best of all, you learn where the gaps are in your niche, or where others are failing your audience and you become the go to person for that topic.
FREE Checklist: How To Compete With Competitors In Business
8 Ways Your Competitors Affect Your Business For The Better
It’s natural to only think about the negative effects of competition in business. But the competition you have is not your enemy. In fact, you may find that in your niche you can work with your competition to reach even more people. And your competition can use you to reach more people too. Often you’ll find that if you work together with people, it’s very profitable for both of you. But, there are numerous reasons how your competitors affect your business in a positive way.
1. You’ll Know That Money Is Available to Be Made
When you study your competitors in business and find out that they’re earning money and are profitable, that’s a good sign that you’re on the right track with the niche you’ve picked. If you don’t find anyone, it may not be a good niche. Do you know where your business stands when comparing it to complementary businesses? This is an important thing to know so that you can work on being even more successful.
2. You’ll Get Insight into Whether There Are Enough Ideal Audience Members
As mentioned, if there isn’t any competition there may not be enough audience members to earn a profit. But if your competition is earning a profit, that means you can too. You just need to figure out how they do things and then do it a little differently.
3. You Can Learn Your Advantages and Disadvantages
Sign up for your competition’s newsletters, buy their products, and learn how they do things. Follow them on social media. Then make a note of how you do things better, and how you’re disadvantaged and maybe either do things worse or don’t yet have the technology to do things how they do them.
4. You’ll Learn More about Your Marketplace
When you follow your competition, you’ll have an opportunity to observe how competitors affect your business, your audience and the marketplace your audience enjoys hanging out in. This is a great way to gain an understanding of where to put your content, what they want, and how they like it presented.
Look at ways to convert your competition’s customer base to yours. You won’t be taking them away from the competition (and even if you did, it’s not your fault you’re better at what you do), but only giving the audience a wider spectrum from which to learn information and choose products.
5. You’ll Get More Insight about Your Audience
Even if all you do is join your audience’s Facebook groups and observe the conversations, you’re going to gain so much insight into your audience. What questions do they ask? What problems do they have? What solutions do they seem to respond most to?
Where do you stand in comparison to your competition? Keeping tabs on your competition is a great way to not only inspire yourself to do better but also to know where you stand as a business within your direct industry.
6. You Can Design a Better Plan for Reaching Your Audience
When you observe how your successful competition is getting things done, you can notice what they do well and what they do poorly so that you stand out against the competition. Online customers can tell you a lot about what’s working with the competition and what isn’t. For example, use the social media sites, forums and other sites to see what they’re interested or confused about and then offer solutions that nobody else is addressing.
7. Your Competition Helps With Your Market Research
Competitors affect your business with their marketing and advertising. Where is your competition placing ads? Where do they put their content? What social media do they pay most attention to? That’s likely where you need to be too.
Send out a survey to your customers occasionally to find out how they feel about your products and services. This information helps you discern how to compete in the niche you’ve chosen. For example, if your competition isn’t targeting a certain group in your niche, it becomes a perfect opportunity for you to become a leader in this area of competition.
8. You Can Use Your Competition as a Complement
Even though you want to stand out from your competitors, you can also use your competition to work with your business. For example, let’s say your competitor sells business-focused content and you do too. Why not create content that adds to the usefulness of your competitor’s content instead of creating the same content? Then you can technically promote theirs as an affiliate with yours as an upsell or bonus.
Free Checklist: How To Compete With Competitors In Business
You’re not doing all you can for your business if you don’t use the competition to boost your online presence. Gather intelligence first. When your competition is successful, you’ll be able to see what works and use the same techniques for your own success. It’s good to see failures, too because you won’t have to waste your time doing something that clearly doesn’t work.
The thing to remember most is that competitors affect your business in a positive way. Competition fuels ingenuity and makes everyone better. Your job is to make sure that your brand gets noticed. My free checklist shows you How To Compete With Competitors in Business, and provides actional tips on how you can reach your target prospects, provide a positively memorable experience related to what you have to offer and improve customer retention.
