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Look Beyond Direct Competition

Lynne Saarte

November 13, 2008

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When you look out at the marketing world around you, who exactly are you looking at? Most companies are going to take a look at their direct competition. They will see who has the best chance of taking away their business, and this is all they look at.

I can understand why and there is plenty of common sense in an approach like this. These are the people you have to consider when framing your marketing message because these are the people who are going to be directly challenging you for your customers.

But these are not by any means the only people you need to take time out to observe, because in truth you have a lot more competition from far more sources than just those in your industry.

When I sort through my mail and look at those postcards coming in, not every single one of them is from the same industry. I might have some postcards from a bookstore telling me about a good deal and one from a hardware store telling me about an upcoming sale, not to mention maybe one from a clothing store telling me I should see what they have in stock.

Are each of these businesses normally in direct competition with each other? Not at all, but because all of them are getting postcard printing done, all of them are now competing for my attention. If one of them sends a much better looking postcard than the others that postcard will not only stand out, but make the others look bad. The fact that each comes from a different industry does not really matter in this circumstance. They are still competing with one another.

So what can you do to keep track of this? Rather than just focus on an industry you need to focus on the marketing itself. If you do plan on getting postcard printing done to some research into every single company who is sending out postcards. You have to be aware of this kind of field of competition rather than just who the company is sending them.

The same is true for posters or any other kind of marketing you are going to do. If another company in a completely different industry is doing it as well you need to be aware of that and figure out what kind of impact it will have on you.

Yes, this can be kind of daunting to think about, I know, which is why I would focus on only one marketing campaign at a time for your research. If you are about to make color postcards see who else is doing those and leave it at that. Each time you plan on switching your marketing to another look at the field. Now you can see who your real competition is, and how you stack up against them.


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