Developing a Marketing Plan That Will Crush Your Competition

When you're playing in the field of big business there are two groups of people you have to worry about: The people who are buying from you (your customers) and the people who would like them to stop buying from you (your competition). Since marketing involves not only emphasizing the value proposition of your products and services but also differentiating what your company has to offer from similar prospects laid forward by your competition, it pays to develop a marketing plan that's designed to do both as efficiently as possible.

The major mistake most marketers make, especially ones that are new to the game, is looking too closely at the marketing techniques used by their competition. If the competition has launched a TV ad, they think they should do it too. If their competitors have a price war going, they think they need to take part. Your competition is only one piece of a very big puzzle, however, and shouldn't be used as the framework on which your entire marketing plan is based.

If you really want to crush your competition, take time to find out what, exactly, your customers want. The competition focused approach doesn't take into account the fact that your competition could be spending too much money or targeting the wrong group of consumers-and really, do you want your profits to pay for their mistakes? Consumer needs change more slowly than your competition, allowing you to get your feet under you before making major changes to your marketing approach, and by listening to your consumers you know you're taking the right approach to helping your business grow.

Take, for example, the case of Amazon.com. Believing that the best way to jump ahead of their competition was to advertise on TV, Amazon's CEO launched a wide marketing campaign only to pull it off shortly after when he realized it wasn't working. Instead, the company started offering free shipping. They weren't campaigning the same way their competition was, but by giving their consumers what they wanted this "dark horse" managed to continue to dominate the E-tail industry.

It pays to listen to your consumers instead of trying to keep up with the Joneses.