Competition. Like it or not, when it comes to marketing, you are always competing with someone for the valuable dollar in your target market’s pocket. You may be blessed to have little, even no direct competition, but what else are you competing against? Moreover, you can be in a highly competitive field or industry. In any case, you still need to stand out above the crowd. There are various ways to do that in today’s digital marketing age — even with AI Search, and I’ll highlight some here.
Google and Standard SEO are NOT Dead!
First, you might think that AI Search is eliminating Google. Wrong! It’s enhancing it. It’s accelerating it. Like pouring gas on a fire.
Search is now a zero-sum game. When you get a click, a competitor isn’t. The pie has ceased to grow, which means we have to fight harder for our slice. Good SEO is even more crucial. You cannot rely on Google’s own growth to get your share; you need to wrestle it out of the hands of your competitors.
Search Engine Journal
“Out of the hands of your competitors”
I love that line. That challenge has not changed in the 30 years that I’ve been doing digital marketing.
If your website has been up for a while, where are you coming up when someone searches for your main keywords or phrases? Your goal is to improve that position. If you’re brand new, you’ve got some work to do.
How much competition do you have?
Let me give you some examples of clients of mine with low, medium, and high competition.
No or Low Competition
A few years ago, one of my clients opened the very first Rage Room in Tempe — in fact, in the whole state of Arizona. Being the first, he had no competition. He enjoyed being on the first page of Google search for “rage room Phoenix” and “anger room Tempe” among other phrases. Even if the searcher didn’t know the name of the company, he was found by searching for what it is. Most importantly, that’s one of the first things to remember when it comes to search engine optimization…
What is your target market going to enter into the search box to find what you are offering if they don’t know your name?
I’ll let that question sink in for a bit.
For almost 2 years, my client enjoyed being the only one in the Phoenix Valley till another rage room opened nearby in the East Valley. Someone later opened one in Deer Valley. My client can’t afford to become complacent. He now trades the top two spots with the one in Deer Valley. Obviously, he has to continue his marketing efforts. If he stops, the other guy takes over.
One Formidable Competitor
Another client of mine has only one competitor for the main aspect of his business. However, they are a formidable one. They publish an article at least 5 times a week. Yep, daily! So the challenge here will not be to bump them off, but to at least come up on the same page. The content strategy was to keep up with industry news and blog and post about it daily.
Medium Competition
Another one of my clients is my chiropractor. Specifically, he’s a Gonstead Chiropractor — that’s a particular method of chiropractic medicine. Some people search for that, and there are only a few in the Phoenix Valley. On top of that, he also practices holistic and functional medicine, which tries to find the source of the pain or issue rather than treating the symptoms. Besides that, he offers several weight-loss programs. Now, with that, he has a lot of competition.
He told me he liked working with older people, helping them with “healthy aging”. That gave me the idea for him to offer a “healthy aging screening,” which would get folks into the office, then he, depending on their medical problem, would offer various treatments. That helped him stand out and reach a specific target. We focus on sharing articles on healthy aging, and we’ve built a following with that strategy.
High Competition
In doing research for a client who has a faith-based clothing line in an ecommerce store, I discovered he had more competition than we both thought. His competition is national, if not global. I knew it was a competitive field going in, but I didn’t realize how competitive until I started doing searches online. All of a sudden, on my personal Instagram, I started seeing ads for faith-based clothing stores. Every day, a new one would pop up. Yikes! I first listed for him the top 8 that came up on Google search, and then I found 3 more significant ones from the Instagram ads. If he wants to be successful, he’s going to have to budget some dollars for paid ads.
How to Keep Up with Your Competition without them Knowing it
Yes, you can spy on your competition!
- How often do they blog? With the free e-news reader Feedly.com, you can subscribe to their blogs without them knowing or having to receive their emails!
- X (formerly Twitter) – Create a Private List on X and pin it to the top of your X app to monitor it. You can see how often they post, as well as what they are posting. Copy some of their ideas!
- LinkedIn – From your LinkedIn Business Page, you can follow your competitors’ business pages. From your business page, go to Feed in the left menu, then click on Manage Following and search for your competition. If they don’t have a LinkedIn Business Page, then you’re ahead of them right there!
Beating the Competition for Your Target’s Attention
Back in the day of only 3 TV networks and a morning or maybe an evening newspaper, the bolder headline and the snazzier commercial got your attention. A business tested ads with coupons to see if they were effective. They looked for ROI (Return on Investment).
Now, you’re not just competing against your business competition. Additionally, you’re up against everyone else that your target follows online and on social media, which includes but is not limited to:
- family
- friends
- celebrities
- entertainment
- major brands
- politics
- the latest news or trends
In other words, you’re competing for THEIR ATTENTION amidst a lot of noise out there.
So what’s a Small Business Owner Supposed to do?
First and foremost — clearly define your target market personas. You can have more than one. This free workbook will get you going in the right direction. - What makes YOU different? What makes you unique? What’s your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)?
- Research the target(s). Get to know your target. Where are they hanging out online? Do generations factor in? What are their pain points? What are their other interests? (That’s who else you’ll be competing with for their attention online.)
- What keywords are they going to enter into the search engine to find you? The keyword list will tell you which phrases are most searched for each month. It will also give you variations of keywords and phrases. You can get a list by location and try several different phrases. This list will help you write the copy for your website, social media network profile pages, as well as give you ideas for blog articles. Think about it — nothing better than to write about or do a video on the most-searched topics in your field! Use the free Google Keyword Tool.
- Who’s your direct competition? Do a Google search for your major keyword phrases and questions. Who comes up on the first page? Start with the top organic — non-paid — listings. Visit their websites. How often are they blogging, if they even have a blog? Are they on social media? Which networks? How many followers do they have? How often are they posting? What are they posting? Is location a factor? If they’re not blogging weekly, then you need to blog weekly, if not daily, to bump them down and you up. Obviously, if they’re not active on the social networks, then the more active you are, the faster you’ll grab their spot on page one. This becomes part of your strategic and tactical plans in steps 7 and 8 below. I can help you with this. Please book a free 15-minute Zoom call to discuss your options.
- Set up your website and social media networks optimized for search. Branding must be consistent throughout.
- Set SMART Goals. Pick the right metrics.
- Plan your strategic efforts for getting your target market’s attention and meeting your goals. If competition is low, then organic (non-paid) marketing should be sufficient until more competitors show up — and they will. If location is a factor, you may also get away with just doing organic marketing. Ecommerce sites or local businesses with high competition will have to budget in paid advertising.
- Then comes the tactical plan to implement the strategy. How many blog articles or videos will you do a week? How many posts to X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or LinkedIn per day?
- Then just do it. Yes, it takes time to build a following on social media and even to start getting traffic to your website. Clearly, you have to put in more time up front. Figure it will take at least 2-3 months — again, depending on how competitive your industry is — to start seeing results.
- Monitor and measure at the end of each month to see what worked and what didn’t work, and plan accordingly for the next month.
A Lot More Involved than You Thought, Right?
Take a lesson from Master Chef:
Do your best. Just hope that your competition does a lesser job or makes a mistake.
As you can see, it’s not as simple as putting up a website and doing a few posts or ads on Facebook. Furthermore, it’s complex. But it doesn’t have to be overwhelming if you take it one step at a time.
That’s where I come in. In short, I can help you get noticed and increase visits to your website. I can’t guarantee specific numbers — no one can. And anyone who does is fooling you. There are no short-cuts.
Let’s start with a free 15-minute phone consult, and I’ll review your current marketing efforts and see how we can beat the competition together.
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