How to Win Over Your Competitors’ Customers

by Yvonne | Dec 27, 2015 | Small Business Marketing

Would you like to win more business from your top competitors’ customers?

It’s easier than you might think to figure out who your competitors’ customers are and then persuade them to try your own product or service. The secret is to do your research using social media.

Here are five simple steps you can use to capture the attention of your competitors’ customers who have already purchased products or services similar to what you have to offer.

Step #1: Do Your Research

In order to get the attention of your competitors’ customers you need to first understand what makes them tick.

Start by asking yourself some key questions about these customers.
– What is your competitor selling them?
– What do their customers like about their product?
– What do they dislike?
– How are your products or services better than what they are buying from your competitors?
– Do you have a better solution to their problems?

Social media hold the keys to getting these answers quickly and easily.

Start by checking out your competitors’ profiles and postings on Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, Instagram, Pinterest, Amazon, and so on.

• Do your competitors have online reviews?
• What are their customers saying about their products?

You can also set up a Google Alert to notify you whenever your competitor’s name or individual product names are mentioned anywhere on the web.

Some basic research like this will give you plenty of insights that will help you figure out how your products or services are different from and/or better than your competitors’ products and services.

Step #2: Connect With Your Competitors’ Customers

Now you are in a position to use social media to target your competitors’ social media followers and fans with an intriguing offer or message.

It’s easy to do this on Facebook and Twitter because they give you the exact tools you need to advertise directly to these customers.

Facebook lets you create a Lookalike audience consisting of the fans of your competitors.

Twitter offers Follower Retargeting to create audience segments based on the businesses they already like.

Step #3: Impress Your Competitors’ Customers

The next step is to impress your competitors’ customers with an attention-getting offer that is genuinely interesting and valuable to this target market.

You’ll need to set up a one-page website (known as a landing page) with an offer and a form that people must fill out to claim the free offer, discount, or other incentive you are advertising.

By requiring people to provide their name and email address (at a minimum) to claim the offer, you are creating a highly valuable email list that will be a genuine asset to your business and help you make more money easily.

The easiest way to create a landing page that will get people interested in your product or service and collect names and email addresses is to use a software tool called Lead Pages.

At this stage, you should not be focused on making a sale. Your goal is simply to attract the attention and interest of potential customers with a valuable free (or discounted) trial offer and get them onto your own proprietary email list.

Step #4: Sell

Once a potential customer has subscribed to your email list, then you can take the next step and invite them to buy something.

Since the people on your list have already indicated an interest by providing their name and email address to you, the sales process will be easier and faster.

Since you have already delivered value in the form of a free or discounted product or service and cultivated some goodwill, your potential customers will be more likely to buy when given the opportunity to do so.

Step #5: Retain

Now that you have ethically attracted the interest of your customers’ customers, you must work to cultivate their loyalty and retain them as a long-term customer.

The easiest way to do this is to ask your customers what else they want or need that you can provide them .. and then give it to them.

Get More From Your Advertising Dollars With Sales Funnels

by Yvonne | Sep 22, 2014 | Small Business Marketing

FauquierNow.com is a popular online newspaper serving the Warrenton/Fauquier County Virginia community. It is also a favorite venue for Warrenton/Fauquier businesses to advertise online. What these advertisers don’t realize is that their ads are not well-structured to convert visitors to valuable leads; therefore, they do not provide the best return for their advertising dollar.

This article analyzes a few local business ads on FauquierNow.com and explains what I would change to bring about a higher conversion rate (i.e., lead generation) and make the ads as effective as possible.

Sales Funnels Explained

Structuring a sales funnel for your business is key to increasing sales and profits. The illustration below provides a simple example of a sales funnel and how it works:

Effective online advertising

As you can see from the illustration above, there are 4 key components of a sales funnel:

1. Creating consumer awareness of your business through advertising.
2. Capturing contact information through your ad (“lead capture”)
3. Subsequent follow up communications with prospective customers who have responded to your advertising by providing their contact information.
4. Sales resulting from your follow up communications with people who have indicated an interest in your products or services by providing their contact information to you.

Poorly Structured Ads = Poor Conversion = Low ROI

The ad examples below are typical of local business ads on FauquierNow.com and most other online advertising venues. Note how the ads click through directly to the advertisers’ websites. The problem is that the ad destinations (advertiser websites) are not structured to convert visitors into genuine leads.

How to Structure Ads for Better Conversion and Return on Investment

Latitudes Fair Trade, The Town Duck and other Old Town Warrenton shops have formed a marketing alliance called The Shops at Fifth and Main. If I were in charge of marketing the Shops at Fifth and Main, I would start by making sure that their website(s) as well as all online advertising were structured to (a) provide a powerful call to action / incentive to provide a name and email address; and (b) set up and implement a follow-up marketing strategy using both email and text messaging to stay top of mind with their subscribers every week. Step 1 of the sales funnel might look like this:

Call to Action and Lead Capture Example

A Compelling and Irresistible Offer is Key

In the example above, the irresistible offer is an opportunity to win a $100 gift certificate honored by any of the Fifth and Main Street shops in a monthly drawing. The $100 amount is high enough to generate interest and willingness to provide one’s name and email address for a chance to win the monthly prize. The long-term benefit of developing a highly-targeted list of local consumers who have given these shops permission to email and message them is well worth the short term cost of a monthly $100 gift certificate drawing.