We’ve all been there. You and your colleagues are sitting around and you are brainstorming new ideas or reviewing the latest tweets and posts, and you start talking about the competition. In most cases, the discussion usually turns very negative and belittling of the competition. At one time, my colleagues and I tacked up “bad ads” from trade publications for a laugh. And while it was funny (and many really were bad), we never took the time to think further than the awkward creative to really learn anything to help our clients. Because no one’s better at marketing in your industry than you, right?

If you spend all your time talking and thinking about how bad the competition is at marketing, you are making a big mistake. Even if the marketing is, in fact, not very good you need to respect the fact that there must be something that is working for them and keeping them viable in your industry. If you sit back and relax just for a moment, a smart competitor will see the opportunity to change strategy or increase their budget and take market share.

Instead of blindly laughing off their latest ad or strange looking new trade show booth, take time to review your competition’s marketing from your/their customer’s perspective:

• What do they do well?
• What about their pitch is attractive?
• What messages are they conveying and are you countering them in your marketing?

Needless to say, you better be following your competitors on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and other relevant social media outlets along with reviewing their ads and media coverage. But the key is to not be snarky or overly critical of little details that you would do better. Think about the impression they are making on customers and ask yourself what kind of impression your marketing team is making on the industry (and what is the competition saying around the water cooler)?

Looking at the completion in a more serious manner will help elevate your marketing to a more compelling, customer- focused level. Contact me if you’d like to learn how this can be done for your company.

RTC