Stealing Customers from Your
Competitors
By David Frey
What I'm going to talk about today is a very
sensitive topic because some people might think it to be unethical or just
plane old, "not right."
But like it or not, the fundamental premise
of marketing is to...
1. Capture your customers attention
(better than your competitors).
2. Engage them in your message
(better than your competitors).
3. Close the sale (before your
competitors).
Here's Three Live Examples of
Stealing Customers
Would like to read about a few examples of
companies that have, in some cases, gone to great lengths to steal customers
from their competitors? Well, here's three live examples.
Example # 1 - Putting up a
billboard sign in front of your competitors place of business
There's an electronics store here in Houston
that did a ton of radio and television advertising. As you might expect they
generated a lot of store traffic.
Their competitor, whose store was down the
road, paid a premium price to rent the billboard sign that was right in
front of the electronics store.
The sign said, "For Lower Prices on
Electronic Stuff, Keep Driving Two More Blocks." Ouch!
Example # 2 - Roll out your product
the day before your competitor
In the spa and pool industry, one of the
major conference promoters moved their big event forward this year so that
it takes place exactly 2 weeks before the first association conference of
the of season (that got the pool and spa association pretty darn mad!)
Example # 3 - Do a flyover on the
day of your competitors big event
When I lived in California there was a big
furniture retailer that was having a major annual sale. They spent a lot on
advertising to create excitement.
Well, on the day of the event, their
competitor rented a plane and did a fly owner the store with a huge banner
that said, "Save More Money at Smith's Furniture."
The plane kept flying over again and again
for about 3 hours. I can only imagine that the furniture retailers
management was livid.
Example # 4 - Run a yellow page ad
in the same section as your indirect competitors
Here's another example from the pool and spa
industry. Nearly every pool that is built, has an inground hot tub.
Well, a San Antonio hot tub retailer figured
that every hot tub that was being built with a pool was a sale that he was
missing out on.
So he called me up and asked if I would write
an ad that he could put in the "swimming pools" section of the yellow pages
to attract hot tubs.
I told him to go and write a special report
titled, "6 Things You Should Know Before You Add an Inground Hot Tub to Your
Pool."
The special report explained how foolish it
is to build an inground hot tub when you could buy an above ground hot tub
with 10 times the features for less cost.
Here's the yellow page before the ad was put
in.
http://www.davidfrey.us/recommends/before (868k pdf file)
And here's the yellow page after my ad was
place in.
http://www.davidfrey.us/recommends/yallows (891k pdf file)
Very sneaky indeed. It's a typical "warning"
ad, but it gets people's attention and makes the phone ring. (A few of those
phone calls were from swimming pool companies requesting the report :-)
NOTE: By the way, if you want to learn more
about yellow page advertising you should consider investing in
http://www.YellowPagesProfit.com
by Alan Saltz. It's a great resource.
My Personal Thoughts On Stealing Customers...
I have mixed feelings about using these types
of tactics to steal customers. From my observation, 99% of small businesses
could get a whole lot more customers by simply doing a better job of
marketing.
They don't need to resort to other tactics to
steal customers. Heck, most businesses could have all the customers they
want if they just took some time to learn HOW to market their business.
If you want to more about small business
marketing, I mean a WHOLE LOT MORE. Then you should consider investing in
the http://www.TheMarketingBible.com.
It's packed with over 312 pages of marketing
ideas for your business. Look at it as a small investment in your marketing
education.
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