GenerationTarget.com - Mature Market News

Marketing Effectiveness

Impact Presenters

Change Your Thinking
Change Your Results
Or be left behind. . .

Mature Market News - Thought Leaders and Noteworthy Events

Welcome to the GenrationTarget.com
Marketeer's Bookshop

Prime Life Marketing Library

List Price: ~~$114.90~~
Our Price: $98.00

The Focus Group Kit Book Set

List Price: ~~$185.00~~
Our Price: $170.00

The Focus Group Kit Book Set

List Price: ~~$54.95~~
Our Price: $49.95

Competing Against the Big Guns - Part 3

Winning out over much larger, well-funded competition isn't easy – but it can be done, if you play by your own rules. Find out why marketing your own way is the only route to success.

Like Davids against their Goliaths, small businesses can compete against large companies that boast enormous marketing budgets – but it's not easy. Large companies can advertise freely in newspapers, on billboards, even on TV. It's useless to try to compete with big businesses on such terms – you won't have the resources and will inevitably fall behind. Instead, look to other forms of marketing that can accentuate your own extensive knowledge of your target market customers.

For example:

Competitions. Run regular competitions and offer prizes (a great way of building up your customer database). These prizes can be quite modest (discounted products, services), or quite substantial, depending upon your bargaining powers. For example, you might negotiate with a local restaurant to offer the first prize of a meal for two. You might "buy" this prize at a special discount, or even get the meals for free in return for having a poster or two or some flyers on your premises advertising the restaurant. A new restaurant in your area might need and welcome the publicity. The many variations on this tactic are limited only by your imagination.

Guarantees and service. Try giving unconditional guarantees: always offer a convincing, total money back guarantee, as this lowers a new customer's perceived risk in dealing with you. Emphasize too that your service and product knowledge are both excellent.

Other tactics to exploit are:

Visiting clients and customers and talking to them directly;
Using your personal and business networks to extend your customer base, and
Any other tactic that you have found to be effective in your business.

Using these more personalized methods, you can undercut the competition from bigger companies and exploit the advantages of being small and cagey. If you can't match bigger companies on price, for example, you can still do better in terms of product quality, product knowledge and quick service. These last two benefits outweigh price for many consumers.

Finally, if you do decide to advertise, then you need to commit yourself to putting enough money in so it works. One advert will not be enough when your competition is large and mighty. Ads should be placed regularly, in the same spot, located firmly in the section of the paper that your target customers are mostly likely to peruse.
.

Back To Mature Market News →

Go To The GenerationTarget.com Mature Market Bookstore →

COMPANY INFORMATION | MARKETING BOOKSTORE | TRAINING AND EDUCATION | PRESENTERS AND SPEAKERS |